phd dissertation copyright

• Dissertation Copyright
• Dissertation Embargo Guidelines
• Dissertation Templates
• ETD Administrator
• Formatting FAQs
• Sample Dissertation Title Page

Copyrighting your Dissertation

In the United States, you automatically own the copyright in your original creative authorship, such as your dissertation, once it is fixed in a tangible form ( i.e. , written down or recorded). United States law does not require you to include a copyright notice on your dissertation or to  formally register  with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to secure copyright protection over your work. However, there are some benefits to including a copyright notice and registering your work. See the  Copyright Guide  for more information or to schedule a consultation.

Including a Copyright Page in your Dissertation

Including a copyright page in your dissertation is optional but recommended. For details on how to format the copyright page, consult the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist .

Using Your Own Previously Published Material in Your Dissertation

University of Pennsylvania  policy  allows you to include your own previously published work or articles submitted for publication as part of the dissertation with the following conditions:

• You must obtain approval of the dissertation committee and Graduate Group Chairperson.
• You must obtain written permission from the copyright owner, which may be the journal, publisher, and/or any co-authors, unless you are the sole copyright holder (depends on your publishing agreement).
• You must upload any permission letters in ETD Administrator as an  Administrative Document  titled “Permission Letter – Do Not Publish.”
• For dissertations based on joint work with other researchers, a unique and separate dissertation must be presented by each degree candidate. You must include a concise account of your unique contribution to the joint work, and remainder of the dissertation must be authored solely by you. Authorship of an entire dissertation by more than one degree candidate is not allowed.
• Your dissertation must be formatted as a single document with consistent formatting and styles throughout. If you are using multiple previously published articles, make sure to make the formatting consistent with the rest of the document.

When using previously published or in press work, you must disclose this information in your dissertation in the following format :

• Under the Chapter title, list the full citation for the previously published/in-press article in the citation style used in your Bibliography.
• If it is a jointly authored article, describe your contribution to the work in a separate sentence.

Using Other Copyrighted Material in Your Dissertation

If you use third party copyrighted material (images, quotations, datasets, figures), you are responsible for re-use of that material (see the  Policy on Unauthorized Copying of Copyrighted Media ). In many cases, you may be able to use copyrighted material under the “ fair use ” provision of U.S. copyright law. Consult the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist  for information on how to submit written permission from a copyright holder. Typically, you will need to request a permission letter and upload the letter as an  Administrative Document  in  ETD Administrator .

If you still have questions regarding copyright and “fair use” refer to the  Penn Libraries Copyright Guide  or email  [email protected]  for further support.

Patent and Intellectual Property

Any inventions that you make as part of your research for your degree and disclosed as part of your dissertation, and any patent or other intellectual property rights arising therefrom, are governed by the policies of the University of Pennsylvania, including the  Patent and Tangible Research Property Policies and Procedures  and  Policy Relating to Copyrights and Commitment of Effort for Faculty.  For more information, please contact the  Penn Center for Innovation .

There are strict deadlines under U.S. and international law regarding the timing for filing patent applications and the public availability of your dissertation. Contact the  Penn Center for Innovation  to discuss whether there might be a patentable invention disclosed in your dissertation prior to deposit of your dissertation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do i have copyright over my dissertation .

Yes. According to US Copyright law, you have copyright immediately and automatically over any of your new, original works in a “fixed, tangible form” ( i.e. , written down, recorded, etc.). You do not need to register or to include a copyright symbol © or any other formal marks to secure your copyright, though there are some benefits to doing so. See the  Copyright Guide  for more information or email  [email protected]  for further support.

Should I register the copyright in my dissertation with the U.S. Copyright Office? 

It depends on what you want to do with your dissertation. There are  some benefits to registering the copyright  in your dissertation depending on your future goals. However, keep in mind that you automatically have copyright over your dissertation without formally registering. To learn more about formally registering the copyright in your dissertation, see the  Copyright Guide  or schedule a consultation.  

Should I pay ProQuest to register my copyright?

Note that you already have copyright over your dissertation, but if you would like to  formally register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office , you can pay ProQuest to do it for you (you will have the option in ETD Administrator). For less cost, you can register it yourself on the  copyright.gov  web page. Information on registering your copyright is available in the  Copyright Guide . Please keep in mind that if portions of your dissertation are comprised of previously published co-authored material,  you cannot  register your copyright through ProQuest. 

What is a Creative Commons license?

A copyright license grants permission for someone else to use your copyrighted work.  A  Creative Commons  license is one type of copyright license. It works hand in hand with your copyright. It is not an independent type of copyright. By using a Creative Commons license you are telling the world under what circumstances they are able to use your work without asking your permission each and every time.  You can only add a Creative Commons license to your work if you are the copyright holder, and have not transferred your rights to someone else (like a publisher).

You may choose to apply a Creative Commons license to your dissertation by adding it to the copyright notice page; see the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  for an example. V isit the  Creative Commons website  to review all the licenses in full detail and select one that fits your needs. 

Refer to the  Services for Authors Guide  or  schedule a consultation  to learn more about using a Creative Commons license on your dissertation.

I want to use copyrighted materials in my dissertation. Is that okay?

It depends. If the materials you wish to incorporate into your dissertation are copyrighted, you will need to do a  fair use analysis  for each item you use to determine if you can proceed without getting permission. If you do not feel that you can make a good “fair use” case, you will need to  request permission  from the copyright holder and provide all permission letters as  Administrative Documents  in ETD Administrator. Just because you are using the work for educational purposes does not automatically mean that your work is “fair use” or that you have permission to use the work.  Request a consultation  to learn more about fair use and other copyright considerations.

I want to use my own previously published materials in my dissertation. Is that okay?

It depends. If the materials you may wish to incorporate into your dissertation are published in a journal or other publication, you may need to seek permission from the journal, publisher, or any co-authors. These permission letters must be uploaded as supplementary material in ETD Administrator before the deposit date. Please refer to your publication agreement for further information.

Additionally, using previously published materials as part of your dissertation requires approval of the dissertation committee and Graduate Group Chairperson.

I would like to know more about publishing, copyright, open access, and other/related issues. How can I find out more?

The Penn Libraries offers a range of workshops and presentations on these topics (and other digital skills related topics)  throughout the year . Groups can request a number of these workshops for classes or other group settings. For personal discussions about copyright, fair use, Creative Commons, scholarly publishing, and other related topics, please  contact your subject librarian  for support and further referrals. For more general information about these and related topics, review the  Penn Libraries’ guides  by keyword or subject.

Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• « Thesis & Dissertation Resources
• The Graduate School Home
• Introduction
• Copyright Page
• Dedication, Acknowledgements, Preface (optional)
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Symbols
• Non-Traditional Formats
• Font Type and Size
• Spacing and Indentation
• Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• Formatting Previously Published Work
• Internet Distribution
• Open Access

Registering Copyright

Using copyrighted materials.

• Use of Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Submission Steps
• Submission Checklist
• Sample Pages

IV. Copyrighting

A copyright is an intangible right granted to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, under which they are invested for a limited period with the sole, exclusive privilege of making copies and publishing and selling them.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. There is no requirement that the work be published or registered to obtain protection under copyright law. The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work, unless it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written agreement.

Receipt of a submitted and approved thesis or dissertation in The Graduate School results in the publication of the document by the University Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. As such, each student grants the University a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce the student's work, in whole or in part, in electronic form to be posted in the University Library database and made available to the general public at no charge. This does not mean that UNC-Chapel Hill owns the copyright to your work (you do), but the University has the right to reproduce and distribute your work. Public universities often require students to allow reproduction and distribution of academic work to support the dissemination of intellectual thought and discovery. Please review the Copyright Policy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for additional information.

Regardless of whether or not you register copyright for your thesis or dissertation, UNC-Chapel Hill requires that you include a copyright notice following the title page. See Section I of this Guide and the sample copyright page for the format of this notice. Including this page helps to establish that you are the owner of the work. It also protects you, as the copyright holder, from anyone claiming innocent infringement or unintentional violation of copyright.

You may wish to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. As mentioned above, copyright registration is not a condition to copyright protection. There are, however, advantages to registration, especially if you have a claim of infringement of your copyright. Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright, but there are advantages to filing for registration within three months of publication. For more information on registration, consult the website of the U.S. Copyright Office .

There are two main ways for you to file for copyright of your thesis or dissertation:

• You may empower ProQuest to file the application on your behalf. When you submit your thesis or dissertation, ProQuest charges a fee for this service ($55, subject to change). The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress.
• Alternately, you may file for copyright directly. Visit the following U.S. Copyright website for more information about registering your work . There is a copyright fee for filing copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office ($35, subject to change).

Any copyrighted materials used in your work, beyond brief excerpts, may be used only with the written permission of the copyright owner. Book and journal publishers normally hold the copyright for all materials they publish. Therefore, even if you are the sole or one of several authors of material in a published book or journal, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder if you are including this material in your document. Remember that use of reproductions or excerpts of other media, such as music, graphic images, or computer software may also require permissions.

Your letter to the copyright holder needs to make clear that you seek written permission to preserve (on microfilm and digitally) and publish (in print and digital form) your thesis or dissertation through ProQuest and that ProQuest may sell, on demand, for scholarly purposes, single copies of your work, which includes the copyright holder's material. Your letter must also seek written permission for the document to be submitted in electronic format to UNC-Chapel Hill where it will be placed in a database and made available through the University Library to the general public at no charge via the Internet.

You are responsible for securing all necessary permissions and paying any permission fees in advance of using copyrighted materials in your work.

Use of Your Own Previously Published Material

Some academic programs permit you to include articles or other materials that you have previously published, that have been accepted (or submitted, in press, or under review) for publication, or that have been otherwise presented to the public within the body of your thesis or dissertation. In all such instances the following guidelines apply:

• If the material is co-authored, your academic program must approve its inclusion in your thesis or dissertation.
• If the material is copyrighted (if you are the sole author but the copyright is held by the publisher), you must fulfill the conditions specified in the section above on using copyrighted materials .
• The material, if included in the body of your text, must conform to all formatting guidelines outlined in this Guide. See the Formatting Previously Published Work section for details.

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Fair use, copyright, patent, and publishing options.

• Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?
• Embargo of online copies
• Creative Commons license
• Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?
• Register for copyright?
• Supplementary materials
• Make your work discoverable on search engines?
• Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

1. Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?

You are responsible for acknowledging any facts, ideas, or materials of others that you include in your work. You must follow the guidelines for acknowledging the work of others in the “Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others” (published in the Policy Notebook for the Cornell Community ) .

If you use any copyrighted material in the dissertation or thesis, it is your responsibility to give full credit to the author and publisher of work quoted. The acknowledgment should be placed in a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the paper or chapter. Additionally, you must determine whether use of the material can be classified as a “fair use” by performing an analysis of your use of each copyrighted item. The Cornell Copyright Information Center’s Fair Use Checklist ) is a helpful tool for performing this analysis. (See also, Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities , published by ProQuest, or The Chicago Manual of Style , published by the University of Chicago Press.)

