APA Style 7th Edition: Citing Your Sources

  • Basics of APA Formatting
  • In Text Quick View
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  • Books & eBooks
  • Thesis/Dissertation

Standard Format

Formatting rules, various examples.

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Adapted from American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed).  https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Formatting:

  • Italicize the title
  • Identify whether source is doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis in parentheses after the title

See Ch. 10 pp. 313-352 of APA Manual for more examples and formatting rules

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phd thesis citation

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Thesis / Dissertation

Cite a thesis or dissertation (unpublished, published online, or accessed through a database). Use other forms to cite books , journal articles , reports , and conference proceedings .

APA 7th Edition Citation Examples

  • Volume and Issue Numbers
  • Page Numbers
  • Undated Sources
  • Citing a Source Within a Source
  • In-Text Citations
  • Academic Journals
  • Encyclopedia Articles
  • Book, Film, and Product Reviews
  • Online Classroom Materials
  • Conference Papers
  • Technical + Research Reports
  • Court Decisions
  • Treaties and Other International Agreements
  • Federal Regulations: I. The Code of Federal Regulations
  • Federal Regulations: II. The Federal Register
  • Executive Orders
  • Charter of the United Nations
  • Federal Statutes

Format for dissertations and theses

Dissertations and theses database.

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  • AI: ChatGPT, etc.

Author last name, first initial. (Year).  Title of dissertation/thesis  (Publication No.) [Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis, University]. Database. URL

  • Author:  List the last name, followed by the first initial (and second initial). See  Authors  for more information.
  • Year:  List the year between parentheses, followed by a period.
  • Title of dissertation/thesis:  In italics. Capitalize the first word of the title, subtitle, and proper nouns.
  • Publication number: Can be found in Dissertations and Theses database, listed in the item record as “Dissertation/thesis number.”
  • Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis:  List whether it is a dissertation or a thesis.
  • University:  List the university associated with the dissertation/thesis.
  • Database:  List database the dissertation/thesis was found in, if found in a database.
  • URL:  List URL if found on the free Web rather than in a database.

See specific examples below.

Dissertations:

Pecore, J. T. (2004). Sounding the spirit of Cambodia: The living tradition of Khmer music and dance-drama in a Washington, DC community  (Publication No. 3114720) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. 

Master's Theses:

Hollander, M. M. (2017). Resitance to authority: Methodological innovations and new lessons from the Milgram experiment   (Publication No. 10289373) [Master's thesis, University of Wisconsin - Madison]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

APA calls for the citation to include a unique identifying number for the dissertation, labeling it “Publication No.” That number can be found in Dissertations and Theses database, listed in the item record as “Dissertation/thesis number.”

Karamanos, X. (2020). The influence of professional development models on student mathematics performance in New Jersey public elementary schools [Doctoral dissertation, Seton Hall University]. Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs). https://scholarship.shu.edu/dissertations/2732

Bordo, V. C. (2011). Making a case for the use of foreign language in the educational activities of nonprofit arts organizations [Master's thesis, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses & Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1311135640

Caprette, C. L. (2005). Conquering the cold shudder: The origin and evolution of snake eyes  [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University].

Angelova, A. N. (2004). Data pruning  [Master's thesis, California Institute of Technology].

See  Publication Manual , 10.6.

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APA 6th Referencing Style Guide

  • APA referencing style
  • In-text citation
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  • TV, film & video
  • Tables, figures & images
  • Conferences

Thesis, dissertation or exegesis?

Theses and dissertations from online sources, theses and dissertations in hardcopy format.

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Terminology

Thesis and dissertation can mean different things, depending on which institution the work is from.  For study purposes and for your APA reference you need to know the level of the work.

  • Always check the title page, or subsequent pages, to determine exactly what the work is
  • Use the information there for your APA reference

At Auckland University of Technology (and other NZ universities)

Thesis is either for a doctoral or a master's degree.

Dissertation is either for a master's or a bachelor's degree with honours.

Exegesis is the written component of a practice-based thesis where the major output is a creative work;  e.g. a film, artwork, novel.

In some other parts of the world such as North America, a dissertation may be for a doctoral degree and a thesis for a master's degree.  

See Section 7.05  in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition .

Reference format for a thesis from a commercial database:

Reference format for a thesis from an institutional repository:

A Doctoral dissertation (USA) from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database

Reference list entry:

  • Include the name of the database and the order number of the document
  • Use this style for theses retrieved from a commercial database

Thesis from a NZ institutional repository :

  • Include the full URL for the thesis/dissertation and the full name of the degree-granting institution/university
  • Also include the location of the university, if outside the United States.

In-text citations guide  

Reference format for unpublished thesis/dissertation:

  • Give the correct full name of the university, not its abbreviation or brand name.
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APA 7th referencing style

  • About APA 7th
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Thesis - from website

Thesis - from database.

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ACS (American Chemical Society) Citation Style Guide

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Theses and Dissertations

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  • In-Text Citations

When citing a thesis or dissertation the minimum information included should be:

  • Title 
  • Institution

If more information is available such as the level of thesis (e.g. master, phd) or the location of the university, include that information in your citation.

Basic format :

Author. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Name of University, Location of University, Date of Completion.

Duis, J. M. Acid/base chemistry and related organic chemistry conceptions of undergraduate organic chemistry students. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, 2008.​

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How do I cite a dissertation in MLA style?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

A dissertation is a unique type of source. It is a finished, stand-alone work written under the auspices of an institution. In a change from the previous edition of the MLA Handbook ,    we do not distinguish between published and unpublished dissertations. To cite a dissertation, include in the entry the author, title, and date of publication as core elements. As an optional element, list the institution granting the degree and a description of the work.

Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting . 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation.

If you accessed the dissertation through an online repository, include this fact as the title of the second container:

Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting . 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation.  ProQuest , search.proquest.com/docview/305212264?accountid=7432.

MIT Libraries logo MIT Libraries

Distinctive Collections

MIT Specifications for Thesis Preparation

Approved November 2022 for use in the 2022-2023 academic year. Updated March 2023 to incorporate changes to MIT Policies and Procedures 13.1.3 Intellectual Property Not Owned by MIT .

View this page as an accessible PDF .

Table of Contents

  • Thesis Preparation Checklist

Timeline for submission and publication

  • Bachelor’s degree thesis
  • Graduate degree thesis

Dual degree theses

Joint theses, what happens to your thesis, title selection, embedded links.

  • Special circumstances

Signature page

Abstract page.

  • Acknowledgments

Biographical notes

Table of contents, list of figures.

  • List of tables
  • List of supplemental material

Notes and bibliographic references

Open licensing, labeling copyright in your thesis, use of previously published material in your thesis, digital supplementary material, physical supplementary material, starting with accessible source files, file naming.

  • How to submit thesis information to the MIT Libraries

Placing a temporary hold on your thesis

Changes to a thesis after submission, permission to reuse or republish from mit theses, general information.

This guide has been prepared by the MIT Libraries, as prescribed by the Committee on Graduate Programs and the Committee on Undergraduate Program, to assist students and faculty in the preparation of theses. The Institute is committed to the preservation of each student’s thesis because it is both a requirement for the MIT degree and a record of original research that contains information of lasting value.

In this guide, “department” refers to a graduate or undergraduate program within an academic unit, and “thesis” refers to the digital copy of the written thesis. The official thesis version of record, which is submitted to the MIT Libraries, is the digital copy of the written thesis that has been approved by the thesis committee and certified by the department in fulfillment of a student’s graduation requirement.

The requirements in this guide apply to all theses and have been specified both to facilitate the care and dissemination of the thesis and to assure the preservation of the final approved document. Individual departments may dictate more stringent requirements.

Before beginning your thesis research, remember that the final output of this research—your thesis document—should only include research findings that may be shared publicly, in adherence with MIT’s policy on Open Research and Free Interchange of Information . If you anticipate that your thesis will contain content that requires review by an external sponsor or agency, it is critical that you allow sufficient time for this review to take place prior to thesis submission. 

Questions not answered in this guide should be referred to the appropriate department officer or to the MIT Libraries ( [email protected] ).

  • Final edited and complete thesis PDF is due to your department on the date specified in the Academic Calendar.
  • Hold requests should be submitted to the Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education or TLO concurrent with your thesis submission.
  • Thesis information is due to the MIT Libraries before your date of graduation.
  • Departments must transfer theses to the MIT Libraries within 30 days from the last day of class (end of term).
  • One week later (30 days from the last day of classes + 7 days) or one week after the degree award date (whichever is later) the MIT Libraries may begin publishing theses in DSpace@MIT.
  • If you have requested and received a temporary (up to 90-day) hold on the publication of your thesis from the Vice Chancellor, your thesis will be placed on hold as soon as it is received by the Libraries, and the 90-day hold will begin 30 days from the last day of class (end of term).
  • If your thesis research is included in a disclosure to the TLO, the TLO may place your thesis on temporary hold with the Libraries, as appropriate.

Submitting your thesis document to your department

Your thesis document will be submitted to your department as a PDF, formatted and including the appropriate rights statement and sections as outlined in these specifications. Your department will provide more specific guidance on submitting your files for certification and acceptance.

Your department will provide information on submitting:

  • A PDF/A-1  of your final thesis document (with no signatures)
  • Signature page (if required by your department; your department will provide specific guidance)
  • Original source files used to create the PDF of your thesis (optional, but encouraged)
  • Supplementary materials  (optional and must be approved by your advisor and program)

Degree candidates must submit their thesis to the appropriate office of the department in which they are registered on the dates specified in the Academic Calendar. ( Academic Calendar | MIT Registrar ). September, February, and May/June are the only months in which degrees are awarded.

Bachelor’s degree theses

Graduate degree theses, submitting your thesis information to the libraries.

Information about your thesis must be submitted to the Libraries thesis submission and processing system  prior to your day of graduation. The information you provide must match the title page and abstract of your thesis . See How to submit thesis information to the MIT Libraries section for more details .

The academic department is required to submit the thesis to the MIT Libraries within one month after the last day of the term in which the thesis was submitted ( Faculty Regulation 2.72 ). The thesis document becomes part of the permanent archival collection. All thesis documents that have been approved will be transferred electronically to the MIT Libraries by a department representative via the MIT Libraries thesis submission and processing system .

The full-text PDF of each thesis is made publicly available in DSpace@MIT . A bibliographic record will appear in the MIT Libraries’ catalog, as well as the OCLC database WorldCat, which is accessible to libraries and individuals worldwide. Authors may also opt-in to having their thesis made available in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database.

Formatting specifications

Your work will be a more valuable research tool for other scholars if it can be located easily. Search engines use the words in the title, and sometimes other descriptive words, to locate works. Therefore,

  • Be sure to select a title that is a meaningful description of the content of your manuscript; and
  • Do: “The Effects of Ion Implantation and Annealing on the Properties of Titanium Silicide Films on Silicon Substrates”
  • Do: “Radiative Decays on the J/Psi to Two Pseudoscalar Final States”

You may include clickable links to online resources within the thesis file. Make the link self-descriptive so that it can stand on its own and is natural language that fits within the surrounding writing of your paragraph. The full URL should be included as a footnote or bibliography citation (dependent on citation style).

