Dissertation Formatting

Have questions on how to format your thesis or dissertation?

We’ll help you align your document to fit Rackham Graduate School requirements. 

Use our formatting guide

Our Guide to Microsoft Word for Dissertations includes a template you can modify, along with links to the Rackham Dissertation Handbook and formatting checklist. It also covers how to:

  • Apply styles to maintain consistency
  • Create a table of contents that keeps itself up to date 
  • Include properly formatted landscape pages
  • Insert page numbers, footnotes, images, figures, and more

LaTeX guidance

Most of our support is based on using Microsoft Word. If you plan to use LaTeX for your thesis or dissertation we recommend starting with a LaTeX template designed to meet Rackham’s requirements.

We also have a workshop recording on using LaTeX to format your U-M dissertation.

Make an appointment

We’re happy to discuss your document or help you solve a problem.

Make an appointment.

Formatting isn’t the only thing to triple check before you submit your dissertation. See our guidance on copyright.

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