University of Auckland
Ph.D. Thesis & Master's by Research Thesis Formatting Guidelines
Official layout specifications, binding margins, and document formatting requirements.
Governing Body: School of Graduate Studies (SGS) (Auckland, NZ)
1. Page Setup & Geometry
Page dimensions, binding margins, and print/digital alignments
2. Typography & Spacing Hierarchy
Font selections, heading styles, line spacing, and paragraph indentation
3. Technical & Archival Compliance
ETD ProQuest repository requirements, table spanning, and vector DPI rules
Table captions: above.
Figure captions: below. Colour photography minimum 300 DPI.
Right-aligned equation numbers (chapter.seq). Preserves native MathML and Word equation blocks.
Library ETD guideline: PDF/A-1b (Note: ScholarSpec formats submission-ready Word .docx documents; export to PDF/A upon final committee approval).
4. Preliminary Pages Checklist & Order
Strict graduate school ordering, title page numbering suppression, and Roman pagination
- 1Title PageMandatoryPagination:
suppressed counted - 2AbstractMandatoryPagination:
roman visible - 3Declaration of GenAI UseMandatoryPagination:
roman visible - 4Co-Authorship FormOptional / If ApplicablePagination:
roman visible - 5AcknowledgementsOptional / If ApplicablePagination:
roman visible - 6Table of ContentsMandatoryPagination:
roman visible - 7List of FiguresOptional / If ApplicablePagination:
roman visible - 8List of TablesOptional / If ApplicablePagination:
roman visible
6. Academic Integrity, Similarity & AI Policy
Plagiarism threshold, similarity checking software, and Generative AI disclosure rules
Mandatory Declaration of GenAI Use in front matter at confirmation and final thesis submission under the Generative Artificial Intelligence in Doctoral Research Guidelines. Tool names, objectives, and verification must be documented with prompt records retained.
8. Institutional & Departmental Policies
Mandatory Co-Authorship Form where collaborative publications are included.
Mandatory Declaration of GenAI Use outlining tools, aims, and verification.
Signed declaration of originality.
Deposit in ResearchSpace@Auckland.
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* Provisional ScholarSpec layout used where the cited handbook does not specify this value. Confirm with your thesis office before submission.
- Standard A4 layout with 1.5 line spacing. Margins: Left 30 mm for binding allowance; top, right, and bottom 25 mm.
- Generative Artificial Intelligence in Doctoral Research Guidelines mandate a formal Declaration of GenAI Use in preliminary pages.
- Co-authorship form mandatory for theses containing publication components.
- Corrected 2026-10-13 against primary sources: Brief's deadUrls: thesis-submission.html (404 or gone) and generative-artificial-intelligence-doctoral-research-guidelines.html (missing 'in'); replacement GenAI URL has 'generative-artificial-intelligence-in-doctoral-research-guidelines.html' (200). auckland.ac.nz returns 406 to plain curl; works with full browser UA + Accept/Accept-Language headers. Legacy 'Guide to Theses and Dissertations 2016' PDF (19 mm / 15 mm margins) returned 404 on direct fetch so was NOT used. Doctoral policy (2020+ regulations) states no page size, margins, header/footer or print sides. Margin 'mismatch' verdicts mean the claimed 30/25/25/25 mm values have no official backing; only the sub-doctoral 19 mm bind / >=15 mm minimum is published and is a recommendation for Master's research components. Per-programme/department rules may add detail.
- Downgraded to partial 2026-10-13: the cited official sources do not state every field required for 'verified'.