Disquisitions

Your doctoral dissertation, master’s thesis, or master’s paper, collectively called a disquisition, is a marker of your academic and professional abilities. As such, you and your committee hold primary responsibility for issues of content, language and usage.

The Graduate School will review your disquisition to ensure that its formatting is consistent with NDSU’s format guidelines before we authorize your degree posting. As the format review process is the final step before publication of your disquisition, submit your disquisition to the Graduate School only after you have completed all prerequisites and all written content is in its final form.

For information on specific requirements, formatting, submission, and review, visit the following pages:

Deadlines

Degree Completion Deadlines

Formatting Guidelines and Templates

Access formatting guidelines and templates

Submission and Publication

Submit Your Disquisition

Writing Policies and Guidelines

Review NDSU policies

Writing and Formatting Resources

Style Manuals

To ensure your writing meets academic standards, consult the style manual specific to your field (e.g., MLA, APA, Chicago). If there's a conflict between your discipline's style manual and the Graduate School's guidelines, always follow the Graduate School's instructions. When Graduate School guidelines don't cover a specific formatting detail (like tables or figures), refer to your discipline's style manual for guidance.

Need Help? Schedule a writing consultation with the Center for Writers if you need assistance with style manuals.

Center for Writers

Join a Writing Challenge or a number of activities to guide you through the writing process.

Instructional Design Center

Attend a disquisition formatting workshop or stop in for one-on-one assistance with document formatting

Copyright

You are responsible for the appropriate use and attribution of copyrighted materials in your disquisition. To better understand ownership, fair use, and your rights and protections, please refer to Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth Crews.

If you take copyrighted material produced by another and reproducing it in its entirety without express written permission, you may be violating copyright law. In such cases, you must request written permission from the copyright holder.

If written permission to use copyrighted material is required, you are responsible for obtaining this permission. You can usually get permission by sending a letter of request to the copyright holder. Normally, your letter will be returned with an approval stamp or signature. Please note that some copyright holders require a specific form of acknowledgment or attribution within the document where their copyrighted material is used.

If you include your previously published work as part of your disquisition, you need to ensure that the publisher who published your work has not placed restrictions on your right to reproduce or redistribute this work. Check with the publisher in question to obtain any copyright permission required.

While you are not required to register for copyright, in some cases, it is recommended.

If you received a stipend, salary, or financial support from NDSU, there may be restrictions on your ability to file for copyright for your disquisition. See the NDSU Policy Manual, Section 190, for more information.

Additionally, if you received funding from sources outside of NDSU, you may have other restrictions on your ability to file for copyright for your disquisition. For more information, check with your funding source.

If co-authored materials are included in your disquisition, a clear and complete description of your contribution must be included. No co-authored materials can be included in the disquisition if your contribution is modest, even though you may have been included as a co-author.

A mandatory description of your role must be placed in a footnote, indicated at the chapter heading in which the co-authored material appears.

See an example of the mandatory note.

Your program has the option of allowing you to use materials submitted for publication or already published as an integral component of your disquisition.

For this option, you are required to submit a document in a format that is consistent with Graduate School formatting guidelines.

Additionally, previously published materials may carry copyright restrictions on your ability to redistribute or reproduce your own work.

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