The design of your dissertation, as well as a dissertation style, will play an important role during the evaluation of your dissertation. Dissertation style means a particular writing and citations style that you should stick to in your dissertation. And if you fail to follow all the requirements for a dissertation style, you are more likely to do the whole work once again.
You should know that there are different dissertation styles and your choice will depend on the discipline. If you are not sure about a dissertation style, you should go straight to your advisor. But it can happen that your advisor does not have enough and will not be able to give you all necessary info on a dissertation style that you have to use. So, the only way out is to consult some additional sources. You will find a lot of them online. What is more, there are various style manuals that are the best guide to a dissertation style.
Despite the fact that every dissertation style has its own requirements for a dissertation, there are some general rules, which you can use.
- You should use a clear font. For example, it can be Times New Roman 12. Mind that you cannot use italics anywhere in the main text
- In the main text you should use a double space between the lines. But you should use a single space for all quotations, footnotes and references.
- All the margins should be set at one inch except the left margin. General dissertation style requires 1, 5 inches for the left margin.
- Your dissertation should be printed on a white A4 paper on one side.
These are the general requirements for any custom written dissertation style. Although, they will make your paper look more professional, you should not forget about other specific requirements that will depend on a particular dissertation style.
