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Specifications for Thesis Preparation 2008-2009
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Prepared by the MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections, as prescribed by the Committee on Graduate Programs
This entire document can be read from beginning to end or particular sections can be quickly referenced by using the table of contents. |
PDF version |
This guide has been prepared by the MIT Libraries, as prescribed by the Committee on Graduate Programs, to assist students and faculty in the preparation of theses. The Institute is committed to the preservation of the student's thesis because it is both a requirement for the MIT degree and a record of original research that contains information of continuing value.
The requirements in this guide apply to all theses and have been specified to facilitate the care and dissemination of the thesis and to assure the preservation of the archival paper copy. Individual departments may dictate more stringent requirements. Questions not answered in this guide should be referred to the appropriate department officer or to the Institute Archives and Special Collections (14N-118, 617-253-5136 or 617-253-5690).
The academic department delivers the required number of copies of the thesis to the Institute Archives and Special Collections within a month after the degree date. One copy is kept as part of the permanent archival collection, and the other is sent to the appropriate divisional library (or libraries, if extra copies are required), where it is available for circulation.
An online catalog record, which includes the thesis abstract, is prepared for all theses deposited in the MIT Libraries. This information appears in Barton, our online catalog, which is accessible to researchers at other institutions through the Internet, as well as in the OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) database, an international bibliographic system available to libraries and individuals throughout the world. Abstracts of theses submitted for the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Science appear in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database (PQDT).
As each thesis received in the Libraries is processed, a digital version is made publicly available in MIT's DSpace. Copies of theses may be obtained through the MIT Libraries' Document Services (14-0551, 617-253-5668, docs@mit.edu). Theses may also be submitted electronically, in PDF format, but the electronic version is not considered to be the official copy. Procedures for electronic thesis submission are available on the Document Services web site.
All theses should be turned in to the appropriate departmental office; the office will deliver the theses to the Archives within a month after the degree date. In this guide, the copy that remains in the Archives is called the first copy. Additional copies required for the divisional libraries (see following section) are referred to as the second and (possibly) third copies. The department may ask for copies in addition to those required for the Libraries. The student may, of course, keep personal copies.
Not all departments send bachelor's theses to the Archives. If your department does, only one copy is required for the Archives. Please check the requirements of your department. Undergraduate students do not pay a library processing fee.
Abstracts of all doctoral theses (Ph.D. and Sc.D.) will be submitted for inclusion in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, an online database used by researchers around the world. PQDT can be searched by author name, subject terms, and all words in the title and abstract. All MIT abstracts will contain a note stating that copies of the full text are available from DSpace at MIT or the MIT Libraries' Document Services. Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words; longer abstracts will be edited by UMI/ProQuest.
Please complete the UMI/ProQuest form beginning with "Personal Data." Your name should appear on the form exactly as it does on the title page and abstract of your thesis. (Note that the form may be opened and filled out in Acrobat Reader, then printed.) You are asked to choose the appropriate subject categories. Access to your thesis will depend on the accuracy of the information you provide and the precision with which it is transcribed by UMI/ProQuest. Please print legibly. When completed, staple the form to a copy of your title page and abstract, and submit them along with the thesis to your department.
If, after a thesis has been submitted to the Institute Archives by the student’s department, pages must be substituted or other changes made, they must be approved. A thesis substitutions form, signed by the thesis advisor OR department chairman, must be submitted to the department administrative officer, who will submit it to the Archives with the replacement pages for unbound theses. After the thesis has been bound or posted to DSpace at MIT, special permission for substitutions must be obtained from the Dean for Graduate Education or Dean for Undergraduate Education in consultation with the Vice President for Research and Associate Provost.
Students receiving advanced degrees from MIT are required to pay a library processing fee of $105.00 for a doctoral thesis ($50 for processing and $55 for the UMI/ProQuest abstract fee) and $50.00 for all other advanced degree theses. Thesis charges will be added to student bills during the semester immediately preceding graduation. Although the charges may appear on student accounts early in the semester, they are not due until the thesis is submitted. Late fees will not be applied up to that point. Undergraduate students do not pay a processing fee.
