Disquisitions

As you look towards graduation, you will likely be focused on completing and defending your disquisition, but you'll also need to prepare your disquisition for publication. As a professional document, your disquisition will be part of your professional portfolio for the rest of your career, and it also needs to meet the high standard of quality set by all previous disquisitions published by NDSU. Therefore, as a penultimate step before graduation, you will need to complete the Graduate School's publication review.

While the outcome of the review is your published disquisition, we also see it as one last opportunity to help you develop and practice a valuable skill: how to produce a professional document. To ensure your success, we maintain a number of resources available for you, including:

Getting Started?

Notice: Policy Changes for the Publication Review

Several policy changes affecting your disquisition and the Graduate School Publication Review will be rolling out over Summer 2026 and through the 2026-7 academic year.

  • Beginning Summer 2026, disquisitions submitted after the initial submission deadline will not be reviewed until the following semester.
  • Beginning Fall 2026, the initial submission deadline for a given semester will be moved earlier by 2 weeks.
  • Beginning Spring 2027, all disquisitions will be required to conform to the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. (See also: Digital Accessibility (DQKB))

If you have questions about these policies or how they will affect your publication review, please contact the Disquisition Coordinator.

Pursuant to the interim final rule issued by the United States Department of Justice, requirements for PDF structure tags in disquisitions published by NDSU are waived and are no longer mandatory, effective May 8, 2026. Our full WCAG 2.1 AA digital accessibility requirements will resume Jan 1, 2027.

Therefore, the following are not required in disquisitions accepted before the end of fall semester 2026:

  • PDF tagging
    • Your document does not require structure tags.
  • Table scope & regularity
    • Data cells do not need to be associated with headers, and headers do not require a defined scope.
  • Alt-text
    • Annotations, figures, and equations do not require alternative text.
  • Figure bounding boxes
    • Image locations do not need to be defined.

Pre-existing requirements for readability, usability, and accessibility are not exempt, such as minimum font sizes, font color, and heading bookmarks. Disquisitions submitted but not accepted before Jan 1, 2027 will be required to meet the WCAG 2.1 AA requirements.

If you have questions about these changes, how they will affect your review, or what is now required in your document, please see our knowledge base entry on digital accessibility or contact the Disquisition Coordinator.

Historically, disquisitions submitted after the initial submission deadline have been reviewed after all on-time submissions, as time allowed. Beginning Summer 2026, reviews for late submissions will be deferred until the following semester. For example:

Disquisitions are reviewed in the order they are submitted, and your submission will not be complete until all accompanying requirements have been received. Submissions completed before midnight of the initial submission deadline are considered on-time. If your submission is completed after the deadline, your review will be delayed until the following semester.

For more information about deadlines, submissions, and policies, see the NDSU Academic Calendar, our DQKB entry on pre-submission requirements, and our Publication Review policies page.

Historically, the initial submission deadline for disquisitions has been 4 weeks prior to the end of the semester. Beginning Fall 2026, this deadline will be moved up by 2 weeks; i.e., the initial submission deadline for disquisitions will be 6 weeks prior to the end of the semester.

For Fall 2026, the revised deadline is November 6. For Spring 2027, the revised deadline is April 2.

New Deadline Old Deadline
Fall 2026 November 6, 2026 November 20, 2026
Spring 2027 April 2, 2027 April 16, 2027

Please note that disquisitions are reviewed in the order they are submitted, and your submission will not be complete until all accompanying requirements have been received. Submissions completed before midnight of the initial submission deadline are considered on-time. If your submission is completed after the deadline, your review will be delayed until the following semester.

Pursuant to the interim final rule issued by the United States Department of Justice, the digital accessibility requirements for disquisitions published by NDSU will resume Jan 1, 2027.

For more information, see our knowledge base entry on digital accessibility and the WCAG 2.1 guidelines .

Center for Writers

Email: ndsu.cfw@ndsu.edu Phone: (701) 231-7927 Campus location: Library 16 Contact Page Manager