  • Sentence in thesis: Further information is available on the MIT Writing and Communications Center’s website . The full-text PDF of each thesis is made publicly available in DSpace@MIT .
  • Footnote or Bibliography: follow the rules of your chosen citation style and include the full website URL, in this case http://libraries.mit.edu/mit-theses

Sections of your thesis

Required (all information should be on a single page)

The title page should contain the title, name of the author (this can be the author’s preferred name), previous degrees, the degree(s) to be awarded at MIT, the date the degree(s) will be conferred (May/June, September, or February only), copyright notice (and legend, if required), and appropriate names of thesis supervisor(s) and student’s home department or program officer.

The title page should have the following fields in the following order and centered (including spacing) :

Thesis title as submitted to registrar

Author’s preferred name

Previous degree information, if applicable

Submitted to the [department name] in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree(s) of

[degree name]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Month and year degree will be granted (May or June, September, February ONLY)

Copyright statement

This permission legend MUST follow: The author hereby grants to MIT a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to exercise any and all rights under copyright, including to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license.

[Insert 2 blank lines]

Note: The remaining fields are left aligned and not centered

Authored by: [Author name]

[Author’s department name] (align with the beginning of the author’s name from the previous line)

[Date thesis is to be presented to the department] (align with the beginning of the author’s name from the first line)

Certified by: [Advisor’s full name as it appears in the MIT catalog]

   [Advisor’s department as it appears in the MIT catalog] (align with the beginning of the advisor’s name from the previous line), Thesis supervisor

Accepted by: [name]

[title – line 1] (align with the beginning of the name from the previous line)

[title – line 2] (align with the beginning of the name from the first line)

Note: The name and title of this person varies in different degree programs and may vary each term; contact the departmental thesis administrator for specific information

  • Students in joint graduate programs (such as Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) should list both their MIT thesis supervisor and the supervisor from the partner academic institution.
  • The name and title of the department or the program officer varies in different degree programs and may vary each term. Contact the departmental graduate administrator for specific information.
  • For candidates receiving two degrees, both degrees to be awarded should appear on the title page. For candidates in dual degree programs, all degrees and departments or programs should appear on the title page, and the names of both department heads/committee chairs are required. Whenever there are co-supervisors, both names should appear on the title page.

Here are some PDF examples of title pages:

  • Bachelor’s Degree – using a Creative Commons license
  • PhD candidate – using a Creative Commons license
  • Master’s candidate – dual degrees
  • Masters’ candidates – multiple authors
  • Masters’ candidates – multiple authors with dual degrees and extra committee members
  • Bachelor’s Degree – change of thesis supervisor

Title page: Special circumstances – change of thesis supervisor

If your supervisor has recently died or is no longer affiliated with the Institute:

  • Both this person and your new supervisor should be listed on your title page
  • Under the new supervisor’s name, state that they are approving the thesis on behalf of the previous supervisor
  • An additional page should be added to the thesis, before the acknowledgments page, with an explanation about why a new supervisor is approving your thesis on behalf of your previous supervisor. You may also thank the new supervisor for acting in this capacity
  • Review this PDF example of a title page with a change in supervisor

If your supervisor is external to the Institute (such as an industrial supervisor):

  • You should acknowledge this individual on the Acknowledgements page as appropriate, but should not list this person on the thesis title page
  • The full thesis committee and thesis readers can be acknowledged on the Acknowledgements page, but should not be included on the title page

Not Required

Please consult with your department to determine if they are requiring or requesting an additional signature page.

Each thesis must include an abstract of generally no more than 500 words single-spaced. The abstract should be thought of as a brief descriptive summary, not a lengthy introduction to the thesis. The abstract should immediately follow the title page.

The abstract page should have the following fields in the following order and centered (including spacing):

  • Thesis title

Submitted to the [Department] on [date thesis will be submitted] in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of [Name of degree to be received]

[Insert 1 blank line]

Single-spaced summary; approximately 500 words or less; try not to use formulas or special characters

Thesis supervisor: [Supervisor’s name]

Title: [Title of supervisor]

The Abstract page should include the same information as on the title page. With the thesis title, author name, and submitting statement above the abstract, the word “ABSTRACT” typed before the body of the text, and the thesis supervisor’s name and title below the abstract.

Acknowledgements

An acknowledgement page may be included and is the appropriate place to include information such as external supervisor (such as an industrial advisor) or a list of the full thesis committee and thesis readers. Please note that your thesis will be publicly available online at DSpace@MIT , which is regularly crawled and indexed by Google and other search-engine providers.

The thesis may contain a short biography of the candidate, including institutions attended and dates of attendance, degrees and honors, titles of publications, teaching and professional experience, and other matters that may be pertinent. Please note that your thesis will be publicly available online at DSpace@MIT , which is regularly crawled and indexed by Google and other search-engine providers.

List of Tables

List of supplemental material.

Whenever possible, notes should be placed at the bottom of the appropriate page or in the body of the text. Notes should conform to the style appropriate to the discipline. If notes appear at the bottom of the page, they should be single-spaced and included within the specified margins.

It may be appropriate to place bibliographic references either at the end of the chapter in which they occur or at the end of the thesis.

The style of quotations, footnotes, and bibliographic references may be prescribed by your department. If your department does not prescribe a style or specify a style manual, choose one and be consistent. Further information is available on the MIT Writing and Communications Center’s website .

Ownership of copyright

The Institute’s policy concerning ownership of thesis copyright is covered in Rules and Regulations of the Faculty, 2.73 and MIT Policies and Procedures 13.1.3 . Copyright covers the intellectual property in the words and images in the thesis. If the thesis also includes patentable subject matter, students should contact the Technology Licensing Office (TLO) prior to submission of their thesis.

Under these regulations, students retain the copyright to student theses.

The student must, as a condition of a degree award, grant to MIT a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to exercise any and all rights under copyright, including to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license. The MIT Libraries publish the thesis on DSpace@MIT , allowing open access to the research output of MIT.

You may also, optionally, apply a Creative Commons License to your thesis. The Creative Commons License allows you to grant permissions and provide guidance on how your work can be reused by others. For more information about CC: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ . To determine which CC license is right for you, you can use the CC license chooser .

You must include an appropriate copyright notice on the title page of your thesis. This should include the following:

  • the symbol “c” with a circle around it © and/or the word “copyright”
  • the year of publication (the year in which the degree is to be awarded)
  • the name of the copyright owner
  • the words “All rights reserved” or your chosen Creative Commons license
  • Also include the following statement below the ©“ The author hereby grants to MIT a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to exercise any and all rights under copyright, including to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license.”
  • Also include the following statement below the © “The author hereby grants to MIT a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to exercise any and all rights under copyright, including to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license.”

You are responsible for obtaining permission, if necessary, to include previously published material in your thesis. This applies to most figures, images, and excerpts of text created and published by someone else; it may also apply to your own previous work. For figures and short excerpts from academic works, permission may already be available through the MIT Libraries (see here for additional information ). Students may also rely on fair use , as appropriate. For assistance with copyright questions about your thesis, you can contact [email protected] .

When including your own previously published material in your thesis, you may also need to obtain copyright clearance. If, for example, a student has already published part of the thesis as a journal article and, as a condition of publication, has assigned copyright to the journal’s publisher, the student’s rights are limited by what the publisher allows. More information about publisher policies on reuse in theses is available here.

Students can hold onto sufficient rights to reuse published articles (or excerpts of these) in their thesis if they are covered by MIT’s open access policy. Learn more about MIT’s open access policy and opt-in here . Contact [email protected] for more information.

When including your own previously published articles in your thesis, check with your department for specific requirements, and consider the following:

  • Ensure you have any necessary copyright permissions to include previously published material in your thesis.
  • Be sure to discuss copyright clearance and embargo options with your co-authors and your advisor well in advance of preparing your thesis for submission.
  • Include citations of where portions of the thesis have been previously published.
  • When an article included has multiple authors, clearly designate the role you had in the research and production of the published paper that you are including in your thesis.

Supplemental material and research data

Supplemental material that may be submitted with your thesis is the materials that are essential to understanding the research findings of your thesis, but impossible to incorporate or embed into a PDF. Materials submitted to the MIT Libraries may be provided as supplemental digital files or in some cases physical items. All supplementary materials must be approved for submission by your advisor. The MIT Libraries can help answer questions you may have about managing the supplementary material and other research materials associated with your research.

Contact [email protected] early in your thesis writing process to determine the best way to include supplemental materials with your thesis.

You may also have other research data and outputs related to your thesis research that are not considered supplemental material and should not be submitted with your thesis. Research materials include the facts, observations, images, computer program results, recordings, measurements, or experiences on which a research output—an argument, theory, test or hypothesis, or other output—is based. These may also be termed, “research data.” This term relates to data generated, collected, or used during research projects, and in some cases may include the research output itself. Research materials should be deposited in appropriate research data repositories and cited in your thesis . You may consult the MIT Libraries’ Data Management Services website for guidance or reach out to Data Management Services (DMS)( [email protected] ), who can help answer questions you may have about managing your thesis data and choosing suitable solutions for longer term storage and access.

  • Supplementary information may be submitted with your thesis to your program after approval from your thesis advisor. 
  • Supplemental material should be mentioned and summarized in the written document, for example, using a few key frames from a movie to create a figure.
  • A list of supplementary information along with brief descriptions should be included in your thesis document. For digital files, the description should include information about the file types and any software and version needed to open and view the files.
  • Issues regarding the format of non-traditional, supplemental content should be resolved with your advisor.
  • Appendices and references are not considered supplementary information.
  • If your research data has been submitted to a repository, it should not also be submitted with your thesis.
  • Follow the required file-naming convention for supplementary files: authorLastName-kerb-degree-dept-year-type_supplemental.ext
  • Captioning ( legally required ): text versions of the audio content, synchronized with the video: ways to get your video captioned
  • Additional content, not required:
  • For video, an audio description: a separate narrative audio track that describes important visual content, making it accessible to people who are unable to see the video
  • Transcripts: should capture all the spoken audio, plus on-screen text and descriptions of key visual information that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible without seeing the video

For physical components that are integral to understanding the thesis document, and which cannot be meaningfully conveyed in a digital form, the author may submit the physical items to the MIT Libraries along with their thesis document. When photographs or a video of a physical item (such as a model) would be sufficient, the images should be included in the thesis document, and a video could be submitted as digital supplementary material.

An example of physical materials that would be approved for submission as part of the thesis would be photographs that cannot be shared digitally in our repository due to copyright restrictions. In this case, the photographs could be submitted as a physical volume that is referred to in the thesis document.

As with digital supplementary information and research materials, physical materials must be approved for submission by your advisor. Contact [email protected] early in your thesis writing process to determine if physical materials should accompany your thesis, and if so how to schedule a transfer of materials to the MIT Libraries.

Creating your thesis document/digital format

You are required to submit a PDF/A-1 formatted thesis document to your department. In addition, it is recommended that original files, or source files, (such a .doc or .tex) are submitted alongside the PDF/A-1 to better ensure long-term access to your thesis.

You should create accessible files that support the use of screen readers and make your document more easily readable by assistive technologies. This will expand who is able to access your thesis. By creating an accessible document from the beginning, there will be less work required to remediate the PDF that gets created. Most software offers a guide for creating documents that are accessible to screen readers. Review the guidelines provided by the MIT Libraries .

In general:

  • Use styles and other layout features for headings, lists, tables, etc. If you don’t like the default styles associated with the headings, you can customize them.
  • Avoid using blank lines to add visual spacing and instead increase the size of the spaces before and/or after the line.
  • Avoid using text boxes.
  • Embed URLs.
  • Anchor images to text when inserting them into a doc.
  • Add alt-text to any images or figures that convey meaning (including, math formulas).
  • Use a sans serif font.
  • Add basic embedded metadata, such as author, title, year of graduation, department, keywords etc. to your thesis via your original author tool.

