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California Institute of Technology

Ph.D. Thesis Formatting Guidelines

Official layout specifications, binding margins, and document formatting requirements.

Governing Body: Graduate Studies Office & Caltech Library (CA, US)

Degree Scope:🎓 Ph.D. / Doctoralℹī¸ Master's / M.Tech. format requires departmental / DPGC confirmation unless a central handbook is cited
Official Handbook:
Caltech Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Guidelines
View Official Handbook ↗
Paper Dimensions
Letter (8.5 in × 11.0 in)
Binding Margins
1.5 in Left / 1 in Right
Standard Typography
Times New Roman (12pt)
Line Spacing
Double Spaced (2.0x)

1. Page Setup & Geometry

Page dimensions, binding margins, and print/digital alignments

Letter
Top: 1 in
Binding: 1.5 in
[Header]Page 1
[Front matter]
Right: 1 in
Bottom: 1 in
Left (Binding Gutter)
1.5in(3.81 cm)
Right Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Top Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Bottom Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Margin Specification: Left 1.5 in (and right 1.5 in if double-sided); top, right, and bottom 1.0 in.

2. Typography & Spacing Hierarchy

Font selections, heading styles, line spacing, and paragraph indentation

Times New Roman
Body Font
Times New Roman
Font Size
12pt
Line Spacing
Double Spaced (2.0x)
Paragraph Indent
0.5 in
Approved Typefaces:Times New RomanArialCalibri
Spacing Exceptions: Single-space block quotes, footnotes, tables, and bibliography items.

3. Technical & Archival Compliance

ETD ProQuest repository requirements, table spanning, and vector DPI rules

ETD / ProQuest Ready
Tables Layout

Table captions: above.

Figures & Graphics

Figure captions: below. Colour photography minimum 300 DPI.

Math & Formulae

Right-aligned equation numbers (chapter.seq). Preserves native MathML and Word equation blocks.

Archival Preservation

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

Mandatory Sequence
  1. 1
    Title PageMandatory
    Pagination: suppressed counted
  2. 2
    AbstractMandatory
    Pagination: roman visible
  3. 3
    Table of ContentsMandatory
    Pagination: roman visible

6. Academic Integrity, Similarity & AI Policy

Plagiarism threshold, similarity checking software, and Generative AI disclosure rules

Policy & Disclosure
Generative AI Policy
Standard Academic Policy

Governed by the Caltech Honor Code and IMSS research data security policies; unpublished experimental data must not be input into third-party AI models.

Chapter Opening & Print Setup

Chapter start placement, top margin drops, single vs double-sided print, and paper weight

Layout
Printing Format
Single or Double-Sided

Notice a discrepancy in this 2025 handbook?

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*ScholarSpec is a pre-submission formatting assistant. Output is calibrated to official university graduate handbooks.
Editorial Tutorials & Standards

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  • Verified against CaltechTHESIS and Graduate Studies Office guidelines: 1.5 in left margin, top page numbers at least 0.75 in from top.
  • Corrected 2026-10-13 against primary sources: Both brief deadUrls confirmed dead: thesis.library.caltech.edu (connection failure, HTTP 000) and the gradoffice thesis page. Replacement: Grad Office PDF (rev 04-2024) hosted on gradoffice.caltech.edu plus Library CaltechTHESIS guide pages. Grad Office no longer requires proofreading from 2025-26 (library page). Extra source for AI: https://www.imss.caltech.edu/services/ai (HTTP 200, institute-wide GenAI guidance, not a thesis rule).