College of Nursing - Dissertation Guide

9 8. All text, including tables, figures, and page numbers must fit within the 6 inch by 9 inch image area created by the margins. 9. Use only left justification. 10. Doctoral dissertation abstracts must not exceed 150-250 words. 11. Landscape may be used when appropriate (e.g., charts, tables, flyers, instruments). 12. All IRB letters and annual approval letters are to appear as Appendix A. The writing style for a proposal and dissertation is scholarly English. Avoid the use of colloquialisms, contractions, slang, affectations, and jargon. Usage should be clear and precise. Third person pronouns are required except in qualitative research where first person is accepted only in the experiential section to express experiences with the phenomena. The final copy must be free of grammatical and spelling errors. Front Matter Front matter includes those forms that are place in the proposal and the completed report. The proposal should have a title page, abstract, table of contents, list of tables and list of figures, as needed. The completed report should have all of the front matter forms listed here. See Appendix D for examples of front matter forms. Title page. This is the first page of both the proposal and the completed report. No page number should appear on this page. Approval/signature pages. These pages are not included for proposals. These are the second and third pages in the completed report. No page number should appear on these page. The student is responsible to make sure all information is correct on the signature pages. Copyright page. This page is not included for proposals and is the fourth page of the completed report. No page number should appear on this page. Abstract. This page is included in the proposal. In the proposal, it is written in the future tense. It is the fifth page of the completed report and written in the past tense. The abstract should be limited to 150-250 words in length and is double spaced. See the example in Appendix D for the specific content of the abstract. Acknowledgments. Acknowledgements are not included in the proposal. Acknowledgements are optional for the completed report. Acknowledgements may express appreciation for the assistance of the dissertation chairperson and dissertation committee members and may also include statements thanking other faculty members, staff members, colleagues, family, and friends. Acknowledgments should be in good taste and should not exceed one page in length. Table of Contents . The Table of Contents is included for both the proposal and the completed report. Only level one and two headings should be included in the table of contents and is not double spaced. The page number should be printed as a lower case roman numeral centered at the bottom of the page. All other pages are numbered in Arabic numerals located on the top, right corner (see Appendix D). List of tables. The list of tables is formatted like the table of contents and lists by title each table included in the paper and the page on which it can be found. List of figures. The list of figures is formatted like the Table of Contents and lists, by title, each figure included in the paper and the page on which it can be found.