Body
Note: The title, copyright, and acknowledgments pages are mandatory pages. The dedication page is optional.
Title Page
- Make the title of the manuscript as brief and concise as possible, and use it consistently in every respect (including punctuation and hyphenation) on the title page, abstract, and in the EDM System.
- Authors in scientific fields should use word substitutes for Greek letters and symbols.
- Spell out abbreviated terms. Omit such phrases as "A Study of" or "An Investigation of" and any repetitious words or phrases.
- Your name should be the same as the one listed in the EDM System. Use it consistently on the title page, abstract, biographical sketch, and all of your forms. Do not use a first name and initial in one place and first and middle names in another.
- Check the Graduate Information Management System (GIMS) or the Editorial Document Management (EDM) System for the correct title of your degree, and cite the degree correctly on the title page, abstract, biographical sketch, and all forms required for submission.
- Do not add the major or department to the degree title—for instance there is a Master of Science in Building Construction degree (M.S.B.C.), but the degree for physics is Master of Science (M.S.). The degrees Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Education are complete as stated, and in no case should a minor be included as part of the degree title.
- The title of the document should appear at the top of the page, flush with the upper 1” margin.
- The author note should appear centered vertically, at approximately 4.5” if using the ruler.
- The editorial note and graduation year should appear at the bottom of the page, flush with the lower 1” margin. * Also ensure that spacing is consistent with what is shown in the template.
Copyright Page
As the author of your thesis or dissertation, you are automatically the copyright holder and must include a copyright page in your manuscript. The copyright year should correspond to the date of degree award. Accordingly, if your degree is being awarded to you in December of 2013, your copyright year should indicate 2013.
The copyright should appear vertically centered on the page, at approximately 4.5” if using the ruler. Your name should be listed in “title case,” with the first letter of each word capitalized.
Dedication Page (optional)
Your dedication should begin with the word “To.”(To my Mom is a typical dedication) If your dedication is longer than a single line it should be single-spaced, and centered vertically and horizontally. The dedication page is optional. Also note that dedications are typically not complete sentences and are therefore not followed by punctuation.
Acknowledgments Page
Acknowledgments are required for all theses and dissertations published by the University of Florida Graduate School. Acknowledgments may be as brief as desired, however. They must be written in complete sentences and must fulfill one paragraph’s length at minimum. Do not use direct address. For example, instead of Thanks, Mom and Dad!, you should say I thank my parents. The heading “ACKNOWLEDGMENTS” uses the 001 SECTION HEADING TITLE style. For information about style usage, see Chapter 3. The paragraphs in this section should use the style called 006 Body Text.
Table of Contents and Lists
The ETD template contains pages for the Table of Contents and List of Tables/Figures/Objects. These pages are set to automatically update with the appropriate headings or captions so long as the correct style is applied to the text. That said, there are still some manual changes that must be made to these listings.
If you use the preprogrammed styles we provide, your Table of Contents, List of Tables, and List of Figures will generate with a click of the mouse, and the textual items they reference will have the proper formatting. As an added benefit, your Table of Contents will automatically link to the chapter titles and subheadings when save the file as a PDF format.
Table of Contents
The ETD template contains a Table of Contents that is set to pull in all chapter titles and subheadings automatically, given that the proper styles are applied. That said, there are still some manual changes that must be made to the Table of Contents. These manual changes include adding the words "CHAPTER" (singular, caps) and "APPENDIX" (singular, caps) to the TOC, as well as adding chapter numbers. A tutorial on how to update and apply these changes can be found at: How to Update the Table of Contents (TOC)
List of Tables
The ETD template contains a List of Tables that is set to pull in all Table Captions automatically, given that the Table Caption style is applied. That said, there are still some manual changes that must be made to the List of Tables. A tutorial on how to update and apply these changes can be found at: How to update the Lists of Tables (LOT), Figures (LOF) and Objects (LOO)
List of Figures
The ETD template contains a List of Figures that is set to pull in all Figure Captions automatically, given that the Figure Caption style is applied. That said, there are still some manual changes that must be made to the List of Figures. A tutorial on how to update and apply these changes can be found at: How to update the Lists of Tables (LOT), Figures (LOF) and Objects (LOO)
LaTeX - Making Short Captions for the LOT/LOF
To make short versions of captions for clients using LaTex, you can use the following code: \caption[short caption]{long caption }
List of Objects
Similar to the List of Figures and Tables, there is a style that needs to be applied in order for the object captions to be pulled into the List of Objects. This style is named "015 Object Caption - movie/sound/etc". You will need to update the List of Objects just like you do for the List of Tables/Figures and the manual changes will be very similar as well. It is common to include the type of file in your object caption in the body of your document, however, it is preferred that the file type is removed from the List. For example, the full caption may be "Object 2-1. Sample sound file of Stewie Griffin saying "Victory is Mine!" (.wav file 9KB)" However, a sample of how the finished List of Objects should look after manual changes is linked below.
List of Abbreviations
This page is used to define symbols, acronyms, definitions and/or abbreviations used throughout the document. The List of Abbreviations is an optional page.
Note: This page should be renamed according to content within (ex: if it's a page of definitions, it should be titled List of Definitions). There can also be more than one of these pages in a document (ex: there can be a List of Abbreviations page and a List of Definitions page)
Downloading the template then copying and pasting this page would be the easiest way to get started. Spacing is key, but some people find it easiest to create a table (with no borders) to separate the columns in this list.
You have two options when it comes to abbreviations/definitions:
- You create this list, define all abbreviations, and they freely use the abbreviations throughout the paper (no need to redefine in the body of the document).
- If you do not want to include this list, you can delete this entire page from your document, BUT youneed to define each and every abbreviation you use in the body of the document at the first time the phrase is used (spell out the whole thing and/or define the abbreviation). Once defining it the first time it's mentioned, you are able to use the abbreviation afterwards.
- EX: Thesis and Dissertation Support Center (T&D), and then T&D can be used any other time in the text.
Abstract
Abstracts must be 350 words or less. The electronic and pdf versions must be the same (except for the spelling out of Greek letters and symbols in the electronic version) and note that the electronic version will be truncated at 350 words.The { TC ABSTRACT } in the first paragraph is a Table of Contents field that allows us to bring the word “Abstract” into the Table of Contents without assigning it a specific style. It can only be seen if the show/hide toggle is set to “show.” Removing this will cause your Table of Contents to be improperly formatted.
Note: If all three of the top lines are also showing up in the Table of Contents as a hyperlink, then it likely has a style applied to it and you will want to "Clear All" styles from that text, then recenter it if necessary. All that is needed to hyperlink the Abstract is the field code mentioned above.