Simple Thesis Formatting Tips You Shouldn't Disregard

Formatting is an important part of your writing, especially if it’s such an important project as your thesis. Each university requires something special, adds some. This might be confusing, and sometimes it becomes quite a burden on your shoulders. Let’s look at some basic thesis formatting ideas to consider while working on your paper.

4 Most Important Tips for Thesis Formatting

  • Plan ahead.
  • Formatting might take some time, so make sure you leave yourself some time to get ready and carefully reread all the instructions and start your layout.

  • Start early.
  • It’s better to submit the document early and have some time to make an additional correction if it’s rejected. So try to start working on the formatting and on the document as early as possible and don’t wait until the last minute.

  • Use your school website.
  • Because your university might have some different requirements to the layout, make sure you visit the web page and carefully look through those.

  • Be attentive.
  • It’s really easy to make a mistake or miss something, especially if you have something else on your mind. So try to concentrate and be as cautious as possible.

  • Check twice if needed.
  • After you’ve finished all of the formattings, get some rest, but return and check everything later. Make sure all the margins are set, paragraph spacing is correct, foot and endnotes are in place, etc.

  • Remember about PDF’s.
  • There might be some problems when you convert your document to PDF, and some errors might encounter you there. Embed fonts to avoid some calculation misinterprets.

Some Common Formatting Mistakes

There are some common mistakes people tend to make in their layout, mostly due to the lack of attention and concentration:

  • Using larger title font.
  • Title font should match the document font size, and even if it seems logical to make it bigger – don’t.

  • Using someone else’s document.
  • Don’t just take your friend’s paper to look at the layout, but start with checking the manual or the school’s website.

  • Copyright page.
  • Firstly, it should be there, secondly, don’t forget a to get a page number, and thirdly, don’t use a copyright symbol.

  • Don’t trust your text editor with everything.
  • Your paper is unique and there are some defaults in the software, so you’ll have to format it all by yourself.

It only seems difficult if you haven’t worked with similar things before, so by doing it all by yourself now you are getting the experience you might need in the future.