The dissertation should be an original contribution to the field as determined by the department or program concerned. Doctoral dissertations, except those in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, will normally be written in English.
There are several style manuals available, including Strunk and White, Turabian and the University of Chicago Press which will answer a host of questions regarding the technical aspects of properly preparing a dissertation. A bibliography is available which provides further examples which are more specific to a discipline (e.g., the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association). Students should consult professional journals in their disciplines and their major professors to determine the most appropriate style.
It is the prerogative and responsibility of the candidate and the sponsoring department to insure that the canons of organization, presentation, and documentation usually prescribed for publication in their discipline are observed. Likewise, the dissertation must be certified as substantially free of errors before it is submitted to the Graduate School.
Formatting Requirement: The Graduate School will accept any self-consistent format which follows conventions of a recognized discipline, but some general formatting standards are also expected as outlined in the Graduate School’s booklet entitled Guidelines for Thesis and Dissertation Preparation and Submission. This booklet is available on the Graduate School’s Web site at: http://www.grad.buffalo.edu/ or from the Graduate School Office of Student Services, 408 Capen Hall.
Copyrighting: It is the student’s choice whether or not to copyright his or her dissertation. Copyrighting protects the student’s rights as an author. These rights include the ability to make copies of the work, to distribute them, to make derivative works, or to perform or display the work. By copyrighting a dissertation, a student can control the rights to it or may authorize others (i.e., a publisher) to exercise them. It is the student’s responsibility to guarantee that the work is original and that he or she has followed accepted standards for documenting the use of references and citations of other works. Students should discuss the option to copyright their work with their major professor before reaching a decision. Once the decision has been made to copyright, the appropriate symbol, the date, and the author’s name must be included on the page immediately following the title page. The copyright will run for the life of the author plus fifty years. The law requires that two copies of the work be submitted to the appropriate federal agency. By requesting copyright through the on-line submission system available on the Graduate School home page at: http://www.grad.buffalo.edu/etd/ under the Proquest/UMI Dissertation Publishing Agreement Form, students can request that this be done on their behalf by Prquest/UMI.