Creating a PDF/A-1

PDF/A-1 (either a or b) is the more suitable format for long term preservation than a basic PDF. It ensures that the PDF format conforms to certain specifications which make it more likely to open and be viewable in the long term. It is best for static content that will not change in the future, as this is the most preservation-worthy version and does not allow for some complex elements that could corrupt or prevent the file from being viewable in the future. Guidelines on how to convert specific file types to PDF/A .

In general: (should we simplify these bullets)

  • Convert to PDF/A directly from your original files (text, Word, InDesign, LaTeX, etc.). It is much easier and better to create valid PDF/A documents from your original files than from a regular PDF. Converting directly will ensure that fonts and hyperlinks are embedded in the document.
  • Do not embed multimedia files (audio and video), scripts, executables, lab notebooks, etc. into your PDF. Still images are fine. The other formats mentioned may be able to be submitted as supplemental files.
  • Do not password protect or encrypt your PDF file.
  • Validate your PDF/A file before submitting it to your department.

All digital files must be named according to this scheme: authorLastName-kerb-degree-dept-year-type_other.ext

  • Thesis PDF: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-dusp-2023-thesis.pdf
  • Signature page: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-dusp-2023-sig.pdf
  • Original source file: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-2023-source.docx
  • Supplemental file: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-2023-supplmental_1.mov
  • Second supplemental file: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-2023-supplmental_2.mov
  • Read Me file about supplemental: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-2023-supplemental-readme.txt

How to submit thesis information to the MIT Libraries

Before your day of graduation, you should submit your thesis title page metadata to the MIT Libraries  prior to your day of graduation. The submission form requires Kerberos login.

Student submitted metadata allows for quicker Libraries processing times. It also provides a note field for you to let Libraries’ staff know about any metadata discrepancies.

The information you provide must match the title page and abstract of your thesis . Please have a copy of your completed thesis on hand to enter this information directly from your thesis. If any discrepancies are found during processing, Libraries’ staff will publish using the information on the approved thesis document. You will be asked to confirm or provide:

  • Preferred name of author(s)as they appear on the title page of the thesis
  • ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher. The goal is to support the creation of a permanent, clear, and unambiguous record of scholarly communication by enabling reliable attribution of authors and contributors. Read ORCID FAQs to learn more
  • Department(s)
  • A license is optional, and very difficult to remove once published. The Creative Commons License allows you to grant permissions and provide guidance on how your work can be reused by others. Read more information about CC .
  • Thesis supervisor(s)
  • If you would like the full-text of your thesis to be made openly available in the ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global database (PQDT), you can indicate that in the Libraries submission form.
  • Open access inclusion in PQDT is at no cost to you, and increases the visibility and discoverability of your thesis. By opting in you are granting ProQuest a license to distribute your thesis in accordance with ProQuest’s policies. Further information can be found in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Author FAQ .
  • Full-text theses and associated supplemental files will only be sent to ProQuest once any temporary holds have been lifted, and the thesis has been published in DSpace@MIT.
  • Regardless of opting-in to inclusion in PQDT, the full text of your thesis will still be made openly available in DSpace@MIT . Doctoral Degrees: Regardless of opting-in the citation and abstract of your thesis will be included in PQDT.

Thesis research should be undertaken in light of MIT’s policy of open research and the free interchange of information . Openness requires that, as a general policy, thesis research should not be undertaken on campus when the results may not be published. From time to time, there may be a good reason for delaying the distribution of a thesis to obtain patent protection, or for reasons of privacy or security. To ensure that only those theses that meet certain criteria are withheld from distribution and that they are withheld for the minimum period, the Institute has established specific review procedures.

Written notification of patent holds and other restrictions must reach the MIT Libraries before the thesis in question is received by the MIT Libraries. Theses will not be available to the public prior to being published by the MIT Libraries. The Libraries may begin publishing theses in DSpace@MIT one month and one week from the last day of classes.

Thesis hold requests should be directed to the Technology Licensing Office (TLO) ( [email protected] ) when related to MIT-initiated patent applications (i.e., MIT holds intellectual property rights; patent application process via TLO). Requests for a thesis hold must be made jointly by the student and advisor directly to the MIT Technology Licensing Office as part of the technology disclosure process.

Thesis hold or restricted access requests should be directed to the Office of the Vice Chancellor ([email protected]) when related to:

  • Student-initiated patents (student holds intellectual property rights as previously determined by TLO) [up to 90-day hold]
  • Pursuit of business opportunities (student holds intellectual property rights as previously determined by TLO)[up to 90-day hold]
  • Government restrictions [up to 90-day hold]
  • Privacy and security [up to 90-day hold]
  • Scholarly journal articles pending publication [up to 90-day hold]
  • Book publication [up to 24-month hold]

In the unusual circumstance that a student wants to request a hold beyond the initial 90-day period, they should contact the Office of Vice President for Research , who may consult with the TLO and/or the Office of the Vice Chancellor, as appropriate to extend the hold. Such requests must be supported by evidence that explains the need for a longer period.

Find information about each type of publication hold, and to learn how to place a hold on your thesis

After publication

Your thesis will be published on DSpace@MIT . Theses are processed by the MIT Libraries and published in the order they are transferred by your department. The Libraries will begin publishing theses in DSpace@MIT one month and one week from the last day of classes.

All changes made to a thesis, after it has been submitted to the MIT Libraries by your department, must have approval from the Vice Chancellor or their designee. Thesis documents should be carefully reviewed prior to submission to ensure they do not contain misspellings or incorrect formatting. Change requests for these types of minor errors will not be approved.

There are two types of change requests that can be made:

  • Errata: When the purpose is to correct significant errors in content, the author should create an errata sheet using the form and instructions (PDF)  and obtain approval first from both the thesis supervisor or program chair, before submitting for review by the Vice Chancellor.
  • Substitution: If the purpose of the change is to excise classified, proprietary, or confidential information, the author should fill out the  application form (PDF) and have the request approved first by the thesis supervisor or program chair, before submitting for review by the Vice Chancellor.

Students and supervisors should vet thesis content carefully before submission to avoid these scenarios whenever possible.

You are always authorized to post electronic versions of your own thesis, in whole or in part, on a website, without asking permission. If you hold the copyright in the thesis, approving and/or denying requests for permission to use portions of the thesis in third-party publications is your responsibility.

MIT Libraries Thesis Team https://libguides.mit.edu/mit-thesis-faq [email protected] | https://thesis-submit.mit.edu/

Distinctive Collections Room 14N-118 | 617-253-5690 https://libraries.mit.edu/distinctive-collections/

Technology Licensing Office [email protected] | 617-253-6966 http://tlo.mit.edu/

Office of the General Counsel [email protected]  | 617-452-2082 http://ogc.mit.edu/

Office of Graduate Education Room 3-107 | 617-253-4680 http://oge.mit.edu/ [email protected]

MIT Libraries,  Scholarly Communications https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/ [email protected]

Office of  the Vice Chancellor Room 7-133 | 617-253-6056 http://ovc.mit.edu [email protected]

Office of the Vice President for Research Room 3-234 | 617-253-8177 [email protected]

MIT Writing and Communications Center Room E18-233 [email protected] | https://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in MLA

How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in MLA

Citing a thesis or dissertation.

Thesis – A document submitted to earn a degree at a university.

Dissertation – A document submitted to earn an advanced degree, such as a doctorate, at a university.

The formatting for thesis and dissertation citations is largely the same. However, you should be sure to include the type of degree after the publication year as supplemental information. For instance, state if the source you are citing is an undergraduate thesis or a PhD dissertation.

MLA Thesis and Dissertation Citation Structure (print)

Last, First M.  Title of the Thesis/Dissertation. Year Published. Name of University, type of degree.

MLA Thesis and Dissertation Citation Structure (online)

Last, First M.  Title of the Thesis/Dissertation. Year Published. Name of University, type of degree.  Website Name , URL.

ThesisDissertationImage

Wilson, Peggy Lynn. Pedagogical Practices in the Teaching of English Language in Secondary Public Schools in Parker County . 2011. University of Maryland, PhD dissertation.

In-text Citation Structure

(Author Last Name page #)

In-text Citation Example

(Wilson 14)

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Citation analysis of Ph.D. theses with data from Scopus and Google Books

  • Open access
  • Published: 24 October 2021
  • Volume 126 , pages 9431–9456, ( 2021 )

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  • Paul Donner   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5737-8483 1  

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This study investigates the potential of citation analysis of Ph.D. theses to obtain valid and useful early career performance indicators at the level of university departments. For German theses from 1996 to 2018 the suitability of citation data from Scopus and Google Books is studied and found to be sufficient to obtain quantitative estimates of early career researchers’ performance at departmental level in terms of scientific recognition and use of their dissertations as reflected in citations. Scopus and Google Books citations complement each other and have little overlap. Individual theses’ citation counts are much higher for those awarded a dissertation award than others. Departmental level estimates of citation impact agree reasonably well with panel committee peer review ratings of early career researcher support.

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Introduction

In this article we present a study on the feasibility of Ph.D. thesis citation analysis and its potential for studies of early career researchers (ECR) and for the rigorous evaluation of university departments. The context is the German national research system with its characteristics of a very high ratio of graduating Ph.D.’s to available open job positions in academia, a distinct national language publication tradition in the social sciences and humanities and slowly unfolding change from a traditional apprenticeship-type Ph.D. system to a grad school type system. The first nationwide census in Germany reported 152,300 registered active doctoral students in Germany (Vollmar 2019 ). In the same year, 28,404 doctoral students passed their exams in Germany (Statitisches Bundesamt 2018 ). Both universities and science and higher education policy attach high value to doctoral training and consider it a core task of the university system. For this reason, doctoral student performance also plays an important role in institutional assessment systems.

While there is currently no national scale research assessment implemented in Germany, all German federal states have introduced formula-based partial funding allocation systems for universities. In most of these, the number of Ph.D. candidates is a well-established indicator. Most universities also partially distribute funds internally by similar systems. Such implementations can be seen as incomplete as they do not take into account the actual research output of Ph.D. candidates. In this contribution we investigate if citation analysis of doctoral theses is feasible on a large scale and can conceptually and practically serve as a complement to current operationalizations of ECR performance. For this purpose we study the utility of two citation data sources, Scopus and Google Books. We analyze the obtained citation data at the level of university departments within disciplines.

Doctoral studies

The doctoral studies phase can theoretically be conceived as a status transition period. It comprises a status passage process from apprentice to formally acknowledged researcher and colleague in the social context of a scientific community (Laudel and Gläser 2008 ). Footnote 1 The published doctoral thesis and its public defense are manifest proof of the fulfilment of the degree criterion of independent scientific contribution, marking said transition. The scientific community, rather than the specific organization, collectively sets the goals and standards of work in the profession, and experienced members of a community of peers judge and grade the doctoral work upon completion. Footnote 2 Yet the specific organization also plays a very important role. The Ph.D. project and dissertation are closely associated with the hosting university as it is this organization that provides the environmental means to conduct the Ph.D. research, as a bare minimum the supervision by professors and experienced researchers, but often also formal employment with salary, workspace and facilities. And it is also the department ( Fakultät ) which formally confers the degree after passing the thesis review and defense.

