Theses: Templates

Library Research Services home page

Guidance from Quality Handbook:

• Producing your thesis
• Submitting your thesis
• Permission to Deposit Thesis Form
• Permission to Deposit Thesis - Guidance
• Declaration of authorship form
• Submission of a Research Paper PhD Thesis: Guidance
• Intention to submit research thesis form

There are also examples of the thesis title and abstract pages in submission and completion section of the Quality Handbook. 

Data Management Plan for your PhD

Data Management Plans for Doctoral Students (Blackboard Course)

Data Management Plan guidance

For open access and institutional repository enquiries eprints@soton.ac.uk

For research data management queries please email ResearchData@soton.ac.uk

Need further help? Use our Library Research Skills support service  

The University provides templates in Word and LateX which meet the requirements set out in the Regulations.
 

Training: iSolutions also offer sessions on using Word to work with text, graphics and page layout in your thesis and turning your thesis into a PDF/A. The full course schedule and booking links can be found in the PGR Development Hub

Whole thesis template

Use this to produce the whole thesis in one long Word document. It contains all of the required sections from title page to bibliography, with refreshable Tables of Contents, Table of Figures and Table of Tables.

• Thesis template for Word 2007 /2010 /2013 /2016 (PC) or Word 2008 /2011 /2016 (Mac)  
  • Word template help
• LaTeX Thesis Templates is now available from Overleaf via the University of Southampton portal
  • Always use in conjunction with the Quality Handbook Producing your thesis guidance

Separate Chapter, Front Matter & End Matter templates for Word & Mac

If you don’t wish use the whole document template then use these to create each chapter of the thesis and the front matter. It comes ready made with usable styles that meet the University’s thesis Guidance requirements

• Chapter template for Word 2007 /2010 /2013 /2016 (PC) or 2008 /2011 /2016 (Mac)
• Front matter template for Word 2007 /2010 /2013 /2016 (PC) or 2008 /2011 /2016 (Mac)
• End Matter for Word 2007 /2010 /2013 /2016 (PC) or 2008 /2011 /2016 (Mac)

Copyright Statement coversheet

All e-theses require the University thesis copyright statement is included in front of the main title page in the final e-version submitted.  The wording of the statement should not be altered in any way. 

The Word template (PC or Mac) above has the statement included but earlier versions did not. Should the statement be missing from your file it should be:

• added before creating the final pdf version 
• located in front of the main title page using the document below 
• should not be included in the numbering of the thesis.

LaTeX templates currently do not include instruction on how to add the statement so it will need it to be added individually as a single double-sided page. Alternatively, add the pdf version into your final pdf file using Adobe Acrobat Pro.

The statement is not required in the print copies submitted for examination or as a final copy.

The following guides outline how this can be done in Word documents. 

Visual guides are also available on YouTube:

• Word (PC)
• Word (Mac)

University Regulations do not state that e-theses must be directly equivalent to paper versions so your e-thesis could, if desired and your Faculty agrees, include 3-d models, audio or video files, or you could move commercially sensitive or third-party copyright material to a separate appendix which could be restricted.

The e-thesis should normally be submitted as a single PDF file or other format as agreed by the main supervisor. Where there are appendices containing restricted material these should be submitted a separate file.

The electronic copy must include all front material (title page, abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents etc) but should not include a scan of the signature under the declaration of authorship.

Please note: During the Covid-19 pandemic if you want to submit an enhanced ethesis PDF,  you must also provide must provide a PDF copy of your thesis which is exactly the same as the printed, examined version and is an accessible and archival PDF, PDF/A-3.. See our practical tips for deposit during Covid-19 for more information.

  Word Template Help

iSolutions have created a training guide to introduce the Word template for theses and show you how to use a range of useful Word features to make creating and working with your thesis easier. These also direct you to relevant LinkedIn Learning.com videos on the use of features in Word.

• Thesis guidance 

iSolutions also offer sessions on using Word to work with text, graphics and page layout in your thesis. The full course schedule and booking links can be found in the PGR Development Hub

LaTeX Templates

Support for the use of LaTeX can be found on the Overleaf website. LaTeX is  also supported by a wide online community - see LaTeX Project.

Your final University e-thesis must submitted in an accessible and archival format so that it will be readible in years to come, currently this format is PDF/A-3.

• Word to PDF/A-3
  The best way to ensure your PDF is accessible is to start with an accessible Word file. For more information see this iSolutions guidance on checking that your word file is accessible.
  iSolutions have created a short page which gives help and advice on how to create an accessible PDF from Word. For much more on making your thesis truly accessible read the University's Creating accessible PDFs website or play the Creating Accessible PDFs course in LinkedIn Learning. iSolutions also run training sessions on Creating a PDF/A – 3a version of your thesis for final submission to Pure
  • Mac users
    If you are using Word for Mac then start by using the Save As PDF facility. This produces a really good baseline file to continue working on in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. If for any reason you are not happy with the output as this process, then try converting the file by using Adobe Acrobat Pro's own 'Create a PDF from'. If you are still not happy with the result then contact serviceline to discuss other options.
  • PC users
    For PC users the Adobe Acrobat Pro DC facility will produce the best output. You'll find the steps below under the heading Create the PDF for PC below.
• LaTeX to PDF/A-3
  If you are using Overleaf, the automatic pdf conversion will be create a PDF/A file. Overleaf have created instructions on how to make sure your LaTeX PDF conforms to the archival standards. Please note we would prefer that you chose a-3b (propritising display) or a-3u (prioritising searchability) rather than a-1b.
  You may find the following paper helpful: Moore, R. (2014). PDF/A-3u as an Archival Format for Accessible Mathematics. In: Watt, S.M., Davenport, J.H., Sexton, A.P., Sojka, P., Urban, J. (eds) Intelligent Computer Mathematics. CICM 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8543. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08434-3_14, also available as an ArXiv pre-print.

Checking you PDF/A accessibility:
You can check how well your PDF meets the PDF/A accessibility standards using the Abode Acrobat Pro preflight checker and the accessibility checker.

How to download Abode Acrobat Pro:
Details of how to access or download Adobe Acrobat Pro DC can be found at iSolutions' How to install Adobe Acrobat DC Advice page.