In the semester that you plan to defend, set defined due dates for yourself to make sure that you can complete all your requirements by the deadlines.

Schedule a Meeting with your Advisory Committee

Make sure to have a meeting to let your advisory committee know that you plan to write and defend your thesis/dissertation work. Your committee members can provide advice and guidance on what work you should include in your thesis/dissertation and on what work they'd like you to finish before you graduate.

Registration

You must be registered for Thesis for Master of Science as an MS student or Dissertation for Doctor for Philosophy as a PhD student during the semester in which you complete your degree requirements.

If you just miss a graduation deadline and your defense has been scheduled when the next term begins, you may request permission from Dr. Bill Mattox to register for just one hour of credit to save your advisor money. You should be aware that this may impact your student visa status, your ability to keep or defer student loans, or scholarships and fellowships, if any of these are applicable to you.

Apply for Graduation through myUTH

Visit myUTH to apply for graduation. Following successful application, a $100 graduation fee will be posted to your account that you are responsible for paying. Make sure to take care of this early in the semester, as the ability to apply for graduation will disappear from the myUTH portal when registration opens for the following semester.

Schedule a meeting with Dr. Cherilynn Shadding 

Please set up a meeting with Dr. Shadding to talk briefly - as one of the newest members of the GSBS Alumni Association! - about your experiences at GSBS. To set up an appointment either before or after your defense, click here.

Schedule an exit interview

It's important to us to hear from you about your GSBS experience. We're always looking for ways to improve, and your opinions and insights are most welcome. The timing is up to you -- either before or after your defense! You don't have to prepare anything ahead of time and meetings usually last 20 to 30 minutes.

• PhD students schedule their interview with Dr. Natalie Sirisaengtaksin
• MS students schedule their interview with Dr. Wassim Chehab

Notify Finance if your next position is at a state of Texas institution

If you will be employed by a Texas state institution immediately following graduation, it is important that you communicate with your departmental administrator and the GSBS ([email protected]) at least six weeks before you complete your degree requirements.

All students must submit their Petition for Defense at least two weeks before their defense date.

A complete petition includes:

1. Signed Request for Defense form

2. Submission of defense information and abstract through our online form for distribution in GSBS Essential

3. Electronic version of your thesis for an anti-plagiarism check that includes complete thesis/dissertation without the references

4. PDF of the draft of your thesis for formatting check – include all pages (i.e., approval page, title page, abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents, figures, figure legends, references, vita, etc.)

5. PDF of your updated CV (please include your publications, presentations, awards, etc.)

   Note: Exit forms will be sent to you by Bunny Perez once your defense petition is approved.

Please note that if you share any or all of these documents through Box, Google Drive, or another cloud storage service that requires specific access, you must also grant individual access to Bunny Perez, Joy Lademora, and Dr. Natalie Sirisaengtaksin.

Submit a PDF of final thesis/dissertation

Please send the following to [email protected]: 1) a PDF copy of your thesis/dissertation for a final format check and 2) a separate copy of just the approval page with your advisory committee members' signatures. Please note that the Dean's signature will be added to your approval page later, so don't worry about it for this step.

With permission, upload your thesis/dissertation to the TMC Digital Commons

After your thesis/dissertation passes the final format check, you will receive instructions to upload your document to the Digital Commons. During this process, you may opt to embargo your document for one year. If you would like to extend the embargo for an additional year, you may email your request to Bunny Perez.

Complete and submit all forms

Submit the original thesis approval page signed by your committee, the results of your defense forms (see below), and exit forms to Bunny Perez in Academic Affairs

MS results forms: Results of the Master of Science Defense and Evaluation of the MS Defense Performance

PhD results forms: Results of the Defense of the PhD Dissertation and Evaluation of the PhD Defense Performance

List of exit forms

• Alumni information (online)
• Application for graduation (completed online through myUTH)
• GSBS exit survey (online)
• Exit clearance form (the form that requires a lot of signatures!)
• TMC Digital Commons (instructions to upload your thesis will be sent to you once the format of your final thesis has been approved by GSBS)
• Survey of Earned Doctorates (online, PhD only)

Optional: Order bound copies of your thesis/dissertation

Contact Joy Lademora if you would like to purchase bound copies of your thesis/dissertation. The current rate for binding is $23.75 per book, but you can check with Joy to see if the rates have changed.

Please submit a printed version for each copy you want bound, along with a check or money order made payable to UTHealth GSBS for the appropriate amount. 

It usually takes several months to receive the books but the results are great -- nice binding with 'gold' lettering on the spine. You can see examples of the binding in the GSBS Schissler Library. This is optional and there is no deadline -- you may still request copies after you graduate.

Inclusion of material previously published by the student

The spirit of the thesis is that it is the student’s own work, which can be tricky in this age of team science.
Work taken from publications authored or co-authored by the student may be included in the thesis, but the
following rules apply:

• Keep in mind that the student’s Advisor will be asked to attest on the Results of Defense form that the
  student contributed substantially to any text or figures included in the thesis.
• If the thesis includes text or a figure which is part of the student’s publication but the work was done by
  someone other than the student, permission must be obtained from the individual and explicitly noted
  (e.g., “Used with permission...”) in the text or figure legend, as appropriate, and the role played by the
  other individual must also be clearly acknowledged in the text/figure legend.
• The Introduction (first chapter) and Discussion (last chapter) of the thesis must be the student's own work
  and not taken verbatim from any publication. With permission from GSBS, an exception to this policy is
  made for text written exclusively by the student as part of a review article on which the student is the
  primary author. In that case, the work may be used in the Introduction. The Introduction and Discussion
  should provide a global view of the student’s work, including a discussion of “Future Directions” in the final
  chapter.
• Materials and Methods and Results sections may include text and figures taken verbatim from the
  student’s previously published work. The complete reference and permission of the copyright holder to
  use the material must be cited.