As a rule, it is a formal requirement of doctoral studies that the Ph.D. candidates make substantial independent scientific contributions and publish the results. The Ph.D. thesis is a published scientific work and can be read and cited by other researchers. The extent to which other researchers make use of these results is reflected in citations to the work and is in principle amenable to bibliometric citation analysis (Kousha and Thelwall 2019 ). Citation impact of theses can be seen as a proxy of the recognition of the utility and relevance of the doctoral research results by other researchers. Theses are often not published in an established venue and are hence absent from the usual channels of communication of the research front, more so in journal-oriented fields, whereas in book-oriented fields, publication of theses through scholarly publishers is common. We address this challenge by investigating the presence of dissertation citations in data sources hitherto not sufficiently considered for this purpose in what follows.

Research contribution of early career researchers and performance evaluation in Germany

Almost all universities in Germany are predominantly tax-funded and the consumption of these public resources necessitates a certain degree of transparency to establish and maintain the perceived legitimacy of the higher education and research system. Consequently, universities and their subdivisions are increasingly subjected to evaluations. The pressure to participate in evaluation exercises, or in some cases the bureaucratic directive to do so by the responsible political actors, in turn, derives from demands of the public, which holds political actors accountable for the responsible spending of resources appropriated from net tax payers. Because the training of Ph.D. candidates is undisputedly a core task of universities, it is commonly implemented as an important component or dimension in university research evaluation.

While there is no official established national-scale research evaluation exercise in Germany (Hinze et al. 2019 ), the assessment of ECR performance plays a very importent role in evaluation and funding of universities and in the systems of performance-based funding within universities. In the following paragraphs we will shows this with several examples while critically discussing some inadequacies of the extant operationalizations of the ECR performance dimensions, thereby substantiating the case for more research into the affordance of Ph.D. thesis citation analysis.

The Council of Science and Humanities ( Wissenschaftsrat ) has conducted four pilot studies for national-scale evaluations of disciplines in universities and research institutes ( Forschungsrating ). While the exercises were utilized to test different modalities Footnote 3 , they all followed a basic template of informed peer review by appointed expert committees along a number of prescribed performance dimensions. The evaluation results did not have any serious funding allocation or restructuring consequences for the units. In all exercises, the dimension of support for early career researchers played a prominent role next to such dimensions as research quality, impact/effectivity, efficiency, and transfer of knowledge into society. Footnote 4 In all four exercises, the dimension was operationalized with a combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria.

As the designation ‘support for early career researchers’ suggests, the focus was primarily on the support structures and provisions that the assessed units offered, but the outcomes or successes of these support environments also played a role. Yet, some of the applied indicators are more in line with a construct such as the performance, or success, of the ECRs themselves, namely, first appointments of graduates to professorships, scholarships or fellowship of ECRs (if granted externally of the assessed unit), and awards. Footnote 5 As for the difference between the concept of the efforts expended for ECRs and the concept of the performance of ECRs, it appears to be implied that the efforts cause the performance, but this is far from self-evident. There may well be extensive support programs without realized benefits or ECRs achieving great success despite a lack of support structures. For this implied causal connection to be accepted, its mechanism should first be worked out and articulated and then be empirically validated, which was not the case in the Forschungsrating evaluation exercises. Footnote 6

No bibliometric data on Ph.D. theses was employed in the Forschungsrating exercises (Wissenschaftsrat 2007 , 2008 , 2011 , 2012 ). However, it stands to reason that citation analysis of theses might provide a valuable complementary tool if a more sound operationalization of the dimension of the performance of ECRs is to be established in similar future assessments. As for the publications of ECRs besides doctoral theses, these have been included in the other dimensions in which publications were used as criteria without special consideration. Footnote 7

There is a further area of university evaluation in which a performance indicator of ECRs, namely the absolute number of Ph.D. graduates over a specific time period, is an important component. At the time of writing, systems of partial funding allocation from ministries to states’ universities across all German federal states are well established. In these systems, universities within a state compete with one another for a modest part of the total budget based on fixed formulas relating performance to money. The performance based funding systems, different for each state, all include ‘research’ among their dimensions, and within it, the number of graduated Ph.D.’s is the second most important indicator after the acquired third party funding of universities (Wespel and Jaeger 2015 ). In direct consequence, similar systems have also found widespread application to distribute funds across departments within universities (Jaeger 2006 ; Niggemann 2020 ). These systems differ across universities. If only the number of completed Ph.D.’s is used as an indicator, then the quality of the research of the graduates does not matter in such systems. It is conceivable that graduating as many Ph.D.’s as possible becomes prioritized at the expense of the quality of ECR research and training.

A working group tasked by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to work out an indicator model for monitoring the situation of early career researchers in Germany proposed to consider the citation impact of publications as an indicator of outcomes (Projektgruppe Indikatorenmodell 2014 ). Under the heading of “quality of Ph.D.—disciplinary acceptance and possibility of transfer” the authors acknowledge that, in principle, citation analysis of Ph.D. theses is possible, but citation counts do not directly measure scientific quality, but rather the level of response to, and reuse of, publications (impact). Moreover, it is stated that the literature of the social sciences and humanities are not covered well in citation indexes and theses are generally not indexed as primary documents (p. 136). Nevertheless, this approach is not to be rejected out of hand. Rather, it is recommended that the prospects of thesis citation analysis be empirically studied to judge its suitability (p. 137).

Another motivation for the present study was the finding of the National Report on Junior Scholars that even though “[j]unior scholars make a telling contribution to developing scientific and social insights and to innovation” (p. 3) the “contribution made by junior scholars to research and knowledge sharing is difficult to quantify in view of the available data” (Consortium for the National Report on Junior Scholars 2017 , p. 19).

To sum up, the foregoing discussion establishes (1) that there is a theoretically underdeveloped evaluation practice in the area of ECR support and performance, and (2) that a need for better early career researcher performance indicators on the institutional level has been suggested to science policy actors. This gives occasion to explore which, if any, contribution bibliometrics can make to a valid and practically useful assessment.

Prior research

Citation analysis of dissertation theses.

There are few publications on citation analysis of Ph.D. theses as the cited documents, as opposed to studies of the documents cited in theses, of which there are plenty. Yoels ( 1974 ) studied citations to dissertations in American journals in optics, political science (one journal each), and sociology (two journals) from the 1955 to 1969 volumes. In each case, several hundred citations in total to all Ph.D. theses combined were found, with a notable concentration on origins of Ph.D.’s in departments of high prestige – a possible first hint of differential research performance reflected in Ph.D. thesis citations. Non-US dissertations were cited only in optics. Author self-citations were very common, especially in optics and political science. While citations peaked in the periods of 1–2 or 3–5 years after the Ph.D. was awarded, they continued to be cited to some degree as much as 10 years later. According to Larivière et al. ( 2008 ), dissertations only account for a very small fraction of cited references in the Web of Science database. The impact of individual theses was not investigated. This study used a search approach in the cited references, based on keywords for theses and filtering, which may not be able to discover all dissertation citations. Kousha and Thelwall ( 2019 ) investigated Google Scholar citation counts and Mendeley reader counts for a large set of American dissertations from 2013 to 2017 sourced from ProQuest. This study did not take into account Google Books. Of these dissertations, 20% had one or more citations (2013: over 30%, 2017: over 5%) while 16% had at least one Mendeley reader. Average citation counts were comparatively high in the arts, social sciences, and humanities, and low in science, technology, and biomedical subjects. The authors evaluated the citation data quality and found that 97% of the citations of a sample of 646 were correct. As for the publication type of the citing documents, the majority were journal articles (56%), remarkably many were other dissertations (29%), and only 6% of citations originated from books. This suggests that Google Books might be a relevant citation data source instead of, or in addition to, Google Scholar.

More research has been conducted into the citation impact of thesis-related journal publications. Hay ( 1985 ) found that for the special case of a small sample from UK human geography research, papers based on Ph.D. thesis work accrued more citations than papers by established researchers. In a recent study of refereed journal publications based on US psychology Ph.D. theses, Evans et al. ( 2018 ) found that they were cited on average 16 times after 10 years. The citation impact of journal articles to which Ph.D. candidates contributed (but not of dissertations) has only been studied on a large scale for the Canadian province of Quèbec (Larivière 2012 ). The impact of journal papers with Ph.D. candidates’ contribution was contrasted to all other papers with Quèbec authors in the Web of Science database. As the impact of these papers, quantified as average of relative citations, was close to that of the comparison groups in three of four broad subject areas, it can be tentatively assumed that the impact of doctoral candidates’ papers was on par with that of their more experienced colleagues. The area with a notable difference between groups was arts and humanities, in which the coverage of publication output in the database was less comprehensive because a lot of research is published in monographs, and in which presumably many papers were written in French, another reason for lower coverage.

While these papers are not concerned with citations to dissertations, they do suggest that the research of Ph.D.’s is as impactful as that of other colleagues. To the best of our knowledge, no large scale study has been conducted on the citation impact of German theses on the level of individual works or on the level of university departments. We so far have scant information on the citation impact of dissertation theses, therefore the current study aims to fill this gap by a large scale investigation of citations received by German Ph.D. theses in Scopus and Google Books.

Causes for department-level performance differences

As we wish to investigate performance differences between departments of universities by discipline as reflected by thesis citations, we next consider the literature on plausible reasons for such performance differences which can result in differences in thesis citation impact. We do not consider individual level reasons for performance differences such as ability, intrinsic motivation, perseverance, and commitment.

One possible reason for cross-department performance differences is mutual selectivity of Ph.D. project applicants and Ph.D. project supervisors. In a situation in which there is some choice between the departments at which prospective Ph.D. candidates might register and some choice between the applicants a prospective supervisor might accept, out of self-interest both sides will seek to optimize their outcomes given their particular constraints. That is, applicants will opt for the most promising department for their future career while supervisors or selection committees, and thus departments, will attempt to select the most promising candidates, perhaps those who they judge most likely to contribute positively to their research agenda. Both sides can take into account a variety of criteria, such as departmental reputation or candidates’ prior performance. This is part of the normal, constant social process of mutual evaluation in science. However, in this case, the mutual evaluation does not take place between peers, that is, individuals of equal scientific social status. Rather, the situation is characterized by status inequality (superior-inferior, i.e. professor-applicant). Consequently, an applicant may well apply to her or his preferred department and supervisor, but the supervisor or the selection committee makes the acceptance decision. In practice however, there are many constraints on such situations. For example, as described above, the current evaluation regime rewards the sheer quantity of completed Ph.D.’s.

Once the choices are made, Ph.D. candidates at different departments can face quite different environments, more or less conducive to research performance (which, as far as they were aware of them and were able to judge them, they would have taken into consideration, as mentioned). For instance, some departments might have access to important equipment and resources, others not. There may prevail different local practices in time available for the Ph.D. project for employed candidates as opposed to expected participation in groups’ research, teaching, and other duties (Hesli and Lee 2011 ).

