Dissertation Format

“Traditional 5-chapter”

Manuscript Style Dissertation

  • University Requirements
  • College of Nursing Requirements
    • Dissertation proposal includes:
      • Introduction
      • Problem
      • Purpose
      • Overview of literature to support significance and rationale
      • Methods including proposed analytics
    • Final dissertation includes:
      • As above for the proposal, plus:
      • Brief summary of all findings with analytics included
      • Brief discussion summary with recommendations for research and practice
  • Requirements Specific to option
    • Introduction, Methods, Findings Summary, Discussion Summary
    • A minimum of 3 manuscripts in format ready for submission to specified journals (readiness determined by the dissertation committee)
      • Integrative review or conceptual model or data based paper of findings
      • Methods of data based paper of findings
      • Data based paper of findings; all research questions proposed for the dissertation must be addressed in the final dissertation. Thus, more than one results paper may be needed.
    • Papers published during the course of PhD training that are specifically and unequivocally associated with the dissertation may be “counted” as one of the first two papers (review or methods).
      • The inclusion of these published papers must be specifically approved by the dissertation committee at the proposal stage.
      • The inclusion of these papers in the final dissertation must be allowable under the copyright agreement the student signed when the paper was submitted/accepted by the journal and the paper must be in the form that the specific journal allows.
      • The student must be the first author on all published papers that are included in the dissertation.
    • All proposed research questions/aims must be addressed in the final dissertation.

If after speaking with your advisor you have questions about the dissertation format, please contact the PhD Program Director.