Students may use their publication(s) to form the basis of a chapter(s) -- the following rules apply:

• Note at the start of the chapter “This chapter is based upon (insert full citation)” and cite the
  permission of the copyright holder (usually the publisher of the journal) using the language provided by
  the journal.
• The text must be modified to the same style as the rest of the thesis – there should be good continuity
  (i.e., flow) between all chapters of the thesis and between each section of a chapter.
• It is permissible to include text from the publication’s Introduction and Discussion in the chapter (note
  that this is different from the Introduction and Discussion of the thesis, which must be the student’s
  own work and not taken verbatim from any publication, as mentioned above).
• The student is responsible for obtaining any necessary permission that is required to use previously
  published work. Journals’ websites will likely provide specific guidance for obtaining such permission.
  Please note that this process may take several weeks.

Inclusion of the published work of others

• Textual material taken from publications not authored by the student may be included if it is indented 1/2
  inch from the left margin, single-spaced, and properly referenced at the end of the text and in the
  bibliography.
• Any reproduced text should generally be limited and have a clear purpose other than substituting for text
  that would normally be expected to be written by the author of an original thesis.
• Figures from the work of others also may be included if clearly indicated and referenced in the figure
  legend. Please provide the full citation (including all authors' names) and state the permission from the copyright holder that allows you to reuse the figure.
• The student is responsible for obtaining any necessary permission to use figures or text from the copyright
  owner and submitting it along with the thesis.

Arrangement of the Thesis or Dissertation

1. Approval Page

2. Title Page

3. Copyright*

4. Dedication*

5. Acknowledgments*

6. Abstract (the Abstract will be immediately available online when your thesis is uploaded to the TMC Digital Commons even if your thesis is embargoed, so be mindful of including confidential information)

7. Table of Contents (include titles of sections and page numbers where contents may be found – include all pages in the thesis, including the front pages, i.e., Approval Page, Title Page, etc.)

8. List of Illustrations (separate page from the Table of Contents; include Figure #, titles of figures, and page numbers where figures may be found)

9. List of Tables (separate page from the Table of Contents; include Table #, titles of tables, and page numbers where tables may be found)

10. Abbreviations*

11. Text

12. Appendix*

13. Bibliography (start on a new page – references should be double-spaced like the rest of your thesis and all authors’ names must be included -- do not use “et. al” or “...”)

14. Vita (start on a new page and follow this format exactly – note that you are not required to include your date of birth – since your thesis will be available online at the Digital Commons, you may want to keep your DOB confidential )

*Optional -- not all theses/dissertations contain these items

Formatting requirements

1. MARGINS- Left margin must be 1.25 inches or greater. Top, bottom, and right margins must be 0.8 inches or greater.
   
   
2. TEXT- The text must be double-spaced. The first line of each paragraph should be indented 6 to 8 spaces.
   
   
3. TITLE- The 125 character limit for thesis titles is a requirement (not a recommendation), not including spaces. Ensure that the title is grammatically correct and scientifically appropriate.
   
   
4. FONT- The font size should be 11 or 12. Print should be dark black characters that are clear, e.g., Times Roman, Courier or Arial. Once a font style is chosen, be consistent -- all text in the thesis should be of the same style and size.
   
   
5. PAGE NUMBERING- No page number should appear on the Approval Page or the Title Page, although both should be included in the count.
   
   The page that follows the Title Page is page “iii” (e.g., Copyright, Dedication, etc.). All pages until the first page of Introduction should be numbered in lowercase Roman Numerals.
   
   The text beginning with the Introduction should begin on page “1”.
   
   Page numbers should be placed at least one-half inch from the top or bottom and right edges of the page or in the bottom, center of the page. Once the location of page numbers is chosen, be consistent -- the page number should be in the same location for all pages in the thesis.
   
   Figure pages need not be numbered but should be included in the count.
   
   
6. TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS- Tables and figures are to fit within the limits of the page margins described above. Figures and photographs should be publication-quality.
   
   Each figure and table should appear at the point at which it is discussed for the first time.
   
   Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively, and each should have a unique number. There should be only one Figure 1 in your thesis!
   
   Do not put all figures together at the end (or the beginning) of the thesis as is done, for example, in the preparation of manuscripts for journal publication.
   
   If a figure or table is small, it may be placed on a page along with text. However, figures should not be reduced just to fit within a text page, and all details of the figure must be legible. The figure legend font should be the same as the text font.
   
   Figure legends may be placed in one of three ways:
   • on the page preceding the illustration
   • on the same page below the illustration, or
   • on the page after the figure.
     
     
7. REFERENCES- References for all chapters must be placed in a single group at the end of the thesis in the Bibliography. Reference style can be in any style approved for use in scientific journals but must include the names of all authors, the title of the paper, journal name, volume, inclusive page numbers, and year of the journal.
   
   All authors included in a publication must be listed. The use of “et al.” and/or "..." are not permitted.
   
   References must be double-spaced just like the rest of the thesis.