uiuc thesis review

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics

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Thesis and dissertation information

Thesis and dissertation help.

The Thesis Office , which is part of the Graduate College, has an extensive list of resources for students writing a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation. Please take time to look at them.

For an overview of what to expect during this last stage of your thesis or dissertation, please see our detailed explanation of the steps involved in completing your deposit below.

Be sure to speak to your graduate advisor and to SLCL Student Services if you have questions about any part of the process.

Dissertation and thesis deposit information

We hope the following information will provide you with a clear idea of what to expect during the final steps of your thesis or dissertation. Most of it will apply equally to both master's and PhD students, but any differences in the procedure are indicated.

The deadlines to defend and to deposit are set by the Graduate College. These deadlines are firm; if you don't meet them, you will not graduate in that semester.

The SLCL deadline is somewhat flexible; missing this deadline does not mean you won't graduate, but it does mean you increase the likelihood of not meeting the Graduate College's deadline. The internal SLCL deadlines for format review are:

Fall 2024: November 18 for PhD (due to Fall Break), December 2 for MA
Spring 2025: TBD (previously April 5 for PhD, April 19 for MA)
Summer 2025: TBD (previously July 1 for PhD, July 8 for MA

Note: The Graduate College doesn't require master's students to defend their theses, although most of our departments do.

A PhD candidate must hold the defense on or before the Graduate College deadline for the semester in which they want to graduate. Even though the defense deadline falls relatively late in the semester, the number-one thing you can do to ensure you graduate when you want to is to hold your defense as early as possible. The earlier you defend, the more time you have for revisions and for the SLCL and Thesis Office reviews.

After the defense, you will likely have to make at least some revisions. Great or small, they have to be completed before your committee will approve you for deposit. When your committee is satisfied with the revisions, your dissertation/thesis advisor will need to send an email to [email protected] and tell us you are ready for format review. Student Services cannot review your dissertation until they get this confirmation from your advisor.

Format review

After your advisor has sent us a confirmation email, you will need to email your dissertation or thesis to the same address in PDF format. We will review the formatting to ensure it complies with the Thesis Office guidelines . If anything needs to be corrected, we will return it to you and indicate what you need to change. After you have made the corrections, you will email it back to us and we will review it again. This will continue until the formatting is correct.

Three main factors can help speed up this part of the process considerably:

following the Thesis Office's guidelines
responding to any correction requests as quickly as you're able to
keeping your table of contents as simple and streamlined as possible. (We have to make sure every numbered item in the TOC corresponds to the correct document page number, so the more complex it is, the longer it will take us to review it.)

Almost all theses and dissertations require at least some corrections (the title page if nothing else), so you shouldn't be too worried if we request a correction as long as you respond in a timely fashion.

After you've made all the necessary corrections, we will clear you to upload your thesis or dissertation to the Thesis Office. We will also upload the TDA form, signed by your committee, which the Thesis Office will require before they can accept your document for review.

Thesis Office

After you've uploaded on the Thesis Office website , the Thesis Office will conduct their own format review (in case we missed something) as well as a review of your academic record. They will contact you by email if there are any corrections or problems. When they're satisfied with everything, that's it — your deposit is complete!

Final considerations

We review all dissertations (and after that, master's theses) on a first-come, first-served basis without any other considerations. The later it gets in the semester, the busier we are, and the more students there might be ahead of you. Our internal SLCL deadline takes into account the Graduate College deadlines and the amount of time it can take to complete these final steps.

This is a lot of information to digest. If you have questions about this or anything else related to your program, don’t hesitate to contact us! Graduate Student Services 3070 Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics Building [email protected] (217) 244-5783

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Ph.D. / M.S. Thesis Format Review Guidelines

Complete the CS Department format review by the posted deadline for the term. Please refer to the Thesis Office requirements for formatting instructions and "Steps for Deposit" for their electronic deposit guidelines. Allow a week to submit your electronic deposit for the Thesis Office review prior to their deadline. This will allow them to review your thesis and respond back to you with any required changes before their final posted deposit deadline .
The departmental format review is completed by Jennifer Comstock (PhD dissertations) and Cassandra Phelps (MS theses) in the Academic Office. No appointment is necessary. The CS Department formatting requirements are the same as the Thesis Office requirements. (Students planning to use a template can request a copy from Jennifer Comstock or Cassandra Phelps . Please do not use templates prepared for other departments.) To complete your Ph.D. dissertation format review, please email your dissertation in PDF format to Jennifer Comstock. MS theses must be sent as a PDF file to Cassandra Phelps .

You must type in the information on the TDA form. Information cannot be hand-written on the form. Student name must match how it appears in the Banner system. Title Page guidelines and samples are available from the Graduate College. Students can also check with Jennifer Comstock in the Academic Office. It is very important to have a Title Page check done in the Graduate College Thesis Office prior to having this form signed. The Thesis Office can now review your title page by email ( [email protected] ). Students should attach a PDF or MS Word document and include the words "title page" in the subject line. Please allow up to two business days for the Graduate College Thesis Office to review your title page.

Review the options to release your thesis/dissertation to IDEALS and ProQuest (for doctoral dissertations only) at the Graduate College.
If a thesis needs to be withheld from public release to protect materials or for patents issues, the student should submit a Thesis Withholding Request Form prior to submitting the thesis for review at the Graduate College. The Thesis Office encourages students to read the Graduate College's statement on the use of previously copyrighted material in a thesis and the responsibility of students to exercise sound authorship practices.
Upload any copyright permission letters (if needed) with your thesis submission.
PhD students need to complete the Doctoral Exit Survey and the Survey of Earned Doctorates .
Complete the CS Graduate Release form . You will need to log in with your netID and active directory password.
If you are planning on participating in the graduation ceremonies, please refer to the Commencement Office website for complete deadlines and details. Hooding ceremonies for the PhD and MS students will be held at May graduation. In addition, the Graduate College organizes a December doctoral hooding ceremony for doctoral degree recipients whose degrees are conferred in December. PhD students graduating in the Fall term can participate in the Graduate College doctoral hooding ceremony and/or the May graduating ceremonies.

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Students on assistantships and fellowships:.

Students holding fellowships must notify the Graduate College Fellowship Office in advance of thesis deposit. Depositing your thesis when holding a fellowship may result in a change in the terms of the fellowship award, including its termination. Effective Spring 2008, students with assistantship appointments (RA, TA, GA, PPGA) are eligible to hold their assistantships through the end of the semester in which they deposit, regardless of the deposit date during that semester.

For additional information on campus fellowship and assistantship policies, please refer to Chapter 8 of the Graduate College Handbook (Note: Graduate students on fellowships should pay close attention to " Thesis Deposit / Graduation for Fellows " section of Chapter 8 in the Grad College Handbook ). Questions regarding these policies should be addressed to the Graduate College Fellowship Office .