Theses and dissertations submitted for advanced degrees in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology must include a comprehensive review of pertinent literature and can follow two general formats:
- Divided into chapters with a general Introduction and Discussion and Bibliography. Each chapter must contain: an Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Bibliography
- One document containing: General Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Bibliography
Both forms must also include – Title Page, Abstract, Approval Sheet and Table of Contents – with these pages following Graduate School Guidelines.
Advantages to Format 1:
Breaking a thesis or dissertation into chapters allows each chapter to be a complete manuscript submitted, accepted for publication, or published. Hence, the format of individual chapters (e.g., method of literature citation in the text) may be different from other chapters as well as from the text of the general Introduction and Discussion. If format 1 is used, chapters should have a coherent, overall focus on a particular question or problem as described in the general Introduction and elucidated in the general Discussion. Supplementary methods and results that would be excluded from journal publications, but presented in the traditional thesis should be included as an additional chapter or Appendix.
Graduate School Guidelines
Regardless of format, the thesis of dissertation must meet the style, margin, and other esthetic requirements set by the Graduate School.
The Department of Botany and Plant Pathology does not approve, in lieu of the final thesis, the submission of only reprints of published papers or manuscripts.
Any deviation from the traditional thesis format (e.g., manuscripts as chapters) must be approved by the Graduate Studies Committee.
Approved by the Graduate Faculty of the Department on February 13, 1979.