Ph.D. candidates may benefit from the support, experience and stimulation of the presence of highly accomplished supervisors. Experienced and engaged supervisors teach explicit and tacit knowledge and can serve as role models. Long and McGinnis ( 1985 ) found that the performance of mentors was associated with Ph.D.’s publication and citation counts. In particular, citations were predicted by collaborating with the mentor and the mentor’s own prior citation counts. Mentors’ eminence only had a weak positive effect on the publication output of Ph.D.’s who actively collaborated with them. Similarly, Hilmer and Hilmer ( 2007 ) report that advisors’ publication productivity is associated with candidate’s publication count. However, there are multiple professors or other supervisors at any department, which causes variation within departments if the department and not the supervisor is used as a predictive variable. Between departments it is then the concentration of highly accomplished supervisors that may cause differences. Beyond immediate supervisors, a more or less supportive research environment can offer opportunities for learning, cooperation or access to personal networks. For example, Kim and Karau ( 2009 ) found that support from faculty, through the development of research skills, lead to higher publication productivity of management Ph.D. candidates. Local work culture and local expectations of performance may elicit behavioral adjustment (Allison and Long 1990 ).

In summary, prior research shows that there are several reasons to expect department-level differences of Ph.D. research quality (and its reproduction and reinforcement) which might be reflected in thesis citation impact. But it needs to be noted that the present study cannot serve towards shedding light on which particular factors are associated with Ph.D. performance in terms of citation impact. It is limited to testing if there are any department-level differences on this measure.

Citation counts and scientific impact of dissertation theses

We have argued above that citation analysis of theses could be a complementary tool for quantitative assessment of university departments in terms of the research performance of early career researchers. Hence it needs to be established that citation counts of dissertations are in fact associated with a conception of the impact of research.

As outlined by Hemlin ( 1996 ), “[t]he idea [of citation analysis] is that the more cited an author or a paper is by others, the more attention it has received. This attention is interpreted as an indicator of the importance, the visibility, or the impact of the researcher or the paper in the scientific community. Whether citation measures also express research quality is a highly debated issue.” Hemlin reviewed a number of studies of the relationship between citations and research quality but was not able to make a definite conclusion: “it is possible that citation analysis is an indicator of scientific recognition, usefulness and, to some unknown extent, quality.” Researchers cite for a variety of reasons, not only or primarily to indicate the quality of the cited work (Aksnes et al. 2019 ; Bornmann and Daniel 2008 ). Nevertheless, work that is cited usually has some importance for the citing work. Even citations classified in citation behavior studies as ‘perfunctory’ or ‘persuasive’ are not made randomly. On the contrary, for a citation to persuade anyone, the content of the cited work needs to be convincing rather than ephemeral, irrelevant, or immaterial. Citation counts are thus a direct measure of the utility, influence, and importance of publications for further research (Martin and Irvine 1983 , sec. 6). Therefore, as a measure of scientific impact, citation counts have face validity. They are a measure of the concept itself, though a noisy one. Not so for research quality.

Highly relevant for the topic of the present study are the early citation impact validation studies by Nederhof and van Raan ( 1987 ), Nederhof and van Raan ( 1989 ). These studied the differences in citation impact of publications produced during doctoral studies of physics and chemistry Ph.D. holders, comparing those awarded the distinction ‘cum laude’ for their dissertation based on the quality of the research with other graduates without this distinction (cum laude: 12% of n = 237 in chemistry, 13% of n = 138 in physics). In physics, “[c]ompared to non-cumlaudes, cumlaudes received more than twice as many citations overall for their publications, which were all given by scientists outside their alma mater” (Nederhof and van Raan 1987 , p. 346). In fact, differences in citation impact of papers between the groups are already apparent before graduation, that is, before the conferral of the cum laude distinction on the basis of the dissertation. And interestingly, “[a]fter graduation, citation rates of cumlaudes even decline to the level of non-cumlaudes” (p. 347) leading the authors to suggest that “the quality of the research project, and not the quality of the particular graduate is the most important determinant of both productivity and impact figures. A possible scenario would be that some PhD graduates are choosen carefully by their mentors to do research in one of the usually rare very promising, interesting and hot research topics currently available. Most others are engaged in relatively less interesting and promising graduate research projects” (p. 348). The results in chemistry are very similar: “Large difference in impact and productivity favor cumlaudes three to 2 years before graduation, differences which decrease in the following years, although remaining significant. [...] Various sceptics have claimed that bibliometric measures based on citations are generally invalid. The present data do not offer any support for this stance. Highly significant differences in impact and productivity were obtained between two groups distinguished on a measure of scientific quality based on peer review (the cum laude award)” (Nederhof and van Raan 1989 , p. 434).

In Germany, a system of four passing marks and one failing mark is commonly used. The better the referees judge the thesis, the higher the mark. Studies investigating the association of level of mark and citation impact of theses or thesis-associated publications are as of yet lacking. The closest are studies on medical doctoral theses from Charité. Oestmann et al. ( 2015 ) provide a correlational study of medical doctoral degree marks (averages of thesis and oral exams marks) and the publications associated with the theses from one institution, Charité University Medicine Berlin. Their data for 1992–2014 shows a longitudinal decrease of the incidence of the third best mark and an increase of the second best mark. For samples from 3 years (1998, 2004, 2008) for which publication data were collected, an association between the level of the mark and the publication productivity was detected. Both the chance to publish any peer-reviewed articles and the number of articles increase with the level of the mark. The study was extended in Chuadja ( 2021 ) with publication data for 2015 graduates. It was found that the time to graduation covaries with the level of the mark. For 2015 graduates, the average 5 year Journal Impact Factors for thesis-associated publication increase with the level of the graduation mark in the sense that theses awarded better marks produced publications in journals with higher Impact Factors. As little as these findings say about the real association of thesis research quality and citation impact, they suggest enough to motivate more research into this relationship.

Research questions

The following research questions will be addressed:

How often are individual Ph.D. theses cited in the journal and book literature?

Does Google Books contain sufficient additional citation data to warrant its inclusion as an additional data source alongside established data sources?

Can differences between universities within a discipline explain some of the variability in citation counts?

Are there noteworthy differences in Ph.D. thesis citation impact on the institutional level within disciplines?

Are the citation counts of Ph.D. theses associated with their scientific quality?

To test whether or not dissertation citation impact is a suitable indicator of departmental Ph.D. performance, citation data for theses needs to be collected, aggregated and studied for associations with other relevant indicators, such as doctorate conferrals, drop-out rates, graduate employability, thesis awards, or subjective program appraisals of graduates. As a first step towards a better understanding of Ph.D. performance, we conducted a study on citation sources for dissertations. The present study is restricted to monograph form dissertations. These also include monographs that are based on material published as articles. However, to be able to assess the complete scientific impact of a Ph.D. project it is necessary to also include the impact of papers which are produced in the context of the Ph.D. project, for both cumulative publication-based theses and for theses only published in monograph form. Because of this, the later results should be interpreted with due caution as we do not claim completeness of data.

Dissertations’ bibliographical data

There is presently no central integrated source for data on dissertations from Germany. The best available source is the catalog of the German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, DNB). The DNB has a mandate to collect all publications originating from Germany, including Ph.D. theses. This source of dissertation data has been found useful for science studies research previously (Heinisch and Buenstorf 2018 ; Heinisch et al. 2020 ). We downloaded records for all Ph.D. dissertations from the German National Library online catalog in April 2019 using a search restriction in the university publications field of “diss*”, as recommended by the catalog usage instructions, and publication year range 1996–2018. Records were downloaded by subject fields in the CSV format option. Footnote 8 In this first step 534,925 records were obtained. In a second step, the author name and work title field were cleaned and the university information extracted and normalized and non-German university records excluded. We also excluded records assigned to medicine as a first subject class which were downloaded because they were assigned to other classes as well. As the dataset often contained more than one version of a particular thesis because different formats and editions were cataloged, these were carefully de-duplicated. In this process, as far as possible the records containing the most complete data and describing the temporally earliest version were retained as the primary records. Variant records were also kept in order to later be able to collect citations to all variants. This reduced the dataset to a size of 361,971 records. Of these, about 16% did not contain information on the degree-granting university. As the National Library’s subject classification system was changed during the covered period (in 2004), the class designations were unified based on the Library’s mapping and aggregated into a simplified 40-class system. Footnote 9 If more than one subject class was assigned, only the first was retained.

Citation data

Citation data from periodicals was obtained from a snapshot of Scopus data from May 2018. Scopus was chosen over Web of Science as a source of citation data because full cited titles for items not contained as primary documents in Web of Science have only recently been indexed. Before this change, titles were abbreviated so inconsistently and to such short strings as to be unusable, while this data is always available in unchanged form in Scopus if it is available in the original reference. Cited references data was restricted to non-source citations, that is, references not matched with Scopus-indexed records. Dissertation bibliographical information (author name, publication year and title) for primary and secondary records was compared to reference data. If the author family name and given name first initial matched exactly and the cited publication year was within ± 1 year of the dissertation publication year, then the title information was further compared as follows. The dissertation’s title was compared to both Scopus cited reference title and cited source title, as we found these two data fields were both used for the cited thesis title. Before comparison, both titles were truncated to the character length of the shorter title. If the edit distance similarity between titles was greater than 75 out of 100, the citation was accepted as valid and stored. We furthermore considered the case that theses might occasionally be indexed as Scopus source publications. We used the same matching approach as outlined above to obtain matching Scopus records restricted to book publication types. This resulted in 659 matched theses. In addition, matching by ISBN to Scopus source publications resulted in 229 matched theses of which 50 were not matched in the preceding step. The citations to these matched source publications were added to the reference matched citations after removing duplicates. Citations were summed across all variant records while filtering out duplicate citations.

In addition, we investigated the utility of Google Books as a citation data source. This is motivated by the fact that many Ph.D. theses are published in the German language and in disciplines favoring publication in books over journal articles. Citation search in Google Books has been made accessible to researchers by the Webometric Analyst tool, which allows for largely automated querying with given input data (Kousha and Thelwall 2015 ). We used Webometric Analyst version 2.0 in April and May 2019 to obtain citation data for all Ph.D. thesis records. We only used primary records, not variants, as the collection process takes quite a long time. Search was done with the software’s standard settings using author family name, publication year and six title words and subsequent result filtering was employed with matching individual title words rather than exact full match. We additionally removed citations from a number of national and disciplinary bibliographies and annual reports because these are not research publications but lists of all publications in a discipline or produced by a certain research unit. We also removed Google Books citations from sources that were indexed in Scopus (10,958 citations) as these would otherwise be duplicates.

Google Scholar was not used as a citation data source, because it includes a lot of grey literature and there is no possibility to restrict citation counts to citations from journal and book literature. It has alarming rates of incorrect citations (García-Pérez 2010 , p. 2075), however Kousha & Thelwall (2015, p. 479) found the citation error rate for Ph.D. theses in Google Scholar to be quite low.

Dissertation award data

For later validation purposes we collected data on German dissertation awards from the web. We considered awards for specific disciplines granted in a competitive manner based on research quality by scholarly societies, foundations and companies. A web search was conducted for awards, either specifically for dissertations or for contributions by early career researchers which mention dissertations besides other works. Only awards granted by committees of discipline experts and awarded by Germany-based societies etc. were considered, we did not include internationally oriented awards. In general, these awards are given on the basis of scientific quality and only works published in the preceding one or 2 years are accepted for submission. We were able to identify 946 Ph.D. theses that received one or more dissertation awards from a total of 122 different awards. More details can be found in the “Appendix”, Table 5 .

