Prepare Your ETD

Formatting Your ETD

To graduate, your thesis or dissertation must meet the university's formatting standards before it can be accepted into the Research Repository @ WVU.  Apart from the following specifications, any discipline-specific style manual may be used at the Committee Chair’s discretion.

For assistance with writing your thesis or dissertation, reach out to the  Eberly Writing Studio. 

   1. Title Page

• The title page is the first page of your thesis or dissertation and must strictly follow the title page template, including all specified information and formatting. Avoid adding, altering, or omitting any details from the template.  
  
• Suppress the page number on the title page. This is considered page i, but it will not appear on the page.
• Do not add a running head or any logos to the title page.

   2. Abstract Page 

• The second page of your thesis or dissertation is the abstract. Your abstract page must contain all of the information within the  abstract page template.
  
• Abstract page must have a heading with the word “Abstract”, the document title, and the author’s name. 
• Suppress the page number on the abstract page. Although the abstract counts as page ii, the number should not be visible. If the abstract spans two pages, consider them as pages ii and iii, but ensure neither page displays a page number.
• Single space the abstract.
• Do not add a running head or any logos to the abstract page.

   3. Front Matter 

• Front matter (preliminary pages like Table of Contents and Acknowledgments) must be numbered in lower case Roman numerals (iii, iv, v...). 
• Page numbers on the title page and abstract are suppressed, so while they still count as pages i and ii of the preliminary pages, their page numbers will not be displayed. 
• For example, if your first three pages consist of the title page, a one-page abstract, and the dedication, the dedication page will be the first to display a page number, numbered as iii.
  
• Continue numbering using lower case Roman numerals on your front matter until the first page of your paper.

• **Page numbers i and ii should not appear on your ETD.**

For help with formatting, we have instructions for formatting your page numbers with  Microsoft Word, and  Google Docs. Please note that the Microsoft Word instruction are for Word 365, and should work for Word 2016 but may not work for earlier versions of Word.  

   4. Table of Contents

• Your document must include a table of contents. It should be included with any other front matter and will have a lower case Roman numeral as its page number.  

   5. Body

• The body of your document (Chapter 1 or Introduction, for example, through end of document) must restart the page numbering at "1" and be numbered as Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4...).