Thesis and Dissertation Information
The Graduate School, the University Libraries, and the graduate faculty of Penn State have established format standards that a thesis or dissertation must meet before receiving final approval as fulfillment of a graduate requirement. The Office of Theses and Dissertations is the unit of the Graduate School responsible for certifying that theses and dissertations have been prepared in accordance with these established regulations.
Every thesis and dissertation must be reviewed by the Office of Theses and Dissertations for format only and are not edited for spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Master's papers are not reviewed by the Office of Theses and Dissertations.
When a thesis or dissertation is submitted to the Office of Theses and Dissertations, it must meet the formatting and deadline requirements set forth in the Thesis and Dissertation Guide. All doctoral dissertations and master's theses must be submitted electronically. For more information on electronic theses and dissertations (eTDs), visit the eTD website.
The following forms are available in Adobe PDF and accessible Microsoft Word (DOC) format. The Word documents are designed to be used specifically with screen reader technology. Please use the PDF versions of these forms unless you require the use of screen reader technology.
You may need to download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat reader (free) to view and print the PDF documents.
Submission Requirements
- Thesis and Dissertation Guide
- Thesis, Dissertation, Performance, and Oral Presentation Calendar
- About eTDs
- Copying and Binding
- The Most Common Mistakes
- How To Submit a Doctoral Dissertation
- How To Submit a Master's Thesis
- Format Review Instructions
- Acknowledgement of Federal Funding
Payment
Supporting Materials
Templates
The templates for Thesis and Dissertations are available in OneDrive. Please use the "Download" option from this page to download the required template(s) to use as your local working document. There is no need to open the file in your browser or request any additional access to the files.
The Statistical Consulting Center gives advice to graduate students working on thesis research. The Graduate Writing Center in 111-H Kern Graduate Building provides consultation to graduate students in all disciplines.
Information about using LaTeX is available from the University Libraries.
Information about the Graduate School's commencement ceremony.
Questions about theses, dissertations, or Graduate School commencement should be directed to:
Office of Theses and Dissertations
115 Kern Graduate Building
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: 814-865-5448