Formatting Guidelines – Dissertation Guide for Students in the UK

So, you are done with the dissertation writing task. Congratulation on achieving this milestone, but do not submit it yet. The most important thing is still there to do. It is the formatting of the dissertation as per the formatting guidelines. When writing the dissertation, most students do not follow those guidelines and just focus on writing it. Thus, while preparing to submit the dissertation, it is important to format it as per the guidelines.

However, the problem is that many students do not know about those guidelines. With your presence here, it is not difficult to guess that you are one of those students. Well, there is no need to worry as you have just hit the right door. In today’s post, we are going to discuss all the formatting guidelines that you must follow prior to submitting your dissertation. Before that, let’s explain the importance of formatting.

Why Is It Important To Follow Formatting Guidelines?

Teachers all over the world ask students to format their dissertations as per the provided guidelines. They even deduct marks from the students who do not follow the guidelines completely. This makes students think about why it is important to follow the formatting guidelines. Below are the points that answer this “why”:

Ease Of Communication:

The first reason why it is important to format a dissertation is the ease of communication. When you follow a standard structure, the reader does not need to struggle much to learn things.

Sign Of Professionalism:

Following the guidelines for formatting a dissertation is a sign of professionalism. It sends a message to your research supervisor and readers that it has been written by a professional who knows how to write it.

Makes Work Organised:

The third reason is that it makes the dissertation writing or the content in the dissertation more organised. When you follow a certain style, like MLA or APA, you actually organise the dissertation.

Thus, these are some of the top reasons that make following the formatting guidelines important. However, if you are still unable to work in organised way, go to find dissertation help online, and it will help you comprehend it well.

Top Guidelines To Format A Dissertation At The Graduate Level

After reading the information, you know the importance of following the guidelines to format a dissertation. However, you still do not know what those guidelines are. In this section of today’s post, we are going to learn about those guidelines. Thus, a brief description of all the guidelines to follow is as follows:

The Front Matter Of The Dissertation:

The title page, abstract, and table of contents, these three things fall under the category of the front matter of the dissertation. The title page guidelines are that it should contain the title of the research and the name of the supervisor. After that, there must be the name of the student and institution, and that is it. The abstract is a single page of writing, and formatting guidelines are not very strict. Lastly, when formatting the table of contents, make sure that all the headings are there. Also, give the exact page number of each heading.

Guidelines For The Textual Matter:

All the text in the dissertation falls under this category. There are different guidelines for different kinds of text, e.g., quote, words, spacing between the words, or font size and font style. The description of each formatting guideline is as follows:

• Fonts. The font style of the text must be Times New Roman. As far as the size is concerned, it should be 12 pt in size.
• Quoted matter. The quoted matter in the dissertation should be indented 5mm to 10mm. The text remains the same except for the spacing. The spacing would be single.
• Line spacing. There are specific guidelines for the spacing between the lines. It should be 1.5 for each line in the dissertation.
• Headings. The headings in the dissertation must be in hierarchal order. You should follow the H1, H2, and H3 heading styles.

Writing The Headers And Footers

The headers and footers are the necessary aspects of a dissertation. There are different formatting guidelines for writing headers and footers. Do you know what those guidelines are? No. Thus, those are as follows:

• Headers. Helps to identify the chapter and source of the page. It should include the chapter name or number and the page number. The font size of the text in the header must be 10 points.
• Footers. The information that comes in the footer of the dissertation is mostly the page number or the description of something mentioned in the body. The font size of the text in the footers should also be 10 points.

Pagination Of The Dissertation

Pagination is the act of giving page numbers to the dissertation pages. The Arabic numbers are given to the pages of the dissertation as the standard practice. However, the numbering inside the dissertation should be numeric. It depends on the use of numbers, whether they should be single-level or multilevel. For example, if you are writing something in chronological order, the numbers continue, like 1,2,3 and so on. Multilevel numbering is used when there is a hierarchy of different headings in the dissertation.

Referencing Guidelines

References are an important aspect of a dissertation. It is the references that save from the issues of plagiarism. There are certain guidelines that you have to follow when creating the references. However, these guidelines depend on the style you have chosen for reference. For example, if you have chosen the APA 7^th edition for referencing, you have to follow its guidelines. However, if you do not know how to create a reference in APA style, then buy dissertation online as a sample and see the references in it.

Final Thoughts

Formatting a dissertation in the right manner is the most important. It makes the communication of ideas easy and shows your professionalism. However, to write such a dissertation, you need to follow the formatting guidelines. In this guidepost, we have discussed the top guidelines for different sections of the dissertation. Thus, go through each guideline given above and write the dissertation accordingly.