If your use of material is not considered a “fair use,” you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Two copies of each permission letter must be submitted with the dissertation or thesis. ProQuest has specific requirements for the content of the permission letter. For these guidelines, consult the ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement form (published by ProQuest).

If you have already published or had accepted for publication part of your own dissertation or thesis material in a journal, depending on the terms of your publication agreement, it may be necessary to write to that journal and obtain written authorization to use the material in your dissertation.

2. Embargo of online copies

The value of your dissertation extends well beyond your graduation requirements. It’s important that you make an informed decision about providing online access, via ProQuest and eCommons, to your work. This decision can expand the visibility and impact of your work, but it can also shape the options available to you for publishing subsequent works based on your dissertation.

ProQuest’s ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database indexes almost all dissertations published in the U.S. and provides subscription access online to the full text of more recent dissertations. ProQuest also sells print copies of dissertations, paying royalties to authors, when they exceed a minimum threshold. Authors retain copyright in the works they submit to ProQuest.

eCommons is a service of the Cornell University Library that provides long-term, online access to Cornell-related content of enduring value. Electronic theses and dissertations deposited in eCommons, unless subject to embargo, are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. When submitting to eCommons, you retain copyright in your work. Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses submitted to ProQuest are automatically submitted to eCommons, subject to the same embargo you select for ProQuest.

Electronic copies of dissertations in PQDT or eCommons may be made accessible immediately upon submission or after an embargo period of six months, one year, or two years. You may wish to consider an embargo period which helps address publishers’ interests in being the first to publish scholarly books or articles, while also ensuring that scholarship is accessible to the general public within a reasonable period of time. Your decision should be made in consultation with your special committee.

3. Creative Commons license

Creative Commons licenses provide authors with a straightforward and standardized means of prospectively granting certain permissions to potential users of the author’s material. Authors may request proper attribution, permit copying and the creation of derivative works, request that others share derivative works under the same terms, and allow or disallow commercial uses. Authors may even choose to place their works directly into the public domain. You will have the option of selecting a Creative Commons license when you upload your dissertation or thesis to ProQuest, and your choice will automatically be applied to the copy of your work in eCommons.

4. Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?

Cornell University Policy 1.5 governs inventions and related property rights. Inventions made by faculty, staff, and students must be disclosed to the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University (CTL). Theses and dissertations describing patentable research should be withheld from publication, in order to avoid premature public disclosure.

Use the delayed release (embargo) option if a patent application is or will be in process, noting the reason for the delay as “patent pending.” If you have any questions, please contact Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing at 607-254-4698 or [email protected] .

5. Register for copyright?

Copyright law involves many complex issues that are relevant to you as a graduate student, both in protecting your own work and in referencing the work of others. Discussion of copyright in this publication is not meant to substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys. A more detailed discussion of copyright law can be found in the publication from ProQuest entitled Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth D. Crews.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form and the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is not required to secure copyright; rather it is a legal formality to place on public record the basic facts of a particular copyright. Although not a condition of copyright protection itself, registering the copyright is ordinarily necessary before any infringement suits can be filed in court.

To register a copyright for your dissertation or thesis, register online or download printable forms . You may also request forms by mail from the Information Section, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20559, or contact them by telephone at 202-707-3000.

Doctoral candidates: You may authorize ProQuest to file, on your behalf, an application for copyright registration. This option will be presented to you as part of the submission process.

6. Supplementary materials

If supplementary materials (audio, video, datasets, etc., up to 2GB per file) are part of your thesis or dissertation, you may submit them as supplementary files during the online submission process. For help selecting long-lived file formats, note ProQuest’s guidance in their document, “Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission (Including Supplemental Files).” File formats for which ProQuest does not guarantee migration may still have a high likelihood of preservation in Cornell’s digital repository; please see the eCommons help page for further guidance.

Do not embed media files in the PDF version of your thesis or dissertation, as this can significantly increase the size of the file and make it difficult to download and access. Include a description of each supplementary file in the abstract of your thesis or dissertation. You may include an additional supplementary file containing more detailed information about the supplementary materials as a “readme” file or other form of documentation; this is particularly advisable for data sets or code. The Research Data Management Service Group ( [email protected] ) offers assistance in preparing and documenting data sets for online distribution.

7. Make your work discoverable on search engines?

ProQuest offers authors the option of making their graduate work discoverable through major search engines including Yahoo, Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books. If you chose the Search Engine option on their dissertation “paper” publishing agreement or within ProQuest’s PROQUEST ETD Administrator (electronic submission service), you can expect to have your work appear in the major search engines.

If you change your mind and do not want your work to be made available through search engines, you can contact customer service at [email protected] or 800-521-0600 ext. 77020. In addition, if you did not initially adopt this option but now want your works made available through this service, contact the customer service group to change your selection.

Please note that search engines index content in eCommons, regardless of the choice you make for ProQuest.

8. Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

When creating a PDF version of your thesis or dissertation it is important to keep in mind that readers may use assistive technology such as screen readers to access your document.  Follow best practices to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is accessible to everyone.  These resources may be helpful:

• Cornell CIT’s guidance for creating accessible PDFs
• Checking accessibility using Acrobat Pro
• Embedding alternative text for images in Word
• Save a Word doc as an accessible PDF

Graduate Thesis Submission Guide

• Thesis Guide
• Formatting Requirements
• Submitting Your Thesis
• Managing References
• Database Pro Tips
• Avoiding Plagiarism This link opens in a new window
• Discoverability, Embargo, and the Scholarly Conversation
• Open Access Images
• Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials
• Thesis Collection This link opens in a new window

Copyright and Your Thesis

Respecting copyright — and understanding the basics of copyrighted-related issues — is an important aspect of your thesis-writing process and an issue that will continue to arise throughout your academic and creative career. We know copyright can be intimidating and hard to make sense of: after all, discussions of copyright often stray into complex legal, creative, and ethical terrain. While it isn't necessary for you to be a copyright expert, it is essential that you understand copyright issues as they relate to including and referencing the work(s) of others in your thesis. 

With that in mind, here are our overarching recommendations as you consider which third party materials to include in your thesis: 

• Use open access works and/or works covered by Creative Commons Licenses
• Ensure your use of copyrighted materials counts as "fair use" (in other words, repurpose, reinterpret, or otherwise "transform" the copyrighted work in question)
• Request permission for copyrighted works
• Remove potentially problematic materials entirely from your thesis

We recommend you follow the above guidelines in the order that they're listed ; that is, seek out open access works first to avoid any potential copyright infringements. If you are unable to do so, seek fair use for copyrighted materials. If each of these strategies is unsuccessful, your last resort may be to request permission for copyrighted work[s], or to remove problematic third party content from your thesis entirely if this option fails. The following three subpages — Open Access Images, Fair Use, and Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials — breaks each of these issues down into greater detail. 

• Image Use and Copyright for your Thesis (Slides)

Why Does Copyright Matter?

For the purposes of your thesis, you don't need to be an expert in copyright law. However, understanding the major issues and questions around copyright will help you make informed decisions about your thesis and protect it from copyright challenges once it's published. Understanding and respecting copyright is also about giving credit where it's due, an essential aspect of Pratt's Academic Integrity Policy . So while respecting copyright has to do with protecting your thesis from infringement challenges, on a deeper level it also has to do with pursuing your academic and creative work with integrity and acknowledgement of other's contributions.

The following excerpt from Kenneth Crews' article  Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis  summarizes this sentiment well: 

" Finishing your dissertation is exhausting and gratifying. You have invested countless days of research, followed by hours of writing late into the night. You made exciting breakthroughs, and you aspire to a career of further research. You probably did not expect to indulge in copyright at this stage of your study. However, attention to copyright can help avoid pitfalls and reveal opportunities to further your scholarly goals. Given the way that the law operates, copyright law most certainly protects your dissertation as well as the quotations, photographs, music, diagrams, and many other works that you have included in your doctoral study. The decisions you make about copyright can directly affect the quality of your work, your ability to publish your dissertation, and your opportunities for building upon your years of research throughout your career. Attending to the fundamentals of copyright can be important for your scholarship, regardless of your discipline or field of expertise ." (Crews, 2013). 

Copyright Checklist

The following checklist — also summarized from Kenneth Crews' article — should be referred to throughout the process of researching and writing your thesis. Though you might be tempted to put these considerations off until later, remember: any preparation or planning done early on will make things much easier as you get closer to submitting your thesis.  

• Do a thorough sweep or your thesis draft and identify all third-party materials you plan to include in your final project. Common third party materials include images, sources from the Web, and long quotations (over 1.5 pages, single-spaced) from published works. 
• Ask yourself, " Are any of these materials open access ?" If yes, they have no copyright restrictions.
• Ask, " Does my inclusion of this material count as fair use ?" 
• Ask, " Do any of these materials have Creative Commons Licenses ?" Creative Commons Licenses allow for free distribution of otherwise copyrighted works (with proper attribution).  
• For any materials that don't meet the above conditions, ask, " Do I have permission to use these ?" If not, refer to the "Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials" page of this guide. 
• Ask, " Am I including any materials that I've created but that have been previously published elsewhere ?" Even if you are the original author of these materials, you will need permission to include them in your thesis. 

Resources and Further Reading

We've provided relevant excerpts from these resources throughout this guide, and have also included them in their entirety below for you to review.  

• ProQuest Copyright Guide The following guide by ProQuest offers guidelines for avoiding copyright infringement and introduces the kinds of materials or sources that require copyright permissions. This document also includes a sample Permission Form and instructions to follow when requesting permission from copyright owners.
• ProQuest - Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis This article by Kenneth Crews offers a more extensive overview of copyright and its significance, before discussing the fundamentals of copyright — both protecting your own and respecting others' — as they relate to your thesis. Though not required reading, Crews' article has a wealth of useful information that will strengthen your understanding of copyright as you research and write your thesis.
• Pratt Institute Academic Integrity Policy Copyright issues directly relate to Pratt's Academic Integrity Policy, as each stress the importance of crediting and acknowledging the contributions other writers, artists, and thinkers have made to your work. "Giving credit where it's due" is a central aspect of academic integrity and an essential element of your thesis.
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• Last Updated: Apr 9, 2024 10:43 AM
• URL: https://libguides.pratt.edu/thesisguide

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Graduate Studies

Thesis and dissertation deposit information resources, should i copyright my dissertation.

Paul Royster , University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow

Paul Royster

Date of this Version

1. Your dissertation (and any other creative work) is already automatically copyright in your name as soon as it assumes "fixed form," i.e., as soon as it is written. It's publication (or deposit) in ProQuest's dissertations database or in the UNL DigitalCommons provides an independently verified date of record. So— No, you do not need to copyright your dissertation; that happens already automatically.

2. ProQuest asks if my dissertation is already or previously copyrighted. What does that mean? Do I answer yes or no? Sometimes, on rare occasions, a graduate degree is awarded based on a document that has already been published (and copyrighted) before it is deposited as an official dissertation. If that is the case, answer "yes." Otherwise (and normally), the answer should be "no."