A typical example is the Wilhelm Pfeffer Prize of the German Botanical Society, which is described as follows: “The Wilhelm Pfeffer Prize is awarded by the DBG’s Wilhelm Pfeffer Foundation for an outstanding PhD thesis (dissertation) in the field of plant sciences and scientific botany.” Footnote 10 The winning thesis is selected by the board of the Foundation. If no work achieves the scientific excellence expected by the board, no prize is awarded. Footnote 11

Citation data for Ph.D. theses

In total we were able to obtain 329,236 Scopus citations and 476,495 Google Books citations for the 361,971 Ph.D. thesis records. There was an overlap of about 11,000 citations from journals indexed in both sources, which was removed from the Google Books data. The large majority of Scopus citations was found with the primary thesis records only (95%). Secondary (variant) thesis records and thesis records matched as Scopus source document records contributed 5% of the Scopus citations. Scopus and Google Books citation counts are modestly correlated with Pearson’s r = 0.20 ( \(p < 0.01\) , 95% CI 0.197–0.203). Table 1 gives an overview of the numbers of citations for theses published in different years. Footnote 12 One can observe a minor overall growth in annual dissertations and modest peak in citations in the early years of the observation period. Overall, and consistently for all thesis publication years, theses are cited more often in Google Books than in Scopus by a ratio of about 3 to 2. Hence, in general, German Ph.D. theses were cited more often in the book literature covered by Google Books than in the periodical literature covered by Scopus. The average number of citations per thesis seems to stabilize at around 3.5, as the values for 1996–2003 are all of that magnitude. As citations were collected in 2019, these works needed about 15 years to reach a level at which they did not increase further. Whereas Kousha and Thelwall ( 2019 ) found that 20% of the American dissertations from the period 2013–2017 were cited at least once in Google Scholar, the corresponding figure from our data set is 30% for the combined figure of both citation data sources.

We studied author self-citations of dissertations, both by comparing the thesis author to all publication authors of a citing paper (all-authors self-citations) and only to the first author. We used exact match or Jaro-Winkler similarity greater than 90 out of 100 for author name comparison (Donner 2016 ). Considering only the first authors of publications is more lenient in that it does not punish an author for self-citation that could possibly be suggested by co-authors and is at least endorsed by them (Glänzel and Thijs 2004 ). For the Google Books citation corpus we find only 8366 all-authors self-citations (1.7%) and 5711 first author self-citations (1.2%). Footnote 13 In the Scopus citations there are 52,032 all-author self-citations (15.6%) and 31,260 first-author self-citations (9.4%). Overall this amounts to an all-author self-citation rate of 7.5% and a first-author self-citation rate of 4.6%, quite lower rates than Yoels ( 1974 ). We do not exclude any self-citations in the following analyses.

Figure  1 displays the citation count distribution for theses published before 2004, in which citation counts are likely to not increase any further. In this subset, 58% of dissertations have one or more citations. Ph.D. theses exhibit the typical highly skewed and long-tailed citation count distribution.

figure 1

Citation count distribution for German Ph.D. theses from 1997–2003 (values greater than 10 citations not shown), n = 118,447

The distributions of theses and citations by data source over subject classes are displayed in Table 2 . There are striking differences in the origin of the major part of citations across disciplines. Social sciences and humanities such as education, economics, German language and literature, history, and especially law are cited much more often in Google Books. The opposite holds in natural science subjects like biology or physics, and in computer science and mathematics, where most citations come from Scopus. This table also indicates that the overall most highly cited dissertations can be found in the humanities (history, archeology and prehistory, religion) and that natural science dissertations are poorly cited (biology, physics and astronomy, chemistry). Much of this difference is probably because in the latter subjects, Ph.D. project results are almost always communicated in journal articles first and citing a dissertation is rarely necessary.

Validation of citation count data with award data

In order to judge whether thesis citation counts can be considered to include a valid signal of scientific quality (research question 5) we studied the citation impact of theses that received dissertation awards compared to those which did not. High citation counts, however, can not simply be equated with high scientific quality. As a rule, the awards for which we collected data are conferred by committees of subject experts explicitly on the basis of scientific quality and importance. But if the content of theses has been published in journal articles before it was published in a thesis it is possible that awards juries might have been influenced by citation counts of these articles.

Comparing the 946 dissertations that were identified as having received a scientific award directly with the non-awarded dissertations we find that the former received on average 3.9 citations while the latter received on average 2.2 citations. To factor out possible differences across subjects and time we match each award-winning thesis with all non-awarded theses of the same subject and year, and calculate the average citation count of this comparable publication set. Award theses obtain 3.9 citations and matched non-award theses 1.7 citations. This shows that Ph.D. theses that receive awards on average are cited more often than comparable theses and indicates that citation counts partially indicate scientific quality as sought out by award committees. Nevertheless, not every award-winning thesis need be highly cited nor every highly cited thesis be of high research quality and awarded a prize. The differences reported here hold on average for large numbers of observations, but do not imply a strong association between scientific quality and citation count on the level of individual dissertations. This is important to note lest the false conclusion be drawn that merely because a thesis is not cited or rarely cited, it is of low quality. Such a view must be emphatically rejected as it is not supported by the data.

A possible objection to the use of award data for validating the relationship of citation counts and the importance and quality of research is that it might be the signal of the award itself which makes the publications more visible to potential citers. In other words, a thesis is highlighted and brought to the attention of researchers by getting an award and high citation counts are a result not of the intrinsic merit of the reported research but merely of the raised visibility. The study by Diekmann et al. ( 2012 ) has scrutinized this hypothesis. They studied citation counts (Social Sciences Citation Index) of 102 papers awarded the Thyssen award for German social science journal papers and a random control sample of other publications from the same journals. The award winners are determined by a jury of experts and there are first, second, and third rank awards each year. It was found that awarded papers were cited on average six times after 10 years, control articles two times. Moreover, first rank award articles were cited 9 times, second rank articles 6 times, and third rank articles 4 times on average. The jury decides in the year after the publication of the articles. The authors argue that publications citing awarded articles in the first year after its publication can not possibly have been influenced by the award. For citation counts of a 1-year citation window, awarded articles are cited 0.8 times, control group articles 0.2 times on average. And again, the ranks of the awards correspond to different citation levels. Thus it is evident that the citation reception of the articles are different even before the awards have been decided. Citing researchers and expert committee independently agree on the importance of these articles.

We can replicate this test with our data by restricting the citations to those received in the year of publication of the thesis and the next year. This results in average citation counts of 0.040 for theses which received awards and 0.012 for theses which did not receive any award. Award-winning Ph.D. theses are cited more than three times as often as other theses even before the awards have been granted and before any possible publicity had enough time to manifest itself in increased citation counts.

Application: a preliminary study of citation impact differences between departments

In this section we consider research questions 3 and 4, which are concerned with the existence of differences in Ph.D. thesis citation impact between universities in the same discipline and their magnitude. This application is preliminary because only the citation impact of the thesis but not of the thesis-related publications is considered here and because we use a subject classification based on that of the National Library. Footnote 14 In order to mitigate against these limitations as much as possible, we study here only two subjects from the humanities (English and American language and literature, henceforth EALL) and the social sciences (sociology) which are characterized by Ph.D. theses mainly published as monographs rather than as articles and thus show relatively high dissertation citation counts. These are also disciplines specifically identifiable in the classification system and as distinct university departments. We furthermore restrict the thesis publication years to the years covered by the national scale pilot research assessment exercises discussed in the introduction section which were carried out by the German Council of Science and Humanities in these two disciplines (Wissenschaftsrat 2008 , 2012 ) in order to be able to compare the results and to test if the number of observations in typical evaluation periods yield sufficient data for useful results.

We use multilevel Bayesian negative binomial regressions in which the observations (theses) are nested in the grouping factor universities, estimated with the R package brms , version 2.8.0 (Bürkner 2017 ). By using a multilevel model we can explicitly model the correlation of observations within a group, that is to say, take into account the characteristics of the departments which affect all Ph.D. candidates of a department and their research quality. The negative binomial response distribution is appropriate for the characteristic highly skewed, non-negative citation count distribution. The default prior distributions of brms were used. Model estimations are run with two MCMC chains with 2500 iterations each, of which the first 500 are for sampler warmup. As population level variables we include a thesis language dummy (German [reference category], English, Unknown/Other), the publication year, and dummies for whether the dissertation received an award (reference category: no award received). There were no awards identified for EALL in the observation period, so this variable only applies to the Sociology models. For the language variable we used the data from the National Library where available and supplemented it with automatically identified language of the dissertation title using R package cld3 , version 1.1. Languages other than English and German and theses with unidentifiable titles were coded as Unknown/Other.

Models are run for the two disciplines separately, once without including the university variable (null models) and once including it as a random intercept, making these multilevel models. If the multilevel model shows a better fit, i.e. can explain the data better, this would indicate significant variation between the different university departments in a discipline and higher similarity of citation impact of theses within a university than expected at random. In other words, the null model assumes independence of observations while the multilevel model controls for correlation of units within a group, here the citation counts of theses from a university. The results are presented in Table 3 . The coefficient of determination (row ‘R 2 ’) is calculated according to Nakagawa et al. ( 2017 ).

Regarding the population level variables, it can be seen that the publication year has a negative effect in EALL (younger theses received less citations, as expected) but no significant effect in Sociology. As the Sociology models data is from an earlier time period, this supports the notion that the citation counts used in the Sociology models have stabilized but those from EALL have not. According to the credible intervals, while there is no significant language effect on citations in the Sociology null model, controlling for the grouping structure reveals the language to be significant predictor. In EALL, English language theses received substantially more citations than German language theses. There is a strong positive effect in Sociology from having received an award for the Ph.D. thesis. If we compare the null models with their respective multilevel models, that is A to B and C to D, we can see that introducing the grouping structure does not affect the population level variable effects other than language for Sociology. In both disciplines, the group effect (standard deviation of the random intercept) is significantly above zero and the model fit in terms of R 2 improved, indicating that the hierarchical model is more appropriate and that the university department is a significant predictor. However, the values of the coefficients of determination are small, which suggests that it is not so much the included population level predictors and the group membership, but additional unobserved thesis-level characteristics that affect citation count. In addition, this means it is not possible to estimate with any accuracy a particular thesis’ citation impact only from knowing the department at which it originated. The estimated group effects describe the citation impact of particular university departments. The distribution of the estimates from models B and D with associated 95% credible intervals are displayed in Fig.  2 . It is evident that while there are substantial differences in the estimates as a whole, there is also large uncertainty about the exact magnitude about all effects, indicated by the wide credible intervals. This a consequence of the facts that, first, most departments produce theses across the range of citation impact and small differences in the ratios of high, middle and low impact theses determine the estimated group effects and, second, given the high within-group variability, there are likely too few observations in the applied time period to arrive at more precise estimates.

figure 2

Ph.D. thesis citation impact regression group effect estimates for a 49 sociology departments (2001–2005) and b 52 English and American language and literature departments (2004–2010). Means and 95% posterior probability ranges

The results of the above mentioned research evaluation of sociology departments in the Forschungsrating series of national scale pilot assessments allow for a comparison between the university group effects of Ph.D. thesis citation impact obtained in the present study and qualitative ordinal ratings given by the expert committee in the category ‘support of early career researchers.’ Footnote 15 In the sociology assessment exercise, the ECR support dimension was explicitly intended to reflect both the supportive actions of the departments and their successes. The reviewer panel put special weight on the presence of structured degree programs and scholarships and obtained professorship positions of graduates. Further indicators that were taken into account were the number of conferred doctorates, the list of Ph.D. theses with publisher information, and a self-report of actions and successes. This dimension was rated by the committee on a five point scale ranging from 1, ‘not satisfactory’, to 5, ‘excellent’ (Wissenschaftsrat 2008 , p. 22).

