A Guide to the ALM Thesis - iSites - Harvard University

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56 | Chapter 4: The ALM Thesis Preparation of the Manuscript The early drafts have been completed. Now the thesis is approaching its final form. The following comments are basic guidelines; in cases of ambiguity the final arbiter should be the thesis director in matters of content and the research advisor in matters of format. NOTE: The title should be as concise as possible. Margins and Pagination The left-hand margin should be 1 ½ inches throughout to accommodate the binding. The top, bottom, and right-hand margins should be one inch, with one important exception: On pages with new chapter headings or other major headings (such as front and end matter) the top margin is 1 ½ inches from the top of the page. NOTE: The easiest way to achieve this 1 ½ inch top margin is to (1) simply put your cursor at the top of the page, (2) hit the button for center justification, (3) set your format to double spacing, (4) set your format to 1 inch top margin, (5) hit enter once, and (6) start typing your chapter heading (i.e., Chapter 1 or Bibliography or whatever). For most fonts, this simple double spacing will achieve a 1 ½ inch top margin for this page. However, you should measure it with a ruler, just to be sure. The right margin of the text should not be justified, unless your formatting program and printer have proportional spacing. Otherwise, a ragged-right margin is preferred. Page numbers can be centered at top or bottom, ½ inch from the edge, or placed in the upper right-hand corner, ½ inch from the top and right edge. Whatever the format, the placement of the page numbers must be consistent throughout. It is customary to omit the page number from a page containing a new chapter heading; however, the number may be centered at the bottom of the page (½ inch from the edge), if the student wishes to retain the page number. If using footnotes in the thesis, page numbers should be centered at the top or placed in the upper right-hand corner, rather than at the bottom of the page where they might interfere with the spacing of the footnotes. The first page of the text of the thesis is always page one. All pages must contain text or images, except for the single blank page between the title page and the abstract. Your thesis will be double spaced throughout, except for long quotations and references, which are single-spaced (see “Text of the Thesis” below). When we refer to headings with quadruple spacing after the title, we mean two of your double spaced lines. Simply hit return twice. If the instructions are to double space after a heading, before beginning a text, we mean hit return once. A Guide to the ALM Thesis
Chapter 4: The ALM Thesis | 57 Front Matter The materials preceding the text, such as the title page, abstract, acknowledgments, and table of contents, are collectively known as the front matter. There are precise requirements for the format and sequence of the front matter in theses. With the exception of the title page and blank page, all headings for these pages must be formatted in a consistent manner, with each occurring 1½ inches from the top of the page. After each heading, quadruple space (i.e., double space twice) and start your text. The manuscript begins with a title page, followed by a blank page (also known as the copyright page), and then the abstract page, on which appears a summary of the whole thesis. These first three pages are unnumbered but counted in the pagination. Thus, in the following order and on separate pages, there appear: 1. title page 6. optional dedication 2. blank page 7. optional acknowledgments 3. abstract 8. table of contents 4. optional frontispiece 9. list of tables 5. author’s optional biographical sketch 10. list of figures Pages four through nine of the front matter are counted in the pagination and numbered consecutively with lower-case Roman numerals centered at the bottom of the page, beginning with “iv” for the first page after the abstract. If the student wishes to copyright the thesis, the statement “Copyright 2011 Author’s Name” (but reproduced without quotation marks and using the current year) should appear at the bottom of the blank page, item 2 in the list above. Or the word “Copyright” may be replaced by an upper-case “C” within a circle (©), followed by the date and the full, legal name of the author. Do not print a page number on the copyright page. It is understood to be page ii for counting purposes only. On the title page, which is entirely double-spaced, the title of the work appears two inches from the top, in appropriate upper-case and lower-case letters. The author’s name, including initials, appears centered on the page, 2 ½ inches below the first line of the title (the title may, in some cases, require 2 lines). A standard statement concerning the field of concentration appears 2 inches below the author’s name. The name of the university and the author’s date of graduation appear one inch below the field of concentration with the last line showing the date, 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page. Nothing on the title page is underlined or typed in boldface. The date is always November, March, or May depending upon the time of graduation. In the literature and creative writing thesis, the title should make reference both to the prefatory critical essay and the original fiction; if the fiction collection itself has a title (Talking with Chekhov), it should be given. A sample title page may be found on page 58, followed by a sample title page for a literature and creative writing thesis on page 59: A Guide to the ALM Thesis
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PHOTO BY JEFFRY PIKE Master of Libe
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Table of Contents | 3 Methods in th
Page 5 and 6: Preface | 5 Preface The master’s
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