Thesis Formatting Checklist

Pre-submission formatting checklist and heading numbering examples

These values come from each school's published guidance as checked on 2026-09-23. Your own graduate school and department rules always take precedence — download the current template before you format.

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Heading numbering systems

Decimal

Chapter 1  Introduction
1.1  Background
1.1.1  Prior work
1.2  Research questions

Roman chapters + decimal sections

I. Introduction
II. Literature survey
  2.1 …
  2.2 …
III. Experimental
  3.1 …

Roman–alphabetic outline

I. Introduction
  A. Background
    1. Problem
      a. …
        (1) …

APA unnumbered heading levels

Method            (Level 1: centered, bold)
Participants      (Level 2: flush left, bold)
Recruitment       (Level 3: flush left, bold italic)

Examples from university guidelines

University	Paper	Margins	Font	Spacing
Harvard GSAS	8.5 × 11 in	At least 1 in on all sides	10–12 pt, fonts embedded in the PDF	Body double-spaced; block quotes, footnotes and bibliography single-spaced within entries, double between
UC Berkeley (Graduate Division)	8.5 × 11 in	At least 1 in on all sides; page numbers at least ¾ in from the edges	12 pt or larger, non-italic; footnotes, captions and tables 8 pt or larger	Single-spaced throughout

Sources · Checked 2026-09-23

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