Thesis / Dissertation Formatting Manual (2025)

With the approval of your thesis/dissertation committee and your academic department, your previously published work may be used to fulfill all or part of your degree requirement.

Such publications must represent research or scholarship comparable in scope and contribution to that portion of your thesis/dissertation which it is intended to replace.

In addition, to a large extent such material must be the product of your graduate study at UCI. You must provide an introduction showing the historical development, methods used, and results of your work, if such information is not part of the published material itself. This is particularly important in those instances where the material submitted is composed of several discrete publications.

Required elements for acknowledging previous publications

The following actions are required when reusing your own previously published materials in your thesis or dissertation. Refer below for more details and proper formatting for permission letters, copyright statements, and acknowledgment of coauthors and/or your research director.

1. Submit a permission letter to ProQuest as a supplementary file if someone else is the copyright holder
2. List the copyright holder on your Copyright Page
3. Include a statement in your Acknowledgments
4. Cite the work in your Bibliography or References

Permission letter if someone else is the copyright holder

Often a publisher of a journal or book will hold the copyright when a work is published. If this is the case, you must upload to ProQuest a permission letter (or website statement) from the copyright holder of any published material used in your manuscript (excluding material covered by "fair use"). The letter must state that the copyright owner is aware that "ProQuest may supply single copies on demand."

If you (the author) are the copyright holder, then a permission letter is not required. 

Copyright Page

If you are not the copyright holder of previously published material, you must list additional copyrights on the Copyright Page. See https://guides.lib.uci.edu/gradmanual/copyright

Acknowledgments Page

Include a statement in your Acknowledgments Page informing the reader that you are using previously published material, and that permission to use copyrighted material in your manuscript has been granted and identifying the publication in which the material originally appeared. Example:

The text of [Chapter # of] this [thesis / dissertation] is [a reprint /  an adaptation] of the material as it appears in [full bibliographic citation], used with permission from [full name of publisher].

Creative Commons works

An acknowledgment is required even if your previous work was published open access with a Creative Commons (CC) license. Include a link to the CC license in parentheses after the publisher name. Please be sure to change the font color back to black. Example:

The text of [Chapter # of] this [thesis / dissertation] is [a reprint /  an adaptation] of the material as it appears in [full bibliographic citation], used with permission from [full name of publisher] [(CC BY 4.0)].

Acknowledging coauthors

Research director as coauthor

If the published material has a coauthor, and if this coauthor is listed by reason of having directed and supervised research which serves as the basis of the thesis/dissertation, the acknowledgments statement should follow this format:

The text of [Chapter # of] this [thesis / dissertation] is [a reprint /  an adaptation] of the material as it appears in [full bibliographic citation], used with permission from [full name of publisher]. The coauthors listed in this publication are [list full names of authors (you may also include their roles)]. [Coauthor Name] directed and supervised research which forms the basis for the [thesis / dissertation].

Coauthors other than research director

If the published material has one or more coauthors other than your research director, be sure to include these names in your Acknowledgments Page statement, using this format:

The text of [Chapter # of] this [thesis / dissertation] is [a reprint /  an adaptation] of the material as it appears in [full bibliographic citation], used with permission from [full name of publisher]. The coauthors listed in this publication are [list full names of authors (you may also include their roles)].

Acknowledging works not yet published

It is not required that you acknowledge previous works that have not yet been published. However, it is good scholarly practice to include a statement acknowledging the contributions of any coauthors. Please follow the format in the Acknowledging coauthors section, indicating the current status of the work at the time you deposit your manuscript (e.g. "under review" or "in press") and including as much bibliographic information as possible (e.g. article title and name of publication).

If you intend to include any material that has been formally committed to future publication (whether the material is authored by you or someone else), you must submit with your manuscript a letter from that publisher giving you permission to include the material. The letter must indicate the year of publication and the name of the author or publisher who will hold the copyright.

Include a statement acknowledging permission received on your Acknowledgments Page.