Thesis/Dissertation Submission

All theses and dissertations are deposited electronically through the Electronic Thesis Deposit (ETD).

Submission Instructions

  1. Unless explicitly indicated, these instructions are for both the M.S. thesis and Ph.D. dissertation. The term "thesis" is used below to mean both thesis and dissertation.
  2. Read the information on the Thesis Office website and mark the Thesis Deposit Deadlines on your calendar. You can submit your thesis directly to the Grad College for their review. The deadline is for submitting the final version of your thesis, including any formatting edits requested by the Grad College, so allow for a week to complete the format review. Please plan accordingly and submit your thesis well before the Grad College deadline.
  3. Register yourself for graduation on Enterprise when you register for classes.
  4. Review thesis formatting guidelines on the Graduate College website.
  5. Complete title page check. Send your thesis title page to the Thesis Office at thesis@illinois.edu. This needs to be done several weeks before the deposit deadline.
  6. Eliminate copyright issues. You are required to have letters of permission from any publisher with whom you previously published your work and who has a copyright on that work. Unresolved copyright issues can delay thesis submission and graduation.
  7. For Ph.D. dissertation deposit only: You will need to fill out the publication agreement with ProQuest, the thesis publisher used by the University of Illinois. This agreement specifies under what conditions your dissertation will be made available to the public.
  8. Submit your thesis to your advisor for final review and approval.
  9. Create Electronic Thesis Deposit account and upload thesis several days before the Thesis Office deadline.