The following policies and procedures pertain to the Ph.D. program in Philosophy and those Master’s programs that require a thesis as part of the degree requirements, or provide a thesis option.  

Once your thesis or dissertation has been approved by your advisor and/or faculty committee, two more steps are required. First, you will submit the title page and approval form to Graduate Studies. Please note that the thesis will not be approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies until you have passed the comprehensive examination and/or foreign language examination (if required).

 The second and final step is to submit your thesis or dissertation to ProQuest, which arranges for the work to be published online. For detailed instructions on this process, please continue reading.  If you wish to download and print these instructions, use the link on the right.

Preparing Your Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation for Your Advisor and Committee

Before you submit your thesis to your advisor, faculty committee, and Graduate Studies, it must be put into the required format. Please follow the instructions and specifications on the document to the right, “General Style Guidelines.”

Your thesis or dissertation should include a title page as the first page, followed by the official approval form. Both the title page and approval page must follow the models found to the right.

It is the student’s responsibility to follow the law governing “fair use” of any copyrighted materials (photographs, reproductions of art work, poems, etc.) used in a thesis or dissertation, and to secure any necessary permissions. ProQuest will not accept a thesis or dissertation without the necessary permissions.  For complete details on Copyright and Sample Permission Letter for Use of Previously Copyrighted Material for ProQuest, please see the Copyright Guide.  Additional copyright information may also be obtained on these websites:

http://main.uab.edu/Sites/gradschool/students/current/theses/7305/ and http://library.villanova.edu/About/Services/FacultyServices/Copyright

Submitting Your Thesis or Dissertation to Your Advisor and Committee

When your thesis or dissertation is finished and formatted according to the above requirements, you are ready to submit it to your advisor and/or faculty committee for approval. Please follow your department’s specific instructions for this part of the process. When your thesis or dissertation has been approved, and all the required signatures have been obtained on the approval page, your next step is to inform the Office of Graduate Studies.

Submitting Your Thesis or Dissertation Approval Page to Graduate Studies

Once your thesis or dissertation has been approved, you should bring two documents in person to Linda Buonanno in the Office of Graduate Studies: 1. a copy of the title page and 2. the original approval page, with all the required signatures. You do not need to bring in a copy of the thesis or dissertation.

Submitting Your Thesis or Dissertation to ProQuest for Publication

For on-line submission, please go to:  http://www.etdadmin.com/villanova

You’re almost done! All Masters’ theses and Doctoral dissertations are submitted to ProQuest, which arranges for the work to be published online and thereby available to other scholars. ProQuest’s fees for publishing and copyright are the responsibility of the student. For publishing options, you may choose either Traditional or Open Access.  For information regarding each of these publishing options, please click here. We recommend Traditional Publishing because no fee is charged. If you chose Open Access you will be charged a fee, which is also charged for obtaining a copyright.

To be submitted to ProQuest, your thesis or dissertation must be in PDF format, and you must embed all fonts in the document. ProQuest provides assistance, instructions and technical support on PDF formatting, embedding fonts, and fulfilling other submission requirements. These can be found at the ProQuest site.  Once you are on the homepage, please click on Campus Resources.

Making a Bound Copy of Your Thesis or Dissertation

If your department requires you to submit a bound copy of your thesis or dissertation, Falvey Memorial Library provides binding services, for a fee. For more information, please go to http://library.villanova.edu/about/services/thesisbinding/

Congratulations on Your Distinguished Scholarly Achievement!