Submitting your thesis or dissertation

When you need this page: Need later

You are close. For master's and doctoral students nearing the defense or final submission: the usual path from a finished draft to an approved PDF, and what to double-check on the way.

Important

This toolkit is unofficial: not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by RPI or the Office of Graduate Education (OGE), and OGE's current rules win. The manual, checklists, forms, and dates are on the OGE submission page (opens in a new tab). OGE recommends its Word template unless you are proficient in LaTeX; its staff review formatting but cannot debug LaTeX code.

The path to graduation

Dates change each term. Check the current OGE calendar, and keep your advisor and committee informed of the current deadline policy.

Finish a complete draft, work through the final PDF checklist below, and check every attribution, quotation, and citation: OGE's review starts with an academic-integrity check (manual §3.1).
Doctoral students: confirm any committee changes were approved before you defend.
Request a preliminary formatting review from OGE at least a week before your defense. Send a mostly complete draft and say which citation style you use. It is not available after you defend. Fix what it finds.
Defend.
Finish the content revisions your committee asks for.
Complete signatures and paperwork as in OGE's current checklist for your degree. If a chapter reuses a paper you wrote with co-authors, this includes the Declaration of Co-Contribution. A paper you wrote alone needs its chapter attribution (manual §2.8.1 p. 28; see chapters based on published papers). Unresolved case: if your sole-authored paper is submitted or in review but not yet published, the manual's wording is unclear about whether it goes on the declaration. Check OGE's current checklist, or ask OGE, before you decide (points that need OGE confirmation). The declaration describes your role in each paper; the CRediT contributor roles (opens in a new tab) help you name it.
Upload your final PDF to ProQuest promptly. Any embargo is chosen in ProQuest during upload. Upload each reuse permission (the whole document) as a copyright permission, not as a supplemental file.
Expect several rounds of formatting revisions, often with short turnaround times. Revision emails may come from the ProQuest submission system rather than from RPI, so check your spam folder.

What OGE commonly flags

The toolkit follows the manual edition recorded in the requirements map. Check these areas yourself.

Area	What the toolkit handles for you	What you still check
Title page	Layout, capitalized title, degree wording, committee list, space for the seal, bracketed graduation date	Exact names, degree, department, month and year; the seal downloaded from RPI and saved as `assets/rpi-seal.jpg`, with no placeholder box left (add the RPI seal)
Margins and page numbers	US letter, 1 in margins on every page. Front matter lowercase Roman; title is i, unnumbered; next page ii. Body Arabic from 1 on the first page of Chapter 1. Page numbers 0.75 in from the edge; bottom center on front matter and on the first page of each chapter, references, appendix; top right elsewhere (§2.2 p. 16; FC; §1.1 p. 1; §2.2 pp. 16‑17)	Nothing extends into the margins (wide tables, images, long URLs, landscape pages)
Contents and lists	Automatic contents, list of tables, and list of figures using your full captions, with aligned page numbers and room for numbers like 12.10	Chapter and appendix titles in capitals; consistent section and caption capitalization (OGE asks for one consistent case; the starter's capitals for chapter titles are only its convention); no short captions; each list switched on only if you have that kind of object
Captions	Bold, single-spaced captions, with examples that put table captions above and figure captions below	You place each `\caption` (table above, figure below); every figure and table has one, and it is mentioned in the text
Attributions and co-contribution	A `\chapterattribution{...}` command that prints an unnumbered note on the chapter's first page	Exact wording from the current OGE manual (§2.8 pp. 27‑29; FC); the citation in your reference style (`\fullcite{key}` does this); an attribution for every reused paper, including ones you wrote alone; every co-authored one listed on the Declaration of Co-Contribution
Reproduced figures and tables	A caption example and wording for material used with permission or under a Creative Commons license	Permission or license for each item; credit in the caption; permissions documents as OGE instructs
Equations	Numbered `equation` examples, including a multi-line one with a single centered number	Equations centered, numbered right in parentheses, multi-line number centered, every display numbered. Displays inside a lemma, algorithm, theorem, or proof may be unnumbered. Long equations broken (§2.7 pp. 26‑27; FC; §2.7 p. 27)
References	Consistent formatting from one style; references placed before appendices; printed access dates; Check your references lists URLs without one	Style agreed with advisor; an access date printed for every URL (§3.4 p. 34; FC); non-journal sources checked against the style guide

Final PDF checklist

Check what OGE commonly flags, then complete this list. Two optional tools help: Check your PDF measures a few of these points, and Check your references looks through references.bib. The ticks are not saved: they reset when you leave the page, so copy the list somewhere if you want to keep your progress.

Every sample paragraph, placeholder, and invented example is gone.
Built with a clean recompile, with any \includeonly line commented out again.
On Overleaf, the compile mode is back to Normal (not Fast draft), and every figure and the seal show in the PDF.
If you use the optional build helper, its pre-submission hints are resolved.
No bold citation keys or ?? anywhere; no missing characters.
Contents and lists include figures and tables in the appendices.
Reviewed newer class changes and applied any formatting fixes your thesis needs: Check your PDF names the version that made your PDF; read the changelog entries since then, starting with Changes your PDF? (update safely).

A successful compile proves only that LaTeX made a PDF. Archive the final source, the exact PDF you submitted, and your permission documents in two places (back up your work).

Official resources

Everything official starts from the OGE Submit Your Thesis / Dissertation page (opens in a new tab), which links to:

the current thesis and dissertation manual (formatting rules);
the master's and doctoral checklists (process and paperwork);
forms, including the Declaration of Co-Contribution;
Additional Resources, including citation guidance for STEM and non-STEM fields;
preparation workshops, where you can ask questions;
OGE's own Word and LaTeX tips sheets;
the current deadlines and calendar.

RPI's official LaTeX template and the RPI seal are on RPI ITS's Thesis Preparation page (opens in a new tab). Document links change, so start from these pages rather than bookmarking them.

For help with the writing itself, RPI's Student Success Center runs a Writing Lab. For LaTeX problems, use this guide or ask the community.

Something wrong or unclear on this page? Tell the maintainer (opens in a new tab), no account needed.