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University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Ph.D. Dissertation & Master's Thesis Formatting Guidelines

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

Governing Body: The Graduate School Thesis/Dissertation Consultant (TN, US)

Degree Scope:🎓 Ph.D. / Doctoralℹ️ Master's / M.Tech. format requires departmental / DPGC confirmation unless a central handbook is cited
Official Handbook:
UT Knoxville Guide to the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations
View Official Handbook ↗
Paper Dimensions
Letter (8.5 in × 11.0 in)
Binding Margins
1 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 in
[Header]Page 1
[Front matter*]
Right: 1 in
Bottom: 1 in
Left (Binding Gutter)
1in(2.54 cm)
Right Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Top Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Bottom Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Margin Specification: 1.0 in on all sides (standard template configurations).

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
Disclosure Statement Required

Students are strictly accountable for original authorship and verifying all factual claims and citations.

Notice a discrepancy in this 2026 handbook?

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Pre-Submission Baseline Assistant

Save 20+ Hours of Manual Formatting

Don't spend days manually tweaking Microsoft Word margins, Roman numeral page breaks, and table headers. ScholarSpec prepares your raw draft to official University of Tennessee, Knoxville guidelines in seconds.

Format with this Template ➔
✓High-Confidence Letter Margin & Gutter Setup
✓Automated Roman & Arabic Pagination Structure
✓Multi-Page Table Spanning & Header Protection
✓24-Hour Secure Storage & Instant Deletion (Strict Academic Privacy)
*ScholarSpec is a pre-submission formatting assistant. Output is calibrated to official university graduate handbooks.
Editorial Tutorials & Standards

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* Provisional ScholarSpec layout used where the cited handbook does not specify this value. Confirm with your thesis office before submission.

  • 1.0 in standard margins on all sides.
  • Header and footer margins are 0.5 in.
  • Title page must match approval sheet and TRACE record exactly (no comma between graduation month and year).
  • Consecutive pagination throughout.
  • Corrected 2026-10-13 against primary sources: Bot protection blocker: curl returns HTTP 403 for every gradschool.utk.edu page (including the brief's templates URL and sequence-of-pages), but the same pages load (HTTP 200 content) through WebFetch/WebSearch, so they are not dead; the templates page (…/thesis-and-dissertation-templates/) still exists. The Guide PDF cover shows the 2026-2027 edition. Real mismatches: (1) front matter - only the title page number is suppressed, so hiddenOn should not include copyright_page; (2) front-matter and body page-number positions must be the same, so claimed bottom_center vs top_right is inconsistent. Claimed 'AI declaration required' has no support in UTK Graduate School sources (should be null/not stated). Font, size and spacing are permitted ranges, not single mandated values (11-14 pt; single/1.5/double; any common legible font).