3. ProQuest asks if I wish for them to register the copyright in my dissertation; what does that mean? Copyrights can be (but are not required to be) "registered" with the U.S. Copyright Office. This used to be required to get the protection of copyright for the full term, but that is no longer the case. Copyright belongs to the author automatically for the full 95-year term (currently) whether it is registered or not. What is the point of registering? If you find someone has infringed on your copyright and you want to sue them and collect monetary damages, you can only collect damages back to the date of the official registration. You can stop them from infringing, but you cannot collect damages for infringement that happened prior to the registration date. Is there a cut-off for registering? No, you can register your copyright at any time. You can register copyright yourself: Basic registration fee is $35 if done online, $65 if done on paper. ProQuest's charge for doing it for you at the time of deposit is $75. The United States Copyright Office is @ http://www.copyright.gov/ Registration, however, does not guarantee a work's copyright. For example, the Copyright Office might register your claim to copyright of a document that is actually taken from other (already copyrighted) sources or material that is legally in the public domain. In order for copyright to be valid, the material has to be legally subject to copyright, and registration does nothing for that one way or another.

So, should I have ProQuest register copyright for me? Short answer: for an academic dissertation, probably not. ( But it's your money; better to spend it on that than to blow it on drugs, tattoos, and Nicki Minaj downloads. )

Since November 30, 2012

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Copyright on Campus: Theses & Dissertations

• Introduction
• Copyright Law Basics
• Public Domain
• Theses & Dissertations
• Author Rights
• Showing Movies in Class and on Campus
• Copyright & Data Management
• Copyright in Special Collections
• Open Education

Publisher Policies

Students often receive mixed messages when it comes to including a published paper in a dissertation, or publishing from the dissertation beyond graduation. Both of these scenarios are common and familiar to publishers, but there might be specific guidelines or requirements such as:

• Be transparent. Include a brief explanation when you submit your publication. More often, journals use plagiarism detection software; letting them know your work is out there and publicly available will help sidestep any questions.
• Include a citation to the published work in your thesis or dissertation, and/or a citation to the thesis/dissertation in the resulting publication.
• Specific rules for formatting.
• Resource: Publisher Policies MIT Libraries has compiled a list of major publishers with links to relevant policies

Reusing Material

Theses and dissertations often use charts, graphs, images, and quotes from other journal articles, books, or websites. When doing this, be aware that most content is protected by copyright, though it's likely fine for you to use these materials if you can do one of the following:

• Use public domain content. If you are including factual data presented in a straightforward way (e.g., a simple bar graph or pie chart showing the results of an experiment), it's very likely the figure does not meet the minimum threshold for creatively and is not protected by copyright.
• Use openly licensed content. Open access journal articles and books, as well as other media labeled with a Creative Commons license, 
• Decide your use is "fair." Fair use is a specific provision within U.S. Copyright Law that allows for limited use of in-copyright material without seeking permission. In general, quotations from the work of others should be no longer than is necessary to support the scholarly point you wish to make. In the case of images, you should be sure that the pictures you reproduce are closely tied to your research goals and are each made the subject of specific scholarly comment. More on fair use .
• If you're not sure about relying on fair use, you can often seek permission. Most of the time, this means navigating to the publisher's website or a journal article page and finding a link to "rights" or "permissions." Many publishers allow graduate students to use content without charge, with the understanding that if you publish your work formally in future, you may need to obtain permission again and pay a fee. It's a good idea to get permission in writing, but even an email is sufficient.

From Dissertation to Publication - FAQ on Your Rights as Author

Who owns the copyright of a thesis or dissertation?

You do! The copyright of a thesis or dissertation belongs to you as the author. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, works are automatically copyrighted at the moment they are fixed in a tangible form, including residing on your computer's hard drive. You continue to own that copyright until you transfer it to another party.  A transfer of copyright must be in writing.  If parts of a work have already been published and copyright in those other works was transferred to someone else (e.g. a publisher), copyright of those parts remains with whom it was transferred to.

Who owns copyright in work produced as part of a team or in a lab?

Whenever a group undertakes a project or research, it is best to have a discussion up front, including the faculty advisor or chair, to clarify how copyright, patents and other intellectual property will be managed and who will retain and manage rights for all portions of the project. Be sure to consider not only publications arising from the project, but also data sets, software, websites, user interfaces, specifications, and any other outputs. It is always best to make sure that faculty make clear to graduate students and others working for them how research outputs will be owned or used in order to avoid confusion. In circumstances where grant funds or University funding is significantly invested in the project or research, other ownership interests may be at play, which should be discussed and understood.

Do I need to register my copyright?

You do not need to register with the Copyright Office in order to enjoy copyright protection. Such protection is automatic, coming into effect at the moment a work is fixed in a tangible form. However, registration has certain advantages.  First, if your work is registered you have strong evidence that you are the author of the work and the owner of its copyright. Also, registration is necessary to enforce a copyright against an infringer or plagiarist. For full detail, read the U.S. Copyright Office circular " Copyright Basics ". The benefits of registration are outlined on Page 7.

Registration can be completed online directly (for a fee of $45) through the Copyright Office website  or through ProQuest (for a fee of $55) who will register the copyright for you and in your name.

Can I use previously published articles of my own in my work?

It depends. You will need to review the agreement you signed with the publisher of our previously published article. Most agreements require you to transfer your copyright to the publisher. If this is the case, you must request permission from the publisher to "reprint" the article as a chapter in your dissertation. However, some agreements specify that you retain the right to reprint the article in your dissertation. The chart below details several publishers' policies with respect to reusing your own previously published work in a thesis or dissertation; however, you should always review the terms of any agreement you signed.

Why do I have two publishing agreements to review and sign, and what do I need to understand about them?

University of Florida dissertations are distributed by both ProQuest/UMI and the UF Libraries. Both will make your work available and preserve it for the future (ProQuest through its Dissertations and Theses database and print sales if you choose to allow that, and the UF Libraries through its institutional repository, the IR@UF ). In return for those services, both ProQuest and the UF Libraries require you to certify that the work is your own and that you are not infringing the rights of others. These agreements also provide a mechanism for all parties to recognize your rights as an author.  

Please note, by signing these agreements you still retain copyright, including the right to publish your work; the licenses you give to ProQuest/UMI and to the UF Libraries does not preclude publishing any part of your dissertation in another form or prevent you from transferring your copyright to some other party at a later date. A license is a permission you give to others to use your work in ways that would otherwise not be permitted by copyright law; they are not a transfer of your copyright.

The agreement with UF Libraries requires that you give a license to UF to put your dissertation in the IR@UF and distribute it in a way that allows other scholars to read it and use it for non-commercial purposes, as long as they do not make changes to your work and always give you credit. This license is designed to enable scholarship and to protect you from plagiarism. The agreement with ProQuest/UMI  grants ProQuest the non-exclusive right to reproduce and disseminate your work according to the conditions you elect in the agreement, including whether to make your work available after a specified embargo period and whether to make it available open access. 

Both publishing agreements allow students to elect to make their dissertations available immediately or after a specific limited period of time known as an embargo. An embargo may be appropriate and desired when a student wants to allow time to explore publishing part of it in other forms, if the dissertation contains material for which a patent might be sought, or if it includes other sensitive or confidential information.

What is open access, and how does it apply to my thesis or dissertation?

Articles, books, theses and dissertations are said to be "open access" when they are "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions." By making publications open access, the widest sharing of ideas and research results is made possible, which is generally done either by publishing in open access journals or depositing them in open access repositories such as PubMed Central, arXiv, or the IR@UF. University of Florida policy is for all new dissertations to be available open access through the IR@UF, either immediately or after an embargo period. 

Will journal or book publishers consider publishing my work if it is based on an open access thesis or dissertation?

Recent surveys  show that a majority of journal editors and university presses would accept submissions of articles and book manuscripts that were based upon theses or dissertations, even if they are available in an open access repository. This is in part because most publishers consider theses and dissertations to be "student work" that will require substantial editing and revision before being published in article or book form. The chart below summarizes the policies of some publishers regarding the publication of new works from a thesis or dissertation.

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Copyright for Graduate Students: Theses and Dissertations

• Public Domain
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Obtaining Copyright Permission
• International Materials
• State and Federal Governmental Materials
• University Policies on Copyright
• Depositing Your Dissertation/Thesis in IDEALS

Copyright Questions?

Copyright law can be difficult and confusing. This webpage is meant to provide you with guidance, but not legal advice.

Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to ask Sara Benson, the Copyright Librarian, for assistance. Sara can be reached at 217-333-4200 or [email protected]

Scholarly Communication and Publishing

Some Copyright Ground Rules

• General Concepts
• What Does Copyright Protect?
• A work created today (or, more specifically, after 1989) is protected under copyright  as soon as it’s created  and is (generally) protected for the lifetime of the creator, plus 70 years (could be even longer for some works).
• There is no special symbol  (such as the copyright symbol) necessary on the protected work since 1989--it is protected simply because someone created it and wrote it down or recorded it.
• If more than one person created a work, they might be  joint owners of a work  (see "Copyright Ownership" on the right).
• When copyright expires, the work becomes  public domain .
• Ideas can’t be copyrighted, only the tangible expression in a fixed medium of the idea can.  
• Facts can't be copyrighted, either.
• You may use any copyrighted material under the  “ fair use ”  doctrine, within fair use guidelines.
• If something  looks copyrighted, assume it is.
• Copyright protects an author's right to reproduce (copy), distribute (license), make derivatives of the work, publicly display and perform the work
• This means that if you wish to make a copy of a copyrighted work (unless it is considered a  " fair use ")  you must  get permission  from the owner of the work
• You also generally cannot publicly display a copyrighted work (say a movie or work of art) unless you have permission to do so or a recognized  "copyright exception"  exists

Copyright Ownership

• The Author Is The Initial Owner
• Ownership Can Be Assigned or Transferred
• Works Can Be Made Available Under Terms More Favorable Than Copyright Allows
• Joint Ownership of A Copyrighted Work

If you wrote an essay or article, you are the owner of that article unless and until you contract away your rights (such as in a publishing agreement).

Giving away the bundle of rights that constitute copyright is often called a grant. If the transfer is exclusive it has to be in writing. In books/articles, this usually occurs in a publishing agreement.

The Creative Commons has developed a series of licenses that allows copyright holders to retain control over their works, but still make them available under terms more favorable than copyright allows.  Essentially, under the creative commons licenses, owners of copyright have allowed others to use their work with certain limitations specified in the creative commons license.

More information about the  creative commons  license is available on their website at  www.creativecommons.org .

 A work is considered joint if it meets these conditions:

both or all the authors intend that their contributions be merged into a single work;

this intention exists at the time of creation of the work.