All copies must be submitted to the student’s department unbound between cardboard covers; the thesis and covers should be clipped or tied together, NOT stapled or punched. Recycled temporary covers and clips are available in a cabinet outside the Map Room in the Hayden Library basement and at the Institute Archives (14N-118). The front cover should be labeled with the following information: author's name, thesis title, course, month and year of graduation, and which copy it is (first, second, or third).
The MIT Libraries pay for the binding of theses retained in their collection. Personal copies may be bound in hard or soft cover at MIT CopyTech or at many commercial binderies in the Boston area.
The Institute's policy concerning ownership of copyrights to theses is covered in Rules and Regulations of the Faculty, regulations 2.70-2.73 and MIT Policies and Procedures 13.1.3. The following are guidelines to assist the student in determining who holds ownership of the thesis copyright:
The Institute will hold ownership of the copyrights to theses if
In general, students may retain ownership of thesis copyrights when the only form of support is from
Actual determination of a student's status is made by reference to the account from which the student receives support. Specific clarification on permission to copyright should be referred to the Technology Licensing Office (NE25-230, 617-253-6966).
When copyright ownership is held by the student, the student must, as condition of a degree award, grant royalty-free permission to the Institute to reproduce and publicly distribute copies of the thesis, and must place the following legend on the thesis title page: "The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created." Any requests for permission to use portions of such theses must be made to the student authors.
When copyright is held by the Institute, the MIT Libraries grant permission to use portions of the thesis to third party authors on a case by case basis for use in such authors' works, e.g., permission for use of single images or certain passages. (Contact the Institute Archives and Special Collections, 617-253-5690, to request permission.) Additionally, the student is authorized to post electronic versions of the student's own thesis, in whole or in part, on the World Wide Web. Any further publication of the thesis in whole or in part shall be made only with the authorization of the Technology Licensing Office, in consultation with the head of the department or course in which the student was registered when the thesis was accepted.
Regardless of whether copyright is held by the student or the Institute, the MIT Libraries publish the thesis electronically allowing open access viewing and limited downloading/printing. See http://dspace.mit.edu.
Students may request a waiver of Institute copyright by written application to the Institute's Technology Licensing Office (NE25-230, 617-253-6966), which shall be granted only if the retained rights of the student as described in this guide are inadequate for the student's needs and if a license from the Institute to the student would also be inadequate. Any such waiver of the Institute's copyright shall be subject to a royalty-free grant to the Institute from the student to publicly distribute copies of the thesis, in whole or in part. Additionally, the student must place the above-captioned legend on the thesis title page.
Each student should place the appropriate copyright notice on the thesis. Copyright notice consists of four elements:
These four elements should appear together on the title page (or verso of the title page).
Examples:
See section on prefatory material for complete examples. A copyright notice should also appear on all material in non-paper formats included with a thesis.
Each student is responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions for including previously published material as part of the thesis. If, for example, a student has already published part of the thesis as a journal article and, as a condition of publication, has assigned title to the journal's publisher, the student has no further rights in the article. Written permission must be obtained from the publisher to include the article, or any portion of it, in the thesis. A sample permission letter can be obtained from the Office of the General Counsel (see link at http://web.mit.edu/ogc/faq/#q14). Similarly, permission must be obtained to include papers written while the student was employed by a commercial company or non-profit organization if title belongs to the company or organization.
If the student knows, prior to publication or employment, that such material will be included in a thesis, he or she may wish to retain title to the material or to reserve sufficient rights to use the material. Further information is available from the Office of the General Counsel.
Thesis research should be undertaken in light of MIT's policy of open research and the free interchange of information. Written notification of patent holds and other restrictions must reach the Institute Archives before the thesis in question is received, as under normal circumstances all theses are open and available for public inspection once they have been received by the Archives. When there is good reason for delaying the distribution of a thesis, the procedures below should be followed.
When MIT holds the rights to any intellectual property contained in a thesis, students and their advisors must work with the MIT Technology Licensing Office to determine if a patent application is to be filed. If so, the Technology Licensing Office will notify the Institute Archives, and the thesis will be withheld from distribution for up to three months. If an extension is required, application must be made to the Vice President for Research and Associate Provost, who will inform the Archives if an extension is approved.