For 47 universities both an estimated citation impact score (group effect coefficient from the above regression) and an ECR support rating were available for sociology in the same observation period. A tabulated comparison is presented in Table 4 . The Kendall \(\tau\) rank correlation between these two variables at the department level is 0.36 ( \(p < 0.01\) ), indicating a moderate association, but the mean citation scores in the table do not exhibit a clear pattern of increase with increasing expert-rated ECR support. The bulk of departments were rated in the lower middle and middle categories, that is to say, the ratings are highly concentrated in this range, making distinctions quite difficult.

figure 3

ECR support expert committee rating and mean estimates of Ph.D. thesis citation impact of 47 German sociology departments (2001–2005)

This relationship is displayed in Fig.  3 . It can be seen that while the five rating groups do have some association with the citation analysis estimates, there is large variability within the groups, especially for categories 3 and 4. In fact, there is much overlap across all the rating groups in terms of citation impact scores. The university department with the highest citation impact effect estimate was rated as belonging to the middle groups of ECR support. In summary, the association between rated ECR support of a department and the impact of the department’s citation is demonstrable but moderate in size.

In this study we have demonstrated the utility of the combination of citation data from two distinct sources, Scopus and Google Books, for citation analysis of Ph.D. theses in the context of research evaluation of university departments. Our study has a number of limitations hampering its immediate implementation into practice. We did not have verified data about the theses produced by departments and used publication sets approximated by using a subject classification. We did not take into account the publications of Ph.D.’s other than the theses, such as journal articles, proceedings papers, and book chapters, which resulted in low citation counts in the sciences. These limitations must be resolved before any application for research evaluation and the present study is to be understood as a feasibility study only.

We now turn to the discussion of the results as they relate to the guiding research questions. The first research question concerned the typical citation counts of Ph.D. theses. We found that German Ph.D. theses were cited more often in the book literature covered by Google Books than in the periodical literature covered by Scopus and that it takes 10–15 years for citation counts to reach a stable level where they do not increase any further. At this stage, about 40% of theses remained uncited. We further found large differences in typical citation rates across fields. Theses are cited more often in the social sciences and humanities, especially in history and in archeology and prehistory. But citation rates were very low in physics and astronomy, chemistry and veterinary medicine. Furthermore, there were distinctive patterns of the origin of the bulk of citations between the two data sources, in line with the typical publication conventions of the sciences and the social sciences and humanities. Science theses received more citations from Scopus, that is, primarily the journal literature, than from the book literature covered by Google Books. The social sciences and humanities, on the other hand, obtained far more citations from the book literature covered in Google Books. Nevertheless, these fields’ theses do also receive substantial numbers of citations from the journal literature which must not be neglected. Thus with regard to our second research question we can state that Google Books is clearly a very useful citation data source for social sciences and humanities dissertations and most likely also for other publications beyond dissertations from these areas of research. Citations from Google Books are complementary to those from Scopus as they clearly cover a different literature; the two data sources have little overlap.

Our results of multilevel regressions allow us to affirm that there are clearly observable thesis citation impact differences between departments in a given discipline (research question 3). However, they are of small to moderate magnitude and the major part of citation count variation is found at the individual level (research question 4). Our results do not allow any statements about what factors caused these differences. They could be the result of mutual selection processes or of different levels of support or research capacity across departments. Our results of citation impact of departments, interpretable as collective performance of early career researchers at the university department level, are roughly in line with qualitative ratings of an expert committee in our case study of sociology. This association also does not rule out or confirm any possible explanations, as both department supportive actions and individual ECR successes were compounded in the rated dimension which furthermore showed only limited variation.

Research question 5 concerned the association of citation counts of Ph.D. theses and their research quality. Using information about dissertation awards we showed that theses which received such awards also received higher citation rates vis-à-vis comparable theses which did not win such awards. This result strongly suggests that if researchers cite Ph.D. theses, they do tend to prefer the higher quality ones, as recognized by award granting bodies and committees.

As a case in point for the status change approach we note that, in Germany, holding a Ph.D. degree is a requirement for applying for funding at the national public science funding body Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

While in other countries it is the norm that doctoral theses are evaluated by experts external to the university, this has traditionally not been the case in Germany (Wissenschaftsrat 2002 ). In fact, grading of the thesis by the Ph.D. supervisor is not considered inappropriate by the German Rectors’ Conference (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, 2012 , p. 7).

The assessed disciplines were chemistry, sociology, electrical and information engineering, and English and American language and literature. Possibly the most important experimentally varied factor was the criterion by which research outputs were accredited to units: either all outputs in the reference period by researchers employed at the unit at assessment time (“current potential” principle) or all outputs of the units' research staff in the period, regardless of employment at assessment time (“work-done-at” principle).

As an exception, the committee on the evaluation of English and American language and literature considered the support of ECRs as a sub-dimension of the ‘enabling of research’ dimension, alongside third-party funding activity and infrastructures, and networks. However, within this category, it was given special importance.

Other applied indicators are extra-scientific in that they are indicators of compliance to science-external political directions, such as the share of female doctoral candidates.

Another issue deserving more scrutiny are the incentive structures promoted by the indicators. Indicators such as the number of granted Ph.D.’s and number of current Ph.D. candidates, which were applied in all exercises, could further exacerbate the Ph.D. oversupply in academia (Rogge and Tesch 2016 ).

It would be justified to (also) include publications by ECR other than theses in an ECR performance dimension, ideally appropriately weighted for ECR’s co-authorship contribution (Donner 2020 ).

The field of medicine was not included, because medical theses (for a Dr. med. degree) typically have lower research requirements and are therefore generally not commensurable to theses in other subjects (Wissenschaftsrat 2004 , pp. 74–75). It was not possible to distinguish between Dr. med. theses and other degree theses within the medicine category, which means that regular natural science dissertations on medical subjects are not included in this dataset if medicine was the first assigned class.

Classification mapping according to https://wiki.dnb.de/download/attachments/141265749/ddcSachgruppenDNBKonkordanzNeuAlt.pdf accessed 07/18/2019. It should be noted that some classes were not used for some time, for example electrical engineering was not used between 2004 and 2010 but grouped under engineering/mechanical engineering alongside mining/construction technology/environmental technology.

https://www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de/en/about-us/promoting-young-scientists/wilhelm-pfeffer-prize accessed 26/04/2021.

https://www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de/ueber-die-dbg/nachwuchsfoerderung/wilhelm-pfeffer-preis/satzung-pfeffer-stiftung §4, accessed 26/04/2021.

These figures are lower than the official numbers for completed doctoral exams as published by the Federal Statistical Office in Series 11/4/2 because medicine is not included.

As this is a very low figure, we manually checked the results and did not notice any issues. We note that about 58,000 (about 17%) of the Google Books citation records did not have any names of authors.

This is not ideal because its classes are not aligned with the delimitations of university departments. The National Library data do not contain information about the university department which accepted a thesis. As this exercise is not intended to be understood as an evaluation of university departments but only as a feasibility study, we still use the classification in lack of a better alternative. It goes without saying that for any actual evaluation use this course of action is not appropriate. Instead, a verified list of the dissertations of each unit would be required and all publications related to the theses would have to be included.

This is not possible for EALL because early career researcher support was not assessed separately but compounded with acquisition of third party funding and ‘infrastructures and networks’ into a dimension called ‘enabling of research’ and the ratings in this category were further differentiated by four sub-fields (Wissenschaftsrat 2012 , p. 19).

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [Grant Numbers 01PQ16004 and 01PQ17001]. We thank Beatrice Schulz for help with data collection.

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Donner, P. Citation analysis of Ph.D. theses with data from Scopus and Google Books. Scientometrics 126 , 9431–9456 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04173-w

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How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

  • 2-minute read
  • 24th March 2021

Did you know you can cite someone else’s thesis or dissertation in your own work? In this post, we’ll explain how this works in IEEE referencing .

Citing a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

In-text citations in IEEE referencing use numbers in square brackets:

Reactive forensics focuses on an incident after it has occurred [1].

These numbers point to sources in the reference list, with sources numbered in the order you cite them (i.e., the first source is always [1], the second is [2], and so on).

For more on citing sources IEEE style, see our blog post on the subject .

Adding a Thesis or Dissertation in an IEEE Reference List

In an IEEE reference list, the basic format for a thesis or dissertation is:

[#] INITIAL (S). Surname, “Title of thesis or dissertation,” Qualification Type, Department Name, University Name, City of University, State/Country, Year.

If possible, you should abbreviate any commonly used terms from this list in the entry (e.g., “University” is usually abbreviated to just “Univ.”).

You can see how this might look in practice below:

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[1] C. P. Clark, “A digital forensic management framework,” MSc Dissertation, Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 2020.

Make sure to include the hanging indent in all references as well.

Theses and Dissertations Accessed Online

If you accessed a thesis or dissertation online, give either a URL or DOI at the end of the reference. The exact format depends on which you give:

  • For a URL (i.e., a regular web address), include “[Online]” and the URL itself with no final punctuation at the end of the reference.
  • For a DOI , add the DOI after a comma and end the reference with a period.

You can see examples of both styles below:

[1] C. P. Clark, “A digital forensic management framework,” MSc Dissertation, Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 2020. [Online]. Available: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1923/

[2] B. S. Bello, “Reverse engineering the behaviour of Twitter bots,” PhD Thesis, School of Informatics, Univ. of Leicester, Leicester, UK, Year, doi: 10.25392/leicester.data.12662456.v1.

Otherwise, though, the reference format is the same as shown above.

Expert IEEE Proofreading

Hopefully, you now feel confident citing a thesis or a dissertation in IEEE style. If you’d like further help checking your references, why not submit a free sample document and select IEEE referencing on upload to see how our experts work?

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Dissertation Deposit

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Writing and submitting your dissertation or thesis are among the final steps leading to the award of the PhD or Research Master's degree. 

At the University of Pennsylvania, a doctoral candidate presents and defends the dissertation publicly, and then, with the approval of the dissertation committee and graduate group chair, submits the final manuscript for publication.  Finally, the PhD degree is awarded to the candidate upon the recommendation of the Graduate Council of the Faculties.

Deposit Appointment

Depositing your finalized dissertation is the final step to obtain your degree. Degree candidates must confirm with their  graduate group coordinator that all required forms have been submitted in Penn Graduate Forms  before the date of their deposit appointment. 

View the PhD Graduation Checklist for instructions on how to deposit and guidelines for a final formatting check . 

Doctoral degree candidates will schedule a deposit appointment; however, this is not a meeting, and you will not be present when your dissertation is reviewed. Deposit appointments are scheduled to manage the flow of degree candidate submissions received from all schools.

Deposit appointments are scheduled via Calend.ly and available during the deposit periods listed on the Graduation Calendar. Students who wish to schedule deposit appointments during peak times (the last three weeks of a term) will be required to attend a formatting pre-check appointment with a Graduate Fellow prior to their appointment. Email [email protected] to sign up for peak appointment times.

During the time of your scheduled appointment these graduation requirements will be examined to determine if you are eligible for publication approval and degree clearance:

  • required benchmarks and milestones in Penn Graduate Forms
  • Penn in Touch academic planning worksheet
  • bursar balance and holds on the Penn.Pay account
  • completion of two PhD surveys
  • final, approved dissertation submitted in ETD Administrator

In preparation for the submission of a dissertation, degree candidates should consult the PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and Formatting Templates  early and often for assistance with the formatting of their work. Formatting will likely take longer than you anticipate, so please set yourself up for success by following the formatting guideless for your own document early in the process or using the dissertation template provided. 