No written contract is necessary to create a joint work. Each author owns an undivided portion of the entire work.  So, one author can grant another person permission to use the work without the agreement of the author author.  The only obligation is to share in any profits received. 

For some additional information about copyright in the music industry, please see the LibGuide on  Copyright Resources for Music .

The Basics of Copyright

Common Questions & Answers

Q: Should I put some sort of copyright notice on my work?

A:  It is wise to do so because even though it is not required, many people misunderstand basic copyright law rules. So, putting a notice on your work will remind others not to use it unless they have an exception applies to general copyright rules or they have obtained your permission first.  

Q:  As long as something is for educational use, I'm not violating copyright laws, right?

A: Unfortunately, no. Although there is a limited exception for face-to-face teaching, not all educational uses of copyrighted works will fall under that exception and fair use is decided on a case-by-case (not a blanket exception) basis.

Q:  How do I know FOR SURE that something is a fair use?

A:  That's a tough one. Unfortunately, it is hard to know when something is a fair use for sure because, ultimately, the court decides fair use cases on a case-by-case basis. Generally, we should exercise our good faith judgment and consider risk assessment when making fair use determinations.  But, this does not mean that we shouldn't exercise our fair use rights.  We should do so in a considered way.

Q: What role does licensing play in specific copyright questions?

A: A very large role. Essentially, you can contract away (through licensing) any of your copyright rights. So, for instance, if I write a journal article but if I assign my copyright entirely to the journal publisher, then I no longer have any right to share my article either publicly or privately without the permission of the journal.

The content for this page originated with the School of Music's Copyright LibGuide .  

Except where otherwise indicated, original content in this guide is licensed under a   Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license . You are free to share, adopt, or adapt the materials. We encourage broad adoption of these materials for teaching and other professional development purposes, and invite you to customize them for your own needs.

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Dissertations, Doctoral Projects, and Theses: Copyright

Who owns copyright in my dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis after it is published in digitalgeorgetown and proquest.

You own the copyright in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis from the moment it is fixed in a tangible form, such as saved as a digital file. Nothing in the submission process to ProQuest or DigitalGeorgetown changes the ownership status of your work. As the copyright owner, you have the exclusive right to copy and distribute your work. When you submit your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis, you will grant limited rights to Georgetown University and ProQuest so they can make your work available online.

DigitalGeorgetown

When you sign the Electronic Thesis, Doctoral Project & Dissertation (ETD) Release , you grant a non-exclusive license to Georgetown University to make your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis available online in the University's Institutional Repository, DigitalGeorgetown .

As part of the submission process through the  ProQuest ETD Administrator , you will grant ProQuest a non-exclusive license to make your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis available online in its subscription databases. For a fee, you may choose to make your work available open access on proquest.com .

Do I need to register my copyright?

Registering your copyright with the Copyright Office is not required for your work to be protected by copyright, but it is required if you ever need to enforce your rights through litigation. If you are considering registering your copyright, read more on our Copyright Registration page.

What do I do if I have used materials created by others (text, images, data, charts, etc.) in my work?

While there are unlikely to be any copyright concerns when third-party materials are shared only with your committee, after you submit your work to the Graduate School and it becomes available in DigitalGeorgetown to anyone with internet access, you must consider whether you are infringing any copyrights by making third-party works freely available. Both the DigitalGeorgetown release form and the ProQuest submission form require you to certify that you have obtained any necessary permissions for materials in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis.

If the materials you are using are in the public domain, have a Creative Commons license, or are fair uses, you may use them without permission from the copyright owner. In addition to the pages linked below, you may find our Copyright Videos useful to better understand your rights and responsibilities when using third-party materials in your work.

Public Domain

Materials in the public domain are not protected by copyright law, and therefore may be used freely. “Public domain” has a defined meaning under copyright law and does not mean materials publicly available on the internet. While there are several ways that a work may enter the public domain, the most likely is that copyright protection has expired. For 2022, anything published before 1927 can be used freely. Read more about the public domain on our Public Domain page.

Creative Commons

Some materials have a Creative Commons or other open license that allows materials to be reused with few or no restrictions. For materials found online, check the website’s terms and conditions to see whether the work may be used for noncommercial educational purposes.

Fair use permits the use of limited portions of a third-party work in a new work without permission or license fees. Absent unusual circumstances, properly cited direct quotations in your work will qualify as a fair use. For the use of other works, you will need to analyze the four fair use factors to determine whether your use is fair. Fair use determinations are subjective, fact-specific, and not completely risk-free since users and rights holders may disagree on whether a potential use is fair. To learn more about fair use, visit our Fair Use page.

If there are any materials in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis that are not public domain, Creative Commons, or fair use, you may be able to request permission to use them in your work. To learn more, visit our Requesting Permission page. Another option is to remove the copyrighted material from your work before submitting it through the ProQuest submission portal. You should note where any material in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis was redacted and describe what information has been removed.

Where can I get more information about copyright and my dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis?

• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis (2014) - overview from ProQuest
• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities (2013) - detailed manual by Kenneth Crews
• If you have questions about copyright and your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis, contact [email protected] .
• For questions about DigitalGeorgetown, contact [email protected] .

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Thesis / dissertation formatting manual (2024).

• Filing Fees and Student Status
• Submission Process Overview
• Electronic Thesis Submission
• Paper Thesis Submission
• Formatting Overview
• Fonts/Typeface
• Pagination, Margins, Spacing
• Paper Thesis Formatting
• Preliminary Pages Overview

Copyright Page

• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures (etc.)
• Acknowledgements
• Text and References Overview
• Figures and Illustrations
• Using Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Using Copyrighted Materials by Another Author
• Open Access and Embargoes
• Copyright and Creative Commons
• Ordering Print (Bound) Copies
• Tutorials and Assistance
• FAQ This link opens in a new window

The use of copyright notice is the prerogative of the copyright owner and does not require advance permission from, or registration with, the U.S. Copyright Office. The use of such notice is highly recommended , because it informs the public that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication.

Generally speaking:

• You should include a copyright statement for yourself for this manuscript.
• You must list copyright holders ​if any portion of your manuscript has been previously published (by you or by another author). See  https://guides.lib.uci.edu/gradmanual/previously-published-overview  
• If a copyright statement is not being included, insert a blank page as a substitute. The UCI Libraries strongly recommends that you include a copyright statement.
• Please read the Copyrighted Materials sections (found in the tabs on the left-hand side of this page) for more information.

The notice must contain the following three elements:

• The symbol © (the letter in a circle), or the word "Copyright"
• The year of publication (i.e., the year in which you are filing your manuscript)
• The name of the copyright owner (i.e., your name as it appears on the title page)

Example: © 2015 John Doe

Copyright Page Example

Here is an example Copyright Page if the thesis/dissertation author is the only copyright holder listed.

If you need to list other copyright holders for other material included in your manuscript, those should be listed above your copyright for your graduate manuscript. Here is an example of a copyright page section with multiple copyrights listed:

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Copyright and your PhD thesis

Information on copyright as it relates to your thesis. Please also see page on Copyright and your research publications.

As the author you normally own the copyright in your thesis, apart from any work by others you may have included (e.g., figures, images, quotes). This is the general position at UCL.

There are some possible exceptions to this principle; for example, if you receive external funding for your PhD, in some cases the terms of IP ownership arising from a project may be different. In such cases, you may be asked to assign your IP to UCL, so that UCL manages contractual arrangements on your behalf. 

Please see the Intellectual Property policy and related guidance  for more information.

You may wish to include materials from other people's work in your PhD. These may include quoted text, imagies, tables and graphs. You must exercise caution to avoid the risk of copyright infringement. The starting point is that you need permission to reuse someone else's work. By obtaining permission, you remove any risk. Be sure to retain your email correspondence as evidence that you have permission.

Version of thesis submitted for examination

You may be able to include materials without permission in the version of the thesis you submit for examination. In this case, you may be able to rely on the instruction and examination exception , which allows reuse of materials, as long as the amount is not excessive and as long as you acknowledge the source.

Final version of thesis on UCL Discovery

Following your viva, any corrections and submission of the final copy, your thesis will be publicly available on UCL Discovery . The examination exception will not apply in this case. You may still be able to rely on the quotation exception , which allows you to include limited amounts of materials in your thesis as long as the use is 'fair dealing' and the material included has already been made available to the public. There is no legal definition of "fair dealing" but these pointers may be helpful:

• Keep each quotation as brief as possible.
• Avoid anything which might damage the interests of the copyright owner.
• Ensure you acknowledge authors and sources correctly.

Take extra care when reproducing images. This is less likely to be covered by an exception and more likely to pose copyright issues. It is always safer to seek permission from the copyright owner rather than rely upon an exception.

The size of the audience is a significant factor in copyright risk. It is sometimes necessary to redact (remove) third party material at that stage or to embargo publication on UCL Discovery for copyright reasons.

Check that you still have the right to publish, that you have not already assigned the copyright to someone else or granted someone an exclusive licence.

You should look closely at the small print of any contract rather than rushing to sign and be prepared to negotiate specific clauses. Examine your options before agreeing to assign your copyright to a publisher. If you do decide to assign your copyright, you can still assert your "moral right" to be acknowledged as the author. You could consider striking out any clause which asks you to waive your "moral rights". For more information on publishing and your rights, please see Copyright and your research publications .

Creative Commons licences (CC licences) offer a convenient way of licensing your work for others to reuse when you choose to make your work available online. The CC licences are free to use and there is a choice of licences, some of which are more restrictive than others. Creative Commons licences require that you are acknowledged as the author of the work while licensing others to reuse it within the terms of the specific CC licence.

CC licences can be used to licence many types of content such as text, images, photographs, sound recordings and films. They are commonly used to license the reuse of research papers when the papers are made available under one of the accepted open access publication routes.

When you make your thesis open access on UCL Discovery, the CC BY-NC licence applies by default unless you choose a different option. This licence means that you allow others to download, share and even adapt content from your thesis, for any purpose other than commercial (i.e. not for financial gain or monetary compensation), as long as they acknowledge you as the author and indicate where changes are made. When you submit your thesis you will have the option to choose a more permissive licence (CC BY) or a more restrictive one that does not allow adaptations nor commercial reuse without your permission (CC BY-NC-ND). 

You can read more about CC licences on the Creative Commons website .

In order to avoid issues of self-plagiarism you must make sure that you have cited the original source correctly (your thesis for example) and acknowledged yourself as author. Where possible you should also provide a link. This applies not just to reproducing your own material, but also to ideas which you have previously published elsewhere. There could be different issues other than self-plagiarism. For example, if you are submitting a paper to a journal you should also check with the editor about the acceptability of including part of your thesis. Conversely, if you plan to include your previously published work in your PhD thesis you should check that this is acceptable for examination purposes with your supervisor. There may also be copyright issues to address if you have assigned copyright in your work to a journal publisher.

Please also see related guidance by the UCL Doctoral School .  

