THESIS & DISSERTATION OFFICE FALL NEWSLETTER
ASHLEE MESSERSMITH – MANAGER, THESIS & DISSERTATION OFFICE
Formatting Changes
There has been one minor change to
formatting requirements for all Theses
and Dissertations.
Updated Templates
The TDO strongly recommends that
students use the templates that are
available on the Formatting and
Templates webpage. The templates that
are published to this page contain all up-
to-date requirements.
Puthesis Template
The TDO is still accepting all theses and
dissertations that are formatted using
the old puthesis template. The new
puthesis 2 template will be available in
the near future. This template will reflect
current formatting requirements.
Computer and Information Technology
students should use the LaTeX template
that is available here.
Formatting Checklist
PAPER SIZE Make sure your document
is set to letter size 8 ½” x 11”.
Issue 1
HIGHLIGHTS
FONT TYPE AND FONT SIZE Use 12
point font and Times New Roman font
for your thesis content. Use 14 point
Times New Roman bolded font for your
major headings and chapter titles. You
may use a smaller font size for footnotes, Welcome, Carla Coffey
captions, and within tables, if you wish. Please join me in welcoming Carla Coffey to the
Graduate School’s Thesis & Dissertation Office as
MARGINS All margins should be set to the new Thesis & Dissertation Assistant. Carla joins
1” with the exception of the title page and the TDO from Technology and will be leading
Statement of Approval page. These various special projects in our office. With her
pages’ top margin is to be set at 1.5”. knowledge and skills, and a passion for helping
students, Carla will make a great addition to the
TABLE AND FIGURE CAPTIONS Table team.
captions go above tables. Figure captions
go below figures. Font size may be
smaller than your main body text, but no
smaller than 10pt.
CONSISTENCY Use applied styles in
your thesis consistently. Be consistent in
Fall 2017 Deposit Deadlines
Friday, October 13, 5PM. Final Deposit Deadline
the amount of space you use between
for Exam/Degree Only Registrants
paragraphs, listed entries, and headings
throughout the document. Be consistent Friday, December 1, 5PM Final Exam Deadline for
December CAND 991 RegistrantsFriday,
in your use of underline, bold, italics,
numeric styles, naming of headings, and Friday, December 8, 5PM Final Deposit Deadline
indentation. for 991 Registrants
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THESIS & DISSERTATION OFFICE FALL NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 2

Deposit Appointment
Update
Deposit Appointments have been
changed from 15 minute appointments
to 10 minute appointments. This change
allows for 240 deposit appointments
opportunities. Due to the increase in the
amount of appointment times available,
the TDO no longer uses a waitlist to add
candidates to the calendar during
deadline weeks.

Students should proactively schedule

their deposit appointment early in the
term they wish to graduate.
Online Appointments
All deposit appointments are now
classified as Online Appointments.
Students should not come to the TDO for
their appointment. All communication
will be via email and only if the
administrator has questions or needs
additional information from the student.
The student will receive a Thesis Deposit
Receipt, which finalizes the deposit
process.
If a student’s manuscript is approved
through the ProQuest ETD site earlier
than their appointment time, the
appointment will likely be moved to an
earlier date to help alleviate the workload
of the administrators in the TDO.
Appointment Cancellation
If a candidate cannot make their deposit
appointment time, they should cancel
their deposit appointment through the
online booking calendar. This action
allows other candidates the opportunity
to book a deposit appointment during
peak times.

Now presenting: TDO Workshops

THESIS & DISSERTATION OFFICE FALL NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 3

OVERLEAF
Over 2500 licenses have been
allocated using Overleaf.
These 2500 users have
created and have worked on
over 20,000 projects.

Overleaf is an online collaborative

scientific writing and publishing tool. It is
designed to make the process of writing,
editing, and producing scientific papers
much quicker for both authors and
publishers.

The Purdue Graduate School is offering

Overleaf Pro for all students, faculty, and
staff who would like to use a
collaborative, online LaTeX/Rich Text
editor for their projects.
The puthesis template is preloaded onto
Overleaf and is ready for you to begin
writing!
MS WORD VS LATEX
The TDO compiles deposit statistics after
each term. The Summer 2017 session
showed that most STEM students prefer
LaTeX over MS Word.
Below is the percentages of Word and
LaTeX for all students who deposited for
the summer term. This data was obtained
from the ProQuest ETD Administrator site.
Deposit Statistics
Our goal is to make the formatting
The TDO has recorded new lows in
the amount of revisions that has been process less stressful for students so
they can focus on what matters
asked of students.
most: the content.
With the help of all Thesis Format
Advisors, new templates, and Current statistics report that amount
Overleaf, we have seen the amount of of revisions asked of MS Word users is
revisions decrease from 1.8 1.05 and 0.78 revisions for LaTeX
revisions/student to 0.88 users.
revisions/student. In a normal term of
450 deposits, the TDO would review
approximately 810 theses; however,
the TDO recorded a new low for the
summer term of 396 reviews with
revisions.

65%
MS Word users
COPYRIGHT
Are you planning to use previously
published or copyrighted material in
your thesis and you’re not sure how to
do so? You may need to request
permission to use the material in your iTHENTICATE

35% manuscript.

Visit this website, which provides

helpful examples of copyright
LaTeX users
permission letters:
FOR MORE INFORMATION https://copyright.columbia.edu/basic
s/permissions-and-licensing.html
For detailed departmental statistics,
contact Ashlee Messersmith. Also, you should familiarize yourself
with the University Copyright Office.
If you have questions, feel free to
contact the TDO.
All theses deposited with Purdue
University must be screened using the
iThenticate program. Satisfaction of
this requirement will be certified by
both committee chair and degree
candidate by making the appropriate
selection of the Electronic Thesis
Acceptance Form.
Please direct all iThenticate accounts
to Dr. Jamie Mohler, Associate Dean
of the Graduate School.