When a student holds the rights to any intellectual property contained in his or her thesis, application must be made to the Dean for Graduate Education for graduate theses or the Dean for Undergraduate Education for undergraduate theses for permission to withhold a thesis. If granted, the dean will inform the Archives, and the thesis will be withheld for a period of three months. If an extension is required, application must be made to the Vice President for Research and Associate Provost.
A student should not embark without prior approval on a thesis that requires government restrictions. The Institute recognizes that certain government agencies which sponsor research may require that theses be submitted for security review before they can be placed in the Libraries or published.
For further details on the review and release procedures, see Graduate Policies and Procedures.
Occasionally, on completing a thesis, a student may feel that its distribution will jeopardize the privacy or safety of the author, other individuals, or companies. If the thesis cannot be rewritten to remove the problematic material, the author and supervisor should submit the thesis to the director of the program, who will prepare a recommendation for the Dean for Graduate Education for graduate theses or the Dean for Undergraduate Education for undergraduate theses, who will then consult with the Vice President for Research and Associate Provost. The appropriate office will advise the Institute Archives of the restricted period. In all cases the restricted period should be kept to a minimum.
The title page is always considered to be page 1, and every page must be included in the count regardless of whether a number is physically printed on a page. The entire thesis (including title page, prefatory material, illustrations, and all text and appendices) must be paginated in one consecutive numbering sequence.
Theses should be prepared double-sided whenever possible. In a double-sided thesis, both sides of every page (starting with the title page and including any pages that have been left blank) must be accounted for in the numbering sequence. Therefore, in a double-sided thesis, odd-numbered pages are always on the right and even-numbered pages on the left. Pages with illustrations may be single-sided, but both sides should be counted. Single-sided theses should be numbered only on the front of every sheet.
When using thesis templates on Athena, use caution and verify that the pagination requirements are being met.
Your work will be a valuable research tool for other scholars only if it can be located easily. Search engines use the words in the title, and sometimes other descriptive words, to locate works. Therefore,
Examples:
The title page of the first copy must bear the original signatures of the author, supervisor, and chairman; a photocopy of the signed title page is acceptable for the second copy. The title page should contain the title, name of the author, previous degrees, the degree(s) to be awarded at MIT, the date the degree(s) will be conferred (June, September, or February only), copyright notice, and appropriate names and signatures.
For candidates receiving two degrees, both degrees to be awarded should appear on the title page. For candidates receiving degrees across departments, all degrees and departments should appear on the title page and the signatures of both department heads/committee chairmen are required. Also, in the case of standing programs (Technology and Policy, Transportation, etc.), the signatures of the standing program director and the home department head/committee chairman are required. Whenever there are co-advisors, both signatures are required.
See the proper title page layout [PDF].
Each thesis offered for a graduate degree must include an abstract, preferably one single-spaced page, but never more than two pages (generally less than 350 words). The abstract should be thought of as a brief descriptive summary rather than a lengthy introduction to the thesis. Doctoral abstracts are submitted for inclusion in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database (PQDT). Doctoral candidates should keep their abstracts under 350 words as longer abstracts will be edited by UMI/ProQuest. Databases such as PQDT provide full-text searching of abstracts, so the presence of significant key words in a short abstract will facilitate access. The abstract should immediately follow the title page.
See the proper abstract layout. [PDF]
Sample Abstract [PDF]
Although not a requirement, it is recommended that each thesis contain a short biography of the candidate, including institutions attended and dates of attendance, degrees and honors, titles of publications, teaching and professional experience, and other matters that may be pertinent. An acknowledgment page is also optional. These sections may be single-spaced. Please note that this information will be available to the public.
The style of quotations, footnotes, and bibliographic references may be prescribed by your department. If your department does not prescribe a style or specify a style manual, choose one and be consistent. Further information is available on the web site of the MIT Writing Center.
Whenever possible, notes should be placed at the bottom of the appropriate page or in the body of the text. Notes should conform to the style appropriate to the discipline. If notes appear at the bottom of the page, they should be single-spaced and included within the specified margins.
It may be appropriate to place bibliographic references either at the end of the chapter in which they occur or at the end of the thesis.
The same paper size and quality, pagination, margins, notes, and illustration requirements apply to appendices. They support the research in your thesis and should be as readable and reproducible as the rest of your work. Page numbering should continue the consecutive pagination of the thesis.
