Services for Distance Students: Thesis Formatting Requirements

All theses must be prepared using Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat due to the electronic submission process.

Use a 12-point standard typeface such as Times New Roman.  San serif fonts such as Arial are not acceptable.  The same font must be used throughout the text, except in an Appendix.  Fonts should be selected for clarity.  Under no circumstances should script fonts be used.

Margins in the body of the thesis should be one (1) inch all around.  This is to ensure a correct binding.

Justified margins are acceptable but should not be used with typefaces such as courier that replicate typewriting.  Hyphenation is acceptable as long as it not overused.  If full justification is used, do not place more than one space after any mark of punctuation. 

An exception should be made on each page carrying a major heading in all capitals (e.g., ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, CHAPTER, TABLE OF CONTENTS, BIBLIOGRAPHY) where the top margin should be two (2) inches.

Text must be double spaced, yielding a standard page of 26 or 26 lines of double-spaced print.  If possible, avoid beginning a new paragraph at the bottom of a page or ending a paragraph at the top of a page unless at least two lines of text can be included in each case.  Avoid large expanses of white space within chapters.  Running head, or abbreviated titles which are printed at the top of the pages of a published article to identify the article for readers, are not acceptable in UHV style.

Pages should be in the following order and paged as indicated below.

• Signature page (Page not included in page count)
• Title page (Page included in page count, but page number not shown)
• Abstract page (first page to show page number – in Roman numbers i.e. i, ii, iii)
• All introductory sections after the Abstract continue pagination where the Abstract left off. Examples of introductory sections: Acknowledgements, Table of Contents, List of Tables, List of Figures, etc.
• Introduction/1st page of the body of the report (begin page numbers using Arabic numerals i.e. 1, 2, 3)
• All conclusionary sections after the main report continue page numbering when the report pagination left off. Examples of conclusionary sections: Reference Cited, Appendices, Footnotes, etc.