Complete the PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist and make sure your title page looks like the sample dissertation title pages . 

One-on-one Formatting Support

One-on-one formatting support is available via Zoom for PhD students with our Dissertation and Thesis Graduate Fellow. The Graduate Fellow is available to meet with students who have formatting questions, need technical support in Word, or just for peace of mind before a deposit appointment. Students can book an appointment directly with the Graduate Fellow at: https://calendly.com/elwebb/graduatefellow .

Students can also attend weekly drop-in hours in person at the Graduate Student Center for formatting help; check the Graduate Student Center calendar for the current schedule. 

Students who plan to deposit during peak periods will be required to attend a pre-deposit appointment with the Graduate Fellow. The dissertation does not need to be finalized for this pre-check appointment, but students should have their preliminary pages (title page, optional copyright notice, table of contents, etc.) ready with their draft of the main text.

Additionally, any student who uploads a dissertation with significant formatting errors will be required to meet virtually with our Graduate Fellow for support before they submit a new draft.

Requirements to Graduate

In the final term of their program, the Research Master's degree candidate must complete these steps to graduate:

  • Apply to graduate using the Graduation Application
  • Schedule a thesis deposit appointment
  • Upload the final, approved, and properly-formatted thesis in this Qualtrics form
  • Meet all graduate degree requirements within the program of study
  • Clear their bursar bill in  Penn.Pay .

Graduate Groups that Deposit a Thesis

Only Research Master's students in the following graduate groups may be required to submit a thesis to the Degree Office.

The Research Master's thesis must follow the formatting procedures in the Master's Thesis Style Guide .

Research Master's candidates will schedule a deposit appointment ; however, this is NOT a meeting and you will not be present when your thesis is reviewed. During the time of your scheduled appointment, these graduation requirements will be examined to determine if you are eligible for thesis approval and degree clearance:

  • required benchmarks and milestones
  • Advisor in Touch academic planning worksheet
  • bursar balance and holds on the account
  • formatting of final, submitted dissertation

For more details, view the graduation checklist for Research Master's Students .

Once a dissertation has been submitted and approved in ETD Administrator, it will be delivered in a batch once per term to ProQuest and ScholarlyCommons subject to any embargoes. It may take additional time for dissertations to appear online after submission. Learn more about embargo options here .

Dissertations at the University of Pennsylvania are available through three primary venues: ProQuest, ScholarlyCommons, and for dissertations prior to 2020, the Penn Libraries stacks. More information about ProQuest and Scholarly Commons can be found in Dissertation Embargo Guidelines . 

Penn Libraries

Penn Libraries provides physical access to dissertations prior to 2020 on its shelves or through off-site storage and delivery on demand. Any member of the public may come to the Penn Libraries and  access  physical dissertations prior to 2020. Members of the Penn community and members of other US-based libraries participating in interlibrary loan may additionally request and check out dissertations. 

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Citation guides

All you need to know about citations

How to cite a PhD thesis in Chicago

Chicago style PhD thesis citation

To cite a PhD thesis in a reference entry in Chicago style 17th edition include the following elements:

  • Author(s) of the thesis: Give first the last name, then the name as presented in the source (e. g. Watson, John). For two authors, reverse only the first name, followed by ‘and’ and the second name in normal order (e. g. Watson, John, and John Watson). For more than seven authors, list the first seven names followed by et al.
  • Title of the thesis: Give the title in quotation marks.
  • Degree: Type of degree.
  • University: Give the name of the institution.
  • Year of publication: Give the year of publication as presented in the source.

Here is the basic format for a reference list entry of a PhD thesis in Chicago style 17th edition:

Author(s) of the thesis . " Title of the thesis ." Degree , University , Year of publication .

Take a look at our reference list examples that demonstrate the Chicago style guidelines in action:

A PhD thesis with one author

Confait, Marina Fatima . " Maximising the contributions of PHD graduates to national development: the case of the Seychelles ." PhD thesis , Edith Cowan University , 2018 .
Bowkett, David . " Investigating the ligandability of plant homeodomains ." PhD thesis , Oxford University , 2015 .

chicago cover page

This citation style guide is based on the Chicago Manual of Style (17 th edition).

More useful guides

  • Chicago Citation Quickguide
  • How to Cite A Dissertation
  • Citing and referencing: University theses and dissertations

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COMMENTS

  1. APA: how to cite a PhD thesis [Update 2023]

    How to cite a PhD thesis in APA Published Unpublished If the thesis is available from a database, archive or any online platform use the following template: Author (s) of the thesis: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to 20 authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&).

  2. How to Cite a Dissertation in APA Style

    To cite a dissertation or thesis published in a university archive (often in PDF form) or on a personal website, the format differs in that no publication number is included, and you do list a URL. Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check. Try for free Citing an unpublished dissertation in APA Style

  3. Thesis/Dissertation

    Italicize the title Identify whether source is doctoral dissertation or master's thesis in parentheses after the title Various Examples See Ch. 10 pp. 313-352 of APA Manual for more examples and formatting rules Last Updated: Nov 1, 2023 3:17 PM

  4. How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in APA

    How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in APA In this citation guide, you will learn how to reference and cite an undergraduate thesis, master's thesis, or doctoral dissertation. This guide will also review the differences between a thesis or dissertation that is published and one that has remained unpublished.

  5. Published Dissertation or Thesis References

    Parenthetical citations: (Kabir, 2016; Miranda, 2019; Zambrano-Vazquez, 2016) Narrative citations: Kabir (2016), Miranda (2019), and Zambrano-Vazquez (2016) A dissertation or thesis is considered published when it is available from a database such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global or PDQT Open, an institutional repository, or an archive.

  6. How to cite a PhD thesis in Harvard

    To cite a PhD thesis in a reference entry in Harvard style include the following elements: Author (s) of the PhD thesis: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J.) of up to three authors with the last name preceded by 'and'.

  7. Cite a Thesis / Dissertation

    Thesis / Dissertation. Cite a thesis or dissertation (unpublished, published online, or accessed through a database). Use other forms to cite books, journal articles, reports, and conference proceedings.

  8. Dissertations and Theses

    Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis: List whether it is a dissertation or a thesis. University: List the university associated with the ... [Master's thesis, University of Wisconsin - Madison]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. APA calls for the citation to include a unique identifying number for the dissertation, labeling it ...

  9. Library Guides: APA 6th Referencing Style Guide: Theses

    Author, A. A. (date). Title of doctoral dissertation or master's thesis (Doctoral dissertation or Master's thesis). Available from Name of database. (Accession or Order No.) Reference format for a thesis from an institutional repository: Author, A. A. (date).

  10. Dissertations & Theses

    General Rule: Author, A. A. (year). Title of doctoral dissertation or master's thesis (Publication No. #) [Doctoral dissertation or master's thesis, Name of Institution Awarding the Degree].Name of Database. Example: Davis, P. M. (2010). Access, readership, citations: A randomized controlled trial of scientific journal publishing.

  11. Dissertations & Theses

    Citing a Published Thesis Note-Bibliography Note: First-name Last-name, "Title of Thesis: Subtitle," (Publisher, Year). Example: Mihwa Choi, "Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern Song Dynasty," PhD diss., (University of Chicago, 2008). Short Note: Last-name, "Title of Thesis." Example: Choi. "Contesting Imaginaires."

  12. Library Guides: APA 7th referencing style: Thesis

    Self-determined mindfulness and attachment style in college students (Publication No. 305210119) [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana State University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. EndNote reference type: Thesis. Add Publication Number to Document Number field. <<

  13. APA Citations for a Thesis or Dissertation

    The APA dissertation or thesis citation isn't a one size fits all type of citation. The reason behind this is because APA offers a different format for a published and unpublished thesis or dissertation. However, you'll need to include information like: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of doctoral dissertation or master's thesis (Publication ...

  14. MLA: how to cite a PhD thesis [Update 2023]

    To cite a PhD thesis in a reference entry in MLA style 9th edition include the following elements: Author (s) name: Give the last name and name as presented in the source (e. g. Watson, John). For two authors, reverse only the first name, followed by 'and' and the second name in normal order (e. g. Watson, John, and John Watson).

  15. Theses and Dissertations

    When citing a thesis or dissertation the minimum information included should be: Author; Title ; Institution; Date; If more information is available such as the level of thesis (e.g. master, phd) or the location of the university, include that information in your citation.

  16. How do I cite a dissertation in MLA style?

    To cite a dissertation, include in the entry the author, title, and date of publication as core elements. As an optional element, list the institution granting the degree and a description of the work. Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting. 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation.

  17. How to Cite a Thesis/Dissertation in Chicago/Turabian

    1. First name Last name, "Title" (master's thesis or PhD diss., University Name, year published), page number, Database (Identification Number). Bibliography: Last name, First name. "Title." Master's thesis or PhD diss., University Name, year published. Database (Identification Number). Citation Example Note: 1.

  18. MIT Specifications for Thesis Preparation

    PhD candidate - using a Creative Commons license; Master's candidate - dual degrees; Masters' candidates - multiple authors; ... Include citations of where portions of the thesis have been previously published. When an article included has multiple authors, clearly designate the role you had in the research and production of the ...

  19. How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in MLA

    For instance, state if the source you are citing is an undergraduate thesis or a PhD dissertation. MLA Thesis and Dissertation Citation Structure (print) Last, First M. Title of the Thesis/Dissertation. Year Published. Name of University, type of degree. MLA Thesis and Dissertation Citation Structure (online)

  20. AMA: how to cite a phd thesis [Update 2023]

    To cite a phd thesis in a reference entry in AMA style 11st edition include the following elements: Author (s) of the thesis: Give the last name, and initials of up to six authors (e.g. Watson J). For more authors only the first three are listed, followed by et al.

  21. Citation analysis of Ph.D. theses with data from Scopus and Google

    Citation data for Ph.D. theses. In total we were able to obtain 329,236 Scopus citations and 476,495 Google Books citations for the 361,971 Ph.D. thesis records. There was an overlap of about 11,000 citations from journals indexed in both sources, which was removed from the Google Books data.

  22. How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

    If you accessed a thesis or dissertation online, give either a URL or DOI at the end of the reference. The exact format depends on which you give: For a URL (i.e., a regular web address), include " [Online]" and the URL itself with no final punctuation at the end of the reference. For a DOI, add the DOI after a comma and end the reference ...

  23. Dissertation Deposit

    PhD Dissertation Deposit At the University of Pennsylvania, a doctoral candidate presents and defends the dissertation publicly, and then, with the approval of the dissertation committee and graduate group chair, submits the final manuscript for publication. Finally, the PhD degree is awarded to the candidate upon the recommendation of the Graduate Council of the Faculties.

  24. How to cite a PhD thesis in Chicago

    To cite a PhD thesis in a reference entry in Chicago style 17th edition include the following elements:. Author(s) of the thesis: Give first the last name, then the name as presented in the source (e. g. Watson, John). For two authors, reverse only the first name, followed by 'and' and the second name in normal order (e. g. Watson, John, and John Watson).

  25. Scholarships for International Students on Instagram: "Fully Funded PhD

    1 likes, 0 comments - scholarships_for_international on October 9, 2023: "Fully Funded PhD Position available at the University Paris Saclay France PhD position..."