For the main body of the text, including appendices and front matter, font size should at least 11-point and should not be script or italic. Italics may, however, be used for short quotations or to highligh variables in an equation, for example. Notes and the text in tables, etc., should not be smaller than 10-point.
Top, bottom, and both side margins must be at least an inch wide (1") to allow for binding and trimming. All information (text headings, notes, and illustrations), excluding page numbers, must be within the text area. Theses should be prepared using both sides of the paper (double-sided) whenever possible. Oversize sheets must be folded to come within the text area so the folds will not be trimmed off or bound in during the binding procedure.
The text of the thesis may be single- double- or one-and-a-half-spaced. The abstract, biography, notes, bibliography, and acknowledgment should be single-spaced.
If you are writing your thesis on Athena, follow the formatting and typeface instructions under the LATEX or FRAME olc stock answer topics by typing the command "olc_answers" on any Athena workstation.
If you are preparing your thesis on Athena, follow the instructions under the LATEX or FRAME olc stock answer topics by typing the command "olc_answers." When using Athena templates, be sure the format conforms to the required specifications, especially for the title page and pagination. Final copies should be printed on the printer "Thesis" (11-004), which is stocked with acid-neutral Xerox Image Elite paper.
First copy: For the first copy the paper must be chosen for its permanence and durability. This is the copy that should bear the original signatures. The paper must be acid-neutral or acid-free, as designated on the package. The following 20-lb. watermarked acid-neutral papers are examples of those that are acceptable:
Second copy: While the acid-neutral papers are also suggested for the second copy, a bond paper containing 25% rag (cotton content) is acceptable.
The following are not acceptable for either copy: Recycled paper, MIT bond, erasable paper, or regular paper from photocopy machines. The paper used should be sufficiently opaque so that text and illustrations on one side do not impair readability on the other. If there are any questions about the acceptability of paper, contact the Institute Archives (617-253-5136 or 617-253-5690).
If you are preparing your thesis on Athena, print the final copies on the printer "Thesis," which is stocked with Xerox Image Elite paper.
The standard size for theses is 8½ by 11 inches (see section on oversized pages).
Double-sided printing is acceptable if the paper is sufficiently opaque so that text and illustrations on one side do not impair readability on the other side. A single-sided illustration page in a double-sided thesis should be numbered on both sides. When creating a double-sided copy, be sure that the page numbers are either in the center or on the outside edge .
Charts, graphs, tables, etc., should be reduced whenever possible to an 8½-by-11-inch format. If material is not reducible, oversize sheets must be folded to come within the text area so the folds will not be trimmed off or bound in during the binding procedure. Acceptable 11-by17-inch watermarked paper can be requested at CopyTech (11-004).
Please note that the theses are usually scanned in black and white. It is recommended, therefore, that content identified by color in photographs or illustrations such as charts and diagrams also be conveyed in text or with black and white labels. Color content, active links, and searchable text will only be available in the online version of your thesis if you have given an electronic copy (PDF) to the MIT Libraries. See the Document Services web site for more information.
Pages containing photographs should be numbered as regular pages. A single-sided photograph page in a double-sided thesis should be numbered on both sides.
All graphics must respect the 1" margins.
Digital or magnetic materials such as videos, CDs, and DVDs may accompany the written text of the thesis; one copy should accompany each copy of the thesis submitted. Students should recognize, however, that rapid changes in technology make these formats obsolete quickly. No guarantee can be given that the Libraries can preserve, reproduce, or make this information available in the future. Therefore, when feasible, the information that is in magnetic form should also be represented in the written text of the thesis.
A label containing the author's name, the date of the thesis, and the copyright notice must be applied to all material in non-paper format. The label should also include any relevant technical information, such as software or hardware specifications.
Institute Archives and Special Collections
Room 14N-118
617-253-5136 or 617-253-5690
Document Services
Room 14-0551
617-253-5668
Technology Licensing Office
Room NE25-230
617-253-6966
Office of the General Counsel
Room 7-206
617-452-2082
Office of the Dean for Graduate Education
Room 3-138
617-253-4680
Dean for Undergraduate Education
Room 4-110
617-253-6053
Office of the Vice President for Research and Associate Provost
Room 3-240
617-253-1974
