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Thesis / Dissertation Formatting Manual

This guide contains information about the formatting and submission of your graduate thesis or dissertation research project.

UCI Open Access Service

It is the policy of the University of California that dissertations and theses be published and made available for public access. Electronic copies of all UCI theses and dissertations submitted to the ETD system will be routed to the UCI Libraries shortly after the formatting of your manuscript has been accepted. The Libraries will preserve and make accessible to the public all theses and dissertations submitted electronically, in accordance with the Libraries policies and best practices. This includes publishing theses and dissertations online through the University of California’s open access repository eScholarship. 

Providing such access increases the availability and dissemination of your work at no charge to you, a benefit ProQuest will provide only for a fee. If you do not wish for your work to be published immediately in eScholarship, you may request an embargo. If approved, the Libraries will honor the embargo and provide access to the dissertation and or thesis only when the embargo period concludes. 

All students who submit an ETD must complete and sign the “Open Access” agreement form, which can be found as part of the Ph.D. Form II/Signature Page and Master’s Thesis signature page listed Consent and Release.

Students may still submit their thesis or dissertation in paper rather than as an ETD. Paper theses and dissertations are not made available in eScholarship.

Embargoes

The UC Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations requires immediate release of doctoral dissertations and master's theses.

 

If you plan to publish your work elsewhere, you can request that ProQuest or the UCI Libraries withhold your manuscript for a period of 6 months or 1-6 years. This is requesting an embargo, and it means that your manuscript will not be cataloged for the UC Irvine Libraries collection, published online through eScholarship, nor published by ProQuest in their databases until after the embargo period concludes.

Upon extraordinary circumstances (such as high legal or safety risk to the graduate student), an indefinite embargo may be granted for as long as such extraordinary circumstances exist pursuant to Section IV of the UC Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations.

If you are submitting your dissertation electronically, the ETD system provides you with the options of requesting an embargo of 6 months or 1-6 years. If you are submitting in paper, you may request an embargo of up to 6 years on the Ph.D. Form II/Signature page or Master's Thesis Signature page with no memo required.