Copyright and your thesis: checklist 

When your thesis is made open access in UCL Discovery, anyone can access it via the internet. This is similar to publishing. If your thesis contains material for which you don't own the copyright ("third party copyright"), it is your responsibility to ensure that you have the right to make it available. Below are the steps you need to take.

Identify content where you are not the copyright owner, including:

• Your own published works where you have assigned copyright to a publisher
• Substantial amounts of text from books, journal articles, conference papers, websites, etc.
• Images, photographs, figures, tables or graphs
• Computer programs

This list may not be exhaustive.

Permission is not necessary where:

Your use is covered by a copyright exception

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Section 30 allows extracts to be used without permission as long as the use is "fair dealing" and you stay within the terms of the exception. Anything more than short quotations may not be fair dealing, in which case you will need permission.

Reproducing photographs, images, diagrams and other "artistic works" is less likely to be fair dealing. You should avoid using unique, iconic or high profile artistic works without permission.

A work is out of copyright

In the UK most work is protected for the life of the author plus 70 years. Rather than assuming, make sure that you check that it is really out of copyright. Some older unpublished works remain protected until January 2040. Read this post for more details from the UCL Copyright Blog.

You already have permission

If the third party work is licensed under a Creative Commons licence , or other terms of use (on a website for example) that allow a licensee (you) to make copies available publicly, you do not need permission.

In all other cases, you must seek permission. Otherwise, the copyright holder may ask you to remove your thesis from UCL Discovery or seek financial compensation.

Where you need to seek permission, it is better to start this process at an early stage. This will give you time to contact copyright holders and look for alternative materials if need be. It is better to do this when you are first gathering your research materials which you may wish to include in your thesis. You will have the necessary information to hand.

First identify the copyright holder. You may need to go to the original source. Look for the copyright symbol © followed by the name of the author or publisher. This appears in different places depending on the type of publication:

• Journal and conference papers  - at the bottom of the page or PDF
• Books  - on the reverse of the title page at the front of the book (but there may be separate copyright information next to images)
• Websites  - often at the bottom of the web page or on content-sharing sites such as YouTube or Flickr as part of the information on the specific item.

There is a list of resources to help you with identifying and contacting rights owners in the Copyright resources reading list under the heading: "Seeking Permission and Tracing Ownership".

If you cannot trace the copyright holder, it is important to assess the risk of reproducing the work - they may take legal action for unauthorised use and request financial compensation. You may wish to consider applying for a licence under the Government's Orphan Works scheme as a way of managing your liability.

If the third party work is in copyright, there is no licence or other form of permission and you are not sure that the "fair dealing" exception applies (see step 2) then you must request permission from the copyright holder. You may use the UCL template for seeking permission .

If the copyright holder is a publisher, send your request to the 'rights and permissions' department. It may save time to telephone them first to check you have the right department or email address. Do not leave this to the end of your writing-up period as publishers can take a long time to reply. If there is no reply, contact them again after 2-4 weeks.

Keep a copy of all request letters and replies.

It is important to store and organise all your documentation relating to permissions requests, such as letters and emails, for future reference.

If a publisher requires a fee for permission and you do not wish to pay it, or if they refuse permission, you must remove that content from the version of your thesis that will be made open access. Replace it with a reference or description and provide a link (URL) to the original work, if possible. You will then need to deposit two versions of your thesis in UCL's Research Publications Service (RPS): a complete version, and the version without the third party material.

Where permission has been granted, cite and reference the extract and add a statement next to the content, for example,." Image reproduced with permission of the rights holder, Springer. "

Copyright for PhD students booklet

This guide is aimed at UCL research students and is relevant to PhD, MA and undergraduate dissertations.

• University of Michigan Library
• Research Guides

Copyright for Dissertations

• Using Others' Content
• Copyright in Your Dissertation
• Publishing Your Dissertation

Copyright Questions?

The University of Michigan Library Copyright Office provides help with copyright questions for University of Michigan faculty, staff and students. Please email us with questions or visit our website for more information.

Legal Advice

The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have specific legal questions pertaining to the University of Michigan, please contact the Office of the General Counsel .

If you require legal advice in your personal capacity, the lawyer referral services operated by the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan may be helpful to you.

Using Third-Party Materials in Your Dissertation

If you use materials (such as text, images, sound recordings, etc.) created by a third party in your dissertation, you need to consider whether copyright law allows your use of those materials. In some cases, even reusing your own published articles can raise copyright concerns, if you have transferred your copyright to someone else, like your publisher. Even when copyright permits your use of a work, contract law may prevent it. When you agree to terms of use in order to gain access to a copy of a work (such as a letter in an archive or a newspaper article in an online database), those terms also control what you can do with the work.

You can proceed without copyright permission if you are using something that is not  copyrightable  or is in the  public domain . You also don't need permission if you are using it in a way that does not implicate one of the  rights of copyright holders  or is permitted by a  user’s right , such as fair use. If none of these circumstances applies, you need a  license  to use the work. In some cases, an existing license may cover your use. In others, you will need to get a new license from the copyright holder. For more information on these subjects, please see our  Copyright Basics  and  Obtaining Copyright Permissions  guides.

In addition to the copyright issues, it is also vital to follow attribution norms within your discipline. For more information about the distinction between plagiarism and copyright infringement, see below.

Contracts at Libraries, Archives, and Museums

Some institutions require you to sign an agreement before accessing their collections. That agreement may limit your ability to use their materials. These agreements are valid even when the materials are in the public domain or using the materials would qualify as fair use. For instance, if you agree to get permission from the institution before publishing any images of items from its collection, you are bound by that agreement.

To avoid trouble on this issue,

• Ask up front what the terms are and whether you can use the materials in your dissertation;
• Carefully read the terms of any agreements you sign; and
• Keep a copy of the terms, noting the materials to which they apply.

Fair Use in Dissertations

Fair use allows certain uses of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. There are four factors to consider when determining whether your use is a fair one. You must consider all the factors, but not all the factors have to favor fair use for the use to be fair. The outline below explains how the fair use factors and their subfactors apply to using third-party material in a University of Michigan dissertation.

First Factor: "The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"

Uses that fall under one of the favored purposes listed in the fair use statute (17 U.S.C. § 107) or have a nonprofit educational purpose will weigh in favor of fair use. Favored purposes include scholarship, research, criticism, and comment. Since uses in dissertations often have these purposes, this subfactor favors fair use.

Uses that are commercial weigh against fair use. Most uses in dissertations are not for commercial purposes, but that may change if you publish your dissertation with ProQuest or another commercial entity.

Uses that are transformative weigh in favor of fair use. A use is transformative when the use adds new meaning or message to the original work, giving it a new purpose. For example, imagine you are writing your dissertation about the impacts of advertising directed to children. You include a toy advertisement and analyze how it reached a child audience. The original purpose of the advertisement was to increase demand for the toy, while your purpose is for scholarship and critique, making your use transformative. Quoting another scholar's analysis of the advertisement would not necessarily be transformative, though it is still often fair use.

Second Factor: "The nature of the copyrighted work"

If the work used is creative, that will weigh against fair use. If the work used is factual, that will weigh in favor of fair use. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the work used.

If the work used is unpublished, that will weigh against fair use. However, the fair use statute explicitly states that the unpublished nature of a work will not bar fair use if the use is otherwise fair. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the work used.

Third Factor: "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"

Using all or much of the original work will weigh against fair use. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the use.

Using the most important part of the original work (the "heart") will weigh against fair use, even if it is only a small amount of the work. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the use.

The third factor is neutralized if the amount used is necessary for a transformative purpose, even if the entire original work is used. For instance, the third factor would be neutralized in the use of the toy advertisement described above — all of the advertisement has to be used in order to achieve the transformative use.

Fourth Factor: "The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work"

Uses that decrease demand for the original work by providing a substitute will weigh against fair use. In many cases, using a work in your dissertation will not provide a substitute for the original work, but the outcome of this subfactor can vary depending on the use.

Uses that decrease demand for the original work by criticizing it (as with a negative film review) have no impact on the fourth factor.

If the licensing market for the use you are making is "traditional, reasonable, or likely to develop," that will weigh against fair use.

Resources on Fair Use

• Fair Use Checklist This checklist from the Columbia Copyright Advisory Office helps users consider the factors and subfactors of the fair use analysis.
• Codes of Best Practices in Fair Use These codes document the shared best practices of communities that rely on fair use, including fair use for online video, fair use of images for teaching, research, and study, fair use for OpenCourseWare, fair use for documentary filmmakers, fair use for the visual arts, and fair use for academic and research libraries.
• Summaries of Fair Use Cases This set of case summaries from Stanford is a good resource for learning about fair use law.
• US Copyright Office Fair Use Index This index of fair use cases is searchable by media format, case outcome, jurisdiction, and date. It is helpful for learning about legal precedents and judicial interpretation of the fair use doctrine.
• Fair Use for Nonfiction Authors This guide, published by the Authors Alliance, explains when fair use applies to the use of sources in nonfiction works such as scholarly articles. It has been endorsed by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association for Information Science and Technology.

Using Material Under an Existing License

A Creative Commons license makes it easy for you to know how you can use a work. Images licensed under Creative Commons licenses can be particularly useful if you need a generic rather than specific image. Because the rights holder has already given everyone permission to use the image under the terms of the license, you do not need to evaluate fair use or seek permission in order to use it.

When you use a work licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses, you need to comply with the license requirements (unless your use is otherwise permitted, e.g., by fair use). All Creative Commons licenses require attribution. Using the work without giving attribution means you do not meet the legal conditions of the license. However, the licenses are deliberately flexible about the requirements for that attribution. The  Best Practices for Attribution  are outlined on the Creative Commons wiki. Our guide to  Creative Commons licenses has more information on this topic.

Creative Commons Resources

When works are marked with code generated by the Creative Commons License Chooser , that mark is machine readable. A number of search tools allow users to limit their search by license.

• CC Search CC Search enables users to search across multiple platforms for content licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses.
• Google: Find Free-to-Use Images This page explains how to use Google's search engines to find images, text, and videos that are licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

Copyright Infringement vs. Plagiarism

Copyright infringement and plagiarism are related but distinct concepts. Plagiarism is using the work of another without attribution. Copyright infringement is any reproduction, distribution, modification, performance, or display of a copyrighted work without the permission of the rights holder that does not fall under fair use or another user's right.

It is possible to plagiarize even when you have cleared permission for all the copyrighted works. Similarly, it is possible to infringe copyright even when you have given careful attribution. In addition to resolving the copyright issues, you must follow attribution norms within your discipline in order to avoid plagiarizing others' work. 

U.S. copyright law does not require citation in a particular form. However, following academic citation norms can help improve your fair use analysis. Check with your dissertation advisor for help figuring out what citation style you should use in your dissertation.

The Rackham Dissertation Handbook (PDF)  says sources that must be cited include, but are not limited to:

language or wording either taken directly or paraphrased from another source, whether published or not; concepts, interpretations, techniques, methods, test instruments or procedures borrowed or adapted from another work, whether published or not; charts, graphs or figures borrowed or adapted from another source, whether published or not; photographs, films, recordings, digital material or other images from another source; and data, surveys or results of any kind from any other inquiry or investigation.

The Sweetland Center for Writing provides a number of resources on plagiarism and how to avoid it, including Beyond Plagiarism: Best Practices for the Responsible Use of Sources .

• Cambridge Libraries

Study Skills

Copyright for researchers: copyright and theses.

• Copyright introduction
• Authorship and IP
• 3rd party copyright
• Creative Commons
• Copyright and theses
• Copyright terminology

Why is this important?

Following a decision made by the Board of Graduate Studies at its meeting on 4 July 2017, from 1 October 2017 all PhD students will be required to deposit both a hard copy and an electronic copy of their thesis to the University Library. More information on the requirements to deposit your thesis can be found on the Office of Scholarly Communication webpages.

All PhD students will need to understand how copyright relates to their thesis. If you are a student at the University of Cambridge who is preparing a thesis for submission, you will need to consider both your own copyright in your work and any third party copyright material you have included in your thesis.

Third party copyright and your thesis

Copyright held by someone other than yourself is known as  third party copyright . If you are using material created by others in your thesis, you will need to investigate whether you should seek permission to include it. If you do include this material in your thesis, you must ensure you credit the copyright holder and the source. More information on third party copyright can be found on the Office of Scholarly Communication copyright webpages .

We recommend that you obtain permission to include material as you are working on your research rather than leaving clearances to the last minute. It can take time to ensure you have obtained the correct clearance and if you do not obtain permission to include the material, you may wish to investigate alternatives or redact the material in your final submission .

Different copyright rules apply to the hardbound copy of your thesis that is deposited in the library for reference and the electronic version of your thesis that is deposited in the Apollo repository . This is because the hardbound copy of your thesis is considered to be unpublished and the electronic version, if made available online, is published. For further information on what to clear and how to clear it, see the Office of Scholarly Communication's webpages  'Your hardbound thesis and third party copyright'  and 'Your e-thesis and third party copyright' .

University of Cambridge researchers own the copyright in their own work unless they are sponsored by an external party who may have rights over the material. If the researcher owns the copyright in their work they are free to make it available as they wish.

Depositing your thesis

Electronic deposit does not mean that the full text of the thesis will automatically be available. Students are given the choice of different access levels and must discuss their choice with their Supervisor, before uploading a signed access confirmation form [PDF] at the time the thesis is uploaded for deposit to Apollo. Access levels include the option to make a thesis available Open Access immediately or to embargo access for an initial 12 months, during which time the metadata and abstract of a thesis (but not the full text) will be findable in the repository. For further information on the different access levels and how they will be managed, see  t he dedicated page on the Office of Scholarly Communication website .

• Digital Thesis Submission System If you are ready to submit your electronic thesis you can do so via this link.

Copyright and theses by other authors

If you are including quotations from theses by other authors, you will need to check the copyright status of the work you are quoting, ensure you cite the work correctly and clear the quotation if necessary. If the thesis you are quoting from is an unpublished work, you are required under copyright law to contact the copyright holder to gain clearance to include the quotation in your thesis.

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Can I include my published papers in my dissertation?

Many graduate students publish their research prior to finalizing their thesis or dissertation. Indeed, in some fields, dissertations are comprised of one or more papers, with little other material.

It’s confusing, therefore, when you prepare to finish your thesis or dissertation, and suddenly realize that you might have signed away your copyright! If you don’t own the copyright to your work, can you in fact include the paper in your dissertation or thesis? Good question!

First, the University does not evaluate your dissertation or thesis for copyright issues. It’s up to you to assess copyright concerns with included content, from quotes and screenshots, to your own published papers.

When you write a paper, you are the copyright owner of the manuscript. If you wrote it with other people, then you and your co-authors are the joint copyright owners of the manuscript. At that point, each author can do whatever they want with their manuscript—including transferring the copyright to someone else, or retaining it.

When you publish a paper, almost all publishers require a publication contract . That publication contract specifies whether you keep your contract, transfer it, transfer some of the copyright rights, or all of them. You can, and should, negotiate to keep all the rights you will need, including the right to include your published paper in your thesis or dissertation. (It’s standard in all academic fields to acknowledge first publication, but the format depends on the field.) 

But what if you didn’t negotiate, and you transferred your copyright to the publisher? At this point, you have three real options. 

(1) Campus or Funder Open Access Policy. If your work was funded by a US federal government agency, or another funder with an open access requirement, then your rights to re-use the work will almost certainly be protected. Also, if one of your co-authors is a faculty member at an institution with an open access policy (such as the Open Access policy at UMass Amherst ), then you would have rights under the OA policy. The UMass OA policy was instituted by the Faculty Senate starting in 2016, so any papers published since then would be covered. The faculty member author needs to upload the paper to the campus repository (ScholarWorks) to perfect their claim under the OA policy. 

Some campuses include graduate students in their campus open access policy. At UMass, graduate students can opt in to the policy, but they must do so before publishing. You may have co-authors at other institutions, and if they have open access policies, you will probably be able to take advantage of your rights.

(2) Check your publication contract for possible rights. Many publishers specifically allow inclusion of papers in authors’ dissertations. You would need to look at your publishing agreement to see what it says. Your liaison librarians or the Copyright Education Service at the UMass Libraries can help you review those agreements and understand whether you have rights or not.

(3) Ask for permission to reprint. If you transferred the copyright, don’t have rights under an OA policy, and the publication contract you signed didn’t retain any rights for yourself, then you should probably ask for permission to reprint. The publisher may ask for a fee, depending on your field and the publication.

What about fair use? Fair use is a doctrine in copyright law that allows people to use third-party content without permission, so long as the use is a fair use (17 USC 107). (See the “fair use explainer” for more information.) All sorts of uses can be fair uses, depending on the specific facts. Fair uses can include quotations, personal copies for research, satires, indexing, and many other uses — but it always depends on the circumstances, and any of those uses might be infringing in some circumstances, and fair in others. While it is impossible to say definitively without knowing the specific circumstances, reprinting a published article in its entirety in a new work (such as a dissertation) would not usually be a good candidate for fair use.

Isn’t it just normal and expected? In some fields, it is quite conventional to use published papers as a chapter in a dissertation or thesis, either modified or as published. However, you should still check with your publisher (ideally before the work is published) to make sure you are both in agreement with this expectation.

The Library’s “Copyright Education Program” librarians are happy to talk with you if you have questions about your prior publications and your thesis or dissertation. Contact us for an appointment.

• Formatting Your Dissertation
• Introduction

Harvard Griffin GSAS strives to provide students with timely, accurate, and clear information. If you need help understanding a specific policy, please contact the office that administers that policy.

• Application for Degree
• Credit for Completed Graduate Work
• Ad Hoc Degree Programs
• Acknowledging the Work of Others
• Advanced Planning
• Dissertation Submission Checklist
• Publishing Options
• Submitting Your Dissertation
• English Language Proficiency
• PhD Program Requirements
• Secondary Fields
• Year of Graduate Study (G-Year)
• Master's Degrees
• Grade and Examination Requirements
• Conduct and Safety
• Financial Aid
• Non-Resident Students
• Registration

On this page:

Language of the Dissertation

Page and text requirements, body of text, tables, figures, and captions, dissertation acceptance certificate, copyright statement.

• Table of Contents

Front and Back Matter

Supplemental material, dissertations comprising previously published works, top ten formatting errors, further questions.

• Related Contacts and Forms

When preparing the dissertation for submission, students must follow strict formatting requirements. Any deviation from these requirements may lead to rejection of the dissertation and delay in the conferral of the degree.

The language of the dissertation is ordinarily English, although some departments whose subject matter involves foreign languages may accept a dissertation written in a language other than English.

Most dissertations are 100 to 300 pages in length. All dissertations should be divided into appropriate sections, and long dissertations may need chapters, main divisions, and subdivisions.

• 8½ x 11 inches, unless a musical score is included
• At least 1 inch for all margins
• Body of text: double spacing
• Block quotations, footnotes, and bibliographies: single spacing within each entry but double spacing between each entry
• Table of contents, list of tables, list of figures or illustrations, and lengthy tables: single spacing may be used

Fonts and Point Size

Use 10-12 point size. Fonts must be embedded in the PDF file to ensure all characters display correctly. 

Recommended Fonts

If you are unsure whether your chosen font will display correctly, use one of the following fonts: 

If fonts are not embedded, non-English characters may not appear as intended. Fonts embedded improperly will be published to DASH as-is. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that fonts are embedded properly prior to submission. 

Instructions for Embedding Fonts

To embed your fonts in recent versions of Word, follow these instructions from Microsoft:

• Click the File tab and then click Options .
• In the left column, select the Save tab.
• Clear the Do not embed common system fonts check box.

For reference, below are some instructions from ProQuest UMI for embedding fonts in older file formats:

To embed your fonts in Microsoft Word 2010:

• In the File pull-down menu click on Options .
• Choose Save on the left sidebar.
• Check the box next to Embed fonts in the file.
• Click the OK button.
• Save the document.

Note that when saving as a PDF, make sure to go to “more options” and save as “PDF/A compliant”

To embed your fonts in Microsoft Word 2007:

• Click the circular Office button in the upper left corner of Microsoft Word.
• A new window will display. In the bottom right corner select Word Options . 
• Choose Save from the left sidebar.

Using Microsoft Word on a Mac:

Microsoft Word 2008 on a Mac OS X computer will automatically embed your fonts while converting your document to a PDF file.

If you are converting to PDF using Acrobat Professional (instructions courtesy of the Graduate Thesis Office at Iowa State University):  

• Open your document in Microsoft Word. 
• Click on the Adobe PDF tab at the top. Select "Change Conversion Settings." 
• Click on Advanced Settings. 
• Click on the Fonts folder on the left side of the new window. In the lower box on the right, delete any fonts that appear in the "Never Embed" box. Then click "OK." 
• If prompted to save these new settings, save them as "Embed all fonts." 
• Now the Change Conversion Settings window should show "embed all fonts" in the Conversion Settings drop-down list and it should be selected. Click "OK" again. 
• Click on the Adobe PDF link at the top again. This time select Convert to Adobe PDF. Depending on the size of your document and the speed of your computer, this process can take 1-15 minutes. 
• After your document is converted, select the "File" tab at the top of the page. Then select "Document Properties." 
• Click on the "Fonts" tab. Carefully check all of your fonts. They should all show "(Embedded Subset)" after the font name. 
•  If you see "(Embedded Subset)" after all fonts, you have succeeded.

The font used in the body of the text must also be used in headers, page numbers, and footnotes. Exceptions are made only for tables and figures created with different software and inserted into the document.

Tables and figures must be placed as close as possible to their first mention in the text. They may be placed on a page with no text above or below, or they may be placed directly into the text. If a table or a figure is alone on a page (with no narrative), it should be centered within the margins on the page. Tables may take up more than one page as long as they obey all rules about margins. Tables and figures referred to in the text may not be placed at the end of the chapter or at the end of the dissertation.

• Given the standards of the discipline, dissertations in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning often place illustrations at the end of the dissertation.

Figure and table numbering must be continuous throughout the dissertation or by chapter (e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.). Two figures or tables cannot be designated with the same number. If you have repeating images that you need to cite more than once, label them with their number and A, B, etc. 

Headings should be placed at the top of tables. While no specific rules for the format of table headings and figure captions are required, a consistent format must be used throughout the dissertation (contact your department for style manuals appropriate to the field).

Captions should appear at the bottom of any figures. If the figure takes up the entire page, the caption should be placed alone on the preceding page, centered vertically and horizontally within the margins.

Each page receives a separate page number. When a figure or table title is on a preceding page, the second and subsequent pages of the figure or table should say, for example, “Figure 5 (Continued).” In such an instance, the list of figures or tables will list the page number containing the title. The word “figure” should be written in full (not abbreviated), and the “F” should be capitalized (e.g., Figure 5). In instances where the caption continues on a second page, the “(Continued)” notation should appear on the second and any subsequent page. The figure/table and the caption are viewed as one entity and the numbering should show correlation between all pages. Each page must include a header.

Landscape orientation figures and tables must be positioned correctly and bound at the top so that the top of the figure or table will be at the left margin. Figure and table headings/captions are placed with the same orientation as the figure or table when on the same page. When on a separate page, headings/captions are always placed in portrait orientation, regardless of the orientation of the figure or table. Page numbers are always placed as if the figure were vertical on the page.

If a graphic artist does the figures, Harvard Griffin GSAS will accept lettering done by the artist only within the figure. Figures done with software are acceptable if the figures are clear and legible. Legends and titles done by the same process as the figures will be accepted if they too are clear, legible, and run at least 10 or 12 characters per inch. Otherwise, legends and captions should be printed with the same font used in the text.

Original illustrations, photographs, and fine arts prints may be scanned and included, centered between the margins on a page with no text above or below.

Use of Third-Party Content

In addition to the student's own writing, dissertations often contain third-party content or in-copyright content owned by parties other than you, the student who authored the dissertation. The Office for Scholarly Communication recommends consulting the information below about fair use, which allows individuals to use in-copyright content, on a limited basis and for specific purposes, without seeking permission from copyright holders.

Because your dissertation will be made available for online distribution through DASH , Harvard's open-access repository, it is important that any third-party content in it may be made available in this way.

Fair Use and Copyright 

What is fair use?

Fair use is a provision in copyright law that allows the use of a certain amount of copyrighted material without seeking permission. Fair use is format- and media-agnostic. This means fair use may apply to images (including photographs, illustrations, and paintings), quoting at length from literature, videos, and music regardless of the format. 

How do I determine whether my use of an image or other third-party content in my dissertation is fair use?  

There are four factors you will need to consider when making a fair use claim.

1) For what purpose is your work going to be used?

• Nonprofit, educational, scholarly, or research use favors fair use. Commercial, non-educational uses, often do not favor fair use.
• A transformative use (repurposing or recontextualizing the in-copyright material) favors fair use. Examining, analyzing, and explicating the material in a meaningful way, so as to enhance a reader's understanding, strengthens your fair use argument. In other words, can you make the point in the thesis without using, for instance, an in-copyright image? Is that image necessary to your dissertation? If not, perhaps, for copyright reasons, you should not include the image.  

2) What is the nature of the work to be used?

• Published, fact-based content favors fair use and includes scholarly analysis in published academic venues. 
• Creative works, including artistic images, are afforded more protection under copyright, and depending on your use in light of the other factors, may be less likely to favor fair use; however, this does not preclude considerations of fair use for creative content altogether.

3) How much of the work is going to be used?  

• Small, or less significant, amounts favor fair use. A good rule of thumb is to use only as much of the in-copyright content as necessary to serve your purpose. Can you use a thumbnail rather than a full-resolution image? Can you use a black-and-white photo instead of color? Can you quote select passages instead of including several pages of the content? These simple changes bolster your fair use of the material.

4) What potential effect on the market for that work may your use have?

• If there is a market for licensing this exact use or type of educational material, then this weighs against fair use. If however, there would likely be no effect on the potential commercial market, or if it is not possible to obtain permission to use the work, then this favors fair use. 

For further assistance with fair use, consult the Office for Scholarly Communication's guide, Fair Use: Made for the Harvard Community and the Office of the General Counsel's Copyright and Fair Use: A Guide for the Harvard Community .

What are my options if I don’t have a strong fair use claim? 

Consider the following options if you find you cannot reasonably make a fair use claim for the content you wish to incorporate:

• Seek permission from the copyright holder. 
• Use openly licensed content as an alternative to the original third-party content you intended to use. Openly-licensed content grants permission up-front for reuse of in-copyright content, provided your use meets the terms of the open license.
• Use content in the public domain, as this content is not in-copyright and is therefore free of all copyright restrictions. Whereas third-party content is owned by parties other than you, no one owns content in the public domain; everyone, therefore, has the right to use it.

For use of images in your dissertation, please consult this guide to Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons Media , which is a great resource for finding images without copyright restrictions. 

Who can help me with questions about copyright and fair use?

Contact your Copyright First Responder . Please note, Copyright First Responders assist with questions concerning copyright and fair use, but do not assist with the process of obtaining permission from copyright holders.

Pages should be assigned a number except for the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate . Preliminary pages (abstract, table of contents, list of tables, graphs, illustrations, and preface) should use small Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.). All pages must contain text or images.  

Count the title page as page i and the copyright page as page ii, but do not print page numbers on either page .

For the body of text, use Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) starting with page 1 on the first page of text. Page numbers must be centered throughout the manuscript at the top or bottom. Every numbered page must be consecutively ordered, including tables, graphs, illustrations, and bibliography/index (if included); letter suffixes (such as 10a, 10b, etc.) are not allowed. It is customary not to have a page number on the page containing a chapter heading.

• Check pagination carefully. Account for all pages.

A copy of the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (DAC) should appear as the first page. This page should not be counted or numbered. The DAC will appear in the online version of the published dissertation. The author name and date on the DAC and title page should be the same. 

The dissertation begins with the title page; the title should be as concise as possible and should provide an accurate description of the dissertation. The author name and date on the DAC and title page should be the same. 

• Do not print a page number on the title page. It is understood to be page  i  for counting purposes only.

A copyright notice should appear on a separate page immediately following the title page and include the copyright symbol ©, the year of first publication of the work, and the name of the author:

© [ year ] [ Author’s Name ] All rights reserved.

Alternatively, students may choose to license their work openly under a  Creative Commons  license. The author remains the copyright holder while at the same time granting up-front permission to others to read, share, and (depending on the license) adapt the work, so long as proper attribution is given. (By default, under copyright law, the author reserves all rights; under a Creative Commons license, the author reserves some rights.)

• Do  not  print a page number on the copyright page. It is understood to be page  ii  for counting purposes only.

An abstract, numbered as page  iii , should immediately follow the copyright page and should state the problem, describe the methods and procedures used, and give the main results or conclusions of the research. The abstract will appear in the online and bound versions of the dissertation and will be published by ProQuest. There is no maximum word count for the abstract. 

• double-spaced
• left-justified
• indented on the first line of each paragraph
• The author’s name, right justified
• The words “Dissertation Advisor:” followed by the advisor’s name, left-justified (a maximum of two advisors is allowed)
• Title of the dissertation, centered, several lines below author and advisor

Dissertations divided into sections must contain a table of contents that lists, at minimum, the major headings in the following order:

• Front Matter
• Body of Text
• Back Matter

Front matter includes (if applicable):

• acknowledgements of help or encouragement from individuals or institutions
• a dedication
• a list of illustrations or tables
• a glossary of terms
• one or more epigraphs.

Back matter includes (if applicable):

• bibliography
• supplemental materials, including figures and tables
• an index (in rare instances).

Supplemental figures and tables must be placed at the end of the dissertation in an appendix, not within or at the end of a chapter. If additional digital information (including audio, video, image, or datasets) will accompany the main body of the dissertation, it should be uploaded as a supplemental file through ProQuest ETD . Supplemental material will be available in DASH and ProQuest and preserved digitally in the Harvard University Archives.

As a matter of copyright, dissertations comprising the student's previously published works must be authorized for distribution from DASH. The guidelines in this section pertain to any previously published material that requires permission from publishers or other rightsholders before it may be distributed from DASH. Please note:

• Authors whose publishing agreements grant the publisher exclusive rights to display, distribute, and create derivative works will need to seek the publisher's permission for nonexclusive use of the underlying works before the dissertation may be distributed from DASH.
• Authors whose publishing agreements indicate the authors have retained the relevant nonexclusive rights to the original materials for display, distribution, and the creation of derivative works may distribute the dissertation as a whole from DASH without need for further permissions.

It is recommended that authors consult their publishing agreements directly to determine whether and to what extent they may have transferred exclusive rights under copyright. The Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) is available to help the author determine whether she has retained the necessary rights or requires permission. Please note, however, the Office of Scholarly Communication is not able to assist with the permissions process itself.

• Missing Dissertation Acceptance Certificate.  The first page of the PDF dissertation file should be a scanned copy of the Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (DAC). This page should not be counted or numbered as a part of the dissertation pagination.
• Conflicts Between the DAC and the Title Page.  The DAC and the dissertation title page must match exactly, meaning that the author name and the title on the title page must match that on the DAC. If you use your full middle name or just an initial on one document, it must be the same on the other document.  
• Abstract Formatting Errors. The advisor name should be left-justified, and the author's name should be right-justified. Up to two advisor names are allowed. The Abstract should be double spaced and include the page title “Abstract,” as well as the page number “iii.” There is no maximum word count for the abstract. 
•  The front matter should be numbered using Roman numerals (iii, iv, v, …). The title page and the copyright page should be counted but not numbered. The first printed page number should appear on the Abstract page (iii). 
• The body of the dissertation should be numbered using Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, …). The first page of the body of the text should begin with page 1. Pagination may not continue from the front matter. 
• All page numbers should be centered either at the top or the bottom of the page.
• Figures and tables Figures and tables must be placed within the text, as close to their first mention as possible. Figures and tables that span more than one page must be labeled on each page. Any second and subsequent page of the figure/table must include the “(Continued)” notation. This applies to figure captions as well as images. Each page of a figure/table must be accounted for and appropriately labeled. All figures/tables must have a unique number. They may not repeat within the dissertation.
• Any figures/tables placed in a horizontal orientation must be placed with the top of the figure/ table on the left-hand side. The top of the figure/table should be aligned with the spine of the dissertation when it is bound. 
• Page numbers must be placed in the same location on all pages of the dissertation, centered, at the bottom or top of the page. Page numbers may not appear under the table/ figure.
• Supplemental Figures and Tables. Supplemental figures and tables must be placed at the back of the dissertation in an appendix. They should not be placed at the back of the chapter. 
• Permission Letters Copyright. permission letters must be uploaded as a supplemental file, titled ‘do_not_publish_permission_letters,” within the dissertation submission tool.
•  DAC Attachment. The signed Dissertation Acceptance Certificate must additionally be uploaded as a document in the "Administrative Documents" section when submitting in Proquest ETD . Dissertation submission is not complete until all documents have been received and accepted.
• Overall Formatting. The entire document should be checked after all revisions, and before submitting online, to spot any inconsistencies or PDF conversion glitches.
• You can view dissertations successfully published from your department in DASH . This is a great place to check for specific formatting and area-specific conventions.
• Contact the  Office of Student Affairs  with further questions.

CONTACT INFO

Katie riggs, explore events.

PhD in Review: Laura Naslund reflects on her dissertation journey

I first interviewed Laura Naslund as the sun rose over a pond near Watkinsville, Georgia in June of 2022. I was an intern at the River Basin Center helping with Naslund’s field work, and we had just finished two hours of paddling a canoe to collect her homemade gas traps. These traps were upside-down funnels set up across the surface of the pond, with syringes on top to collect gas bubbling up from the sediment at the bottom. We spent a lot of time together that summer paddling through duckweed, hiking in thick brush and checking for ticks, and reminding each other to stay hydrated.

In the two years between our interviews, Naslund has been a powerhouse of a graduate student: co-authoring numerous papers on biodiversity, infrastructure and the Clean Water Act, working as an intern for the US Environmental Protection Agency since August of 2023, and camping for over 24 hours at a time at her field sites, often multiple times per week, for several months. 

Following her graduation from Duke University in 2019, Naslund came to UGA on a GREAT Fellowship from the UGA Graduate School (this specific fellowship is no longer offered). At Duke, she had worked in Dr. Emily Bernhardt’s aquatic biogeochemistry lab studying the movement of contaminants between water and land in a mountaintop removal coal mining case study. This experience involved looking closely at contaminant uptake in aquatic insects, leading her to study aquatic entomology further when she began her PhD program at the Odum School of Ecology in Dr. Amy Rosemond’s lab . Her original idea was to study how stream warming would impact the emergence of aquatic insects.

After a year and a half of field work, Naslund began questioning this path. “I had a little bit of a science identity crisis,” she explained. “The part of it that I thought I thought was interesting was the bugs component, and then I realized the part I actually thought was interesting was the biogeochemistry component. I was really interested in looking at bugs as carbon.”

Naslund recruited Dr. Seth Wenger to her advising team and shifted her focus from an entomological to a biogeochemical one. She began exploring the concept of the climate impact of reservoirs and how removing dams may influence reservoir emissions. Through this process, Naslund became connected with the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS) and the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN), where she began interacting more with engineers and infrastructure managers and learning more about how reservoirs and dams are managed.

After further reflection and research, Naslund’s renewed dissertation began to take shape. She started on a new season of field work in the summer of 2022, quantifying emissions from four small reservoirs around Athens, GA.

“Dams flood terrestrial environments, which generates carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and they also concentrate organic matter under low oxygen conditions, which produces methane (CH4) emissions,” she explained. “Both gases can be emitted by diffusion as they move from higher concentrations in the water to lower concentrations in the air. Methane can also build up in bubbles in the sediment, which rise through the water column and release the gas at the surface in a process called ebullition.”

Naslund measured these gases by spending 24 hours at a time at each field site, allowing her to measure not only the emissions themselves, but also any diel (daily) patterns in reservoir emissions. This work ultimately turned into the first chapter of her dissertation. 

In the second chapter, she focuses on dam removal and the relationships between emissions and a potential removal. To do so, she looked at two different case studies, showing the emissions before, during and after a dam removal. She was able to show how one reservoir that was originally a weak source of carbon became an even larger source following the dam removal, and another reservoir that was a significant carbon sink became a weaker sink following the removal. Naslund clarified that her second chapter does not conclude that all dam removals decrease carbon storage, rather that carbon storage in reservoirs is incredibly sensitive and complex. This, along with her connections with the N-EWN, led to her third and final chapter.

To conclude her dissertation, Naslund and a team of N-EWN researchers created a web tool for evaluating the carbon costs and benefits of dam removal. “We pretty quickly found that lots of tools support a couple of objectives, like supporting fish or generating power,” she explained, “but a lot of the common considerations of dam removal, like safety hazards and recreation and historic preservation, were not included in existing decision support tools.” This inspired the team to create a tool that could look at many objectives simultaneously when evaluating a potential removal. The team consisted of ecologists and engineers from UGA and the US Army Corps of Engineers, including Daniel Buhr, Matt Chambers, Kyle McKay, Suman Jumani, Brian Bledsoe, and her co-advisors Rosemond and Wenger. The group evaluated the stakeholders in a dam removal scenario and created a list of 18 main priorities from transportation to biodiversity.

A principal aspect of this tool is the value of interdisciplinary perspectives, something Naslund explored in detail throughout her time at UGA. “I audited Dr. Bledsoe’s River Mechanics class,” she described. “Having studied rivers for probably about five or six years at that point, I remember going out to the field with my classmates and my brain instantly goes to like, there’s a log jam over there. So if I wanted to find bugs I would look at the leaf pack and the log jam… and oh, they’re talking about the Manning’s n* and the geomorphology of the stream, things that I had never really thought about before.” Her “eye-opening” realization of the number of viewpoints involved in each research project informed not only the dam removal tool, but her current and future work outside of academia.

Ahead of her graduation this summer, Naslund hopes to continue her work with the EPA Office of Research and Development. “I find that for me personally, I can be really creative in the context of being given a specific problem,” she said. “I think I’ve wanted to be a federal scientist in part because of the experience I’ve had working with the Army Corps of Engineers. I really liked doing science that’s very problem-driven.”

On April 12, 2024, Dr. Laura Naslund successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on UGA’s campus in front of her advisors, peers and friends. UGA’s Spring 2024 Commencement Ceremonies will be held on May 9 and 10. It’s been a while since I last sat in a canoe with Laura, but it’s been amazing to see her grow. Congratulations to Dr. Naslund and the rest of our soon-to-be alumni- we’re excited to see what you do next! 

*Manning’s n: A roughness coefficient used to calculate flow in open channels, often describing boundary and vegetation effects.

Photos by Olivia Allen.

Olivia Allen

The Christian Post

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Leading dei official at ucla medical school plagiarized doctoral dissertation on diversity: report, natalie j. perry, ph.d., allegedly attempted to 'mask glaring academic deficiencies'.

A leading DEI official at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), reportedly plagiarized vast portions of her 2014 doctoral dissertation about diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.

Investigative journalists Christopher F. Rufo of the Manhattan Institute and The Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak partnered to uncover that Natalie J. Perry, Ph.D. — who leads the DEI program called "Cultural North Star" at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine — appears to have lifted large paragraphs nearly verbatim from 10 other academic papers without citation, according to City Journal .

UCLA Med School has been in the news recently for promoting ideology about "Indigenous womxn," "two-spirits," and "structural racism." A guest speaker praised and two residents championed "revolutionary suicide." The DEI director, who advances "anti-racism," is Natalie Perry. pic.twitter.com/NwSNbiDoBO Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe — Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) April 22, 2024

Titled "Faculty Perceptions of Diversity at a Highly Selective Research-Intensive University," Perry's dissertation at the University of Virginia "examined institutional commitment to diversity from the perspective of organizational values," according to her UCLA biography , and remains her only published work. She received her bachelor's degree in African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, and an EdM in teaching and curriculum at Harvard University.

Many of the portions Perry dissertation, apparently copied with only minor changes, were especially long, with one passage that was nearly 1,000 words and extended for pages.

Rufo and Rosiak also observed that the parts of Perry's paper that were not plagiarized are ridden with basic grammatical errors and even misspellings, prompting them to speculate that her plagiarism was intended to "mask glaring academic deficiencies."

"The positionality of the participants informed the perspective on the origins of the commission. /in response to the needs of the varios [sic] stakeholders within the university, the commission addressed issues of diversity on the faculty, undergraduate, graduate, and university level," Perry wrote in one poorly-written paragraph.

Rufo and Rosiak also noted that Perry neglected to cite even the papers she did mention in the paper, suggesting that even the citations were plagiarized from other papers.

UCLA's medical school has mandated that students learn about colonialism and liberation, which included lessons about "Indigenous womxn," "two-spirits," and "structural racism," according to The Daily Wire .

The Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this month that during one lecture by a guest speaker who praised the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, she urged students to pray to "mama Earth" and led chants of "Free, Free Palestine."

Neither Perry nor UCLA responded to The Christian Post's request for comment by publication.

"Throughout the paper, Perry copies and pastes large sections of text from other authors," Rufo tweeted. "When she has to rely on original work, she often lapses into serious errors and basic grammatical problems. The paper — of course — was about DEI at universities."

Throughout the paper, Perry copies and pastes large sections of text from other authors. When she has to rely on original work, she often lapses into serious errors and basic grammatical problems. The paper—of course—was about DEI at universities. pic.twitter.com/8nejFTlKP3 — Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) April 22, 2024

The revelation regarding Perry's plagiarism comes amid Rufo's ongoing reporting about plagiarism and academic misconduct at some of the nation's most prestigious universities.

In January, former Harvard University President Claudine Gay announced her resignation weeks after Rufo and the New York Post reported on 27 instances when Gay plagiarized or failed to properly cite other academics' work, which the leadership of Harvard allegedly attempted to cover up. The New York Post claimed the school had threatened them when they began looking into the allegations.

Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to  [email protected]

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Trevor Carter Ph.D. Degree Thesis Defense

Trevor Carter

Ph.D. Degree Candidate

Dr. Brian Buma's Lab

CU Denver Department of Integrative Biology

When: Friday, April 19th, 2024, 12:00pm Where: Science Building, Room 2001

Carbon dynamics in the pacific coastal temperate rainforest: an ecosystem science approach.

Quantifying forest carbon stocks is crucial for policy decisions and the management of forests in the face of global climate change. Investigation of forest carbon stocks at the regional scale provides insight into the fine-scale variability that is not captured by global models. In my dissertation, I investigated the spatial relationships of forest carbon stocks and plant biodiversity across the perhumid region of the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest of North America – the largest temperate rainforest on the globe. Join me for my dissertation defense to learn about the spatial patterns of forest carbon in this region, its relative contribution to the global carbon budget, and how other management objectives such as managing for biodiversity may interact with forest carbon.  

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Phd student daniel lobo wins acls/mellon dissertation innovation fellowship.

Date/Time Mon, 04/22/2024 - 14:45 PhD student Daniel Lobo was awarded a $50,000  Dissertation Innovation Fellowship  from the American Council of Learned Societies for his interdisciplinary dissertation project titled, "Towards a theory on the causes, contours, and consequences of "culture add" hiring at elite firms."   Congratulations Daniel! Great work!