Southeast Missouri State keeps its thesis requirements short, which is a mercy, but it means the few published rules carry real weight. Two of them are administrative rather than academic, and those are the ones that catch people.
Two tracks that have to line up
Track one is paperwork. The process opens with the Topic Approval Form, submitted through SEMO's Smartsheet system, and it is due no later than the semester before the one in which you plan to complete the thesis.
Track two is enrolment. You must be enrolled in GR 699 during the semester you actually complete the thesis, and that registration carries its own deadline, distinct from the topic approval date.
Neither of these is about the quality of your work. Both will stop you graduating.
The published deadlines
SEMO publishes topic approval dates years ahead, which is genuinely useful for planning.
| Completing in | Topic approval due |
|---|---|
| Spring 2026 | 3 November 2025 |
| Summer 2026 | 9 March 2026 |
| Fall 2026 | 8 June 2026 |
| Spring 2027 | 2 November 2026 |
Course registration deadlines for GR 698, GR 699 and GR 799 fall in the graduating semester itself, for example 16 March 2026 for a Spring 2026 completion and 12 June 2026 for Summer 2026. Confirm both against the deadlines page before you plan around them.
Notice the gap. Topic approval for a Summer 2026 finish falls in March 2026, while the registration deadline for that same finish falls in June. They are not the same checkpoint and they are months apart.
Your committee, and four signatures
The committee is three people:
- Committee Chairperson
- Second Committee Member
- Third Committee Member
The Topic Approval Form needs all three of their signatures plus the Department Chairperson's. That is four people to route a form past, several of whom may be away between terms. The deadline is the date the form is submitted, not the date you started chasing signatures, so work backward by a few weeks rather than a few days.
Formatting
SEMO does not impose a single house style. You follow a standard one, and the university names MLA, APA and Chicago as examples. Your discipline and your committee decide which.
What it does specify:
| Element | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Abstract | Between 150 and 300 words |
| Title page | Title, your name, "Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment", the degree, the university, and the date |
| Fonts | Professional typefaces |
| Headings | Paragraph and section headings included |
| Appendices, tables, figures | All referenced in the text and correctly labelled |
The abstract range is a hard one. A 140-word abstract is out of compliance in a way that a slightly short chapter never is.
The labelling requirement is less obvious but catches people: every appendix, table and figure must be referenced in the body text, not merely present at the back. A table nobody points to from the prose is a defect here, not a stylistic choice.
The reader checks your grammar
This is unusual enough to flag.
The thesis reader checks for context, format and grammar. Graduate Studies returns the thesis to you if corrections are needed.
Most universities' format reviewers look at layout and stop there. SEMO's explicitly includes language. Practically, that means a document that is structurally sound but written in a rushed final week can come back, and each return cycle costs calendar time you may not have between the defence and the submission deadline.
Give yourself a genuine proofreading pass, ideally by someone who has not read the draft before. Reading your own work aloud catches more than rereading it silently.
After the defence
You defend before your thesis committee. After a successful defence:
- Submit the Acceptance Sheet Form through Smartsheet, attaching the final manuscript as a PDF.
- Once approved, upload the thesis to ProQuest.
- The acceptance sheet must be placed correctly inside the document itself, not just submitted alongside it.
That third point is a small thing that generates real rework. The signed sheet lives at a specific position in the front matter; check the current thesis page for where, and build it in before you generate your final PDF rather than splicing pages afterwards.
What SEMO does not publish
- No word or page count for the thesis, beyond the abstract range
- No prescribed margins, font size or line spacing on the public thesis page; your chosen style guide governs these
- No required citation style; MLA, APA and Chicago are offered as examples
- No stated similarity or plagiarism-check threshold
- No published policy on generative AI use in theses
- No published embargo durations for ProQuest deposit
Where a rule is not published, ask your committee chair and get the answer in writing if it affects your timeline. The absence of a stated AI policy in particular should not be read as permission.
Pre-submission checklist
- Topic Approval Form submitted by the deadline in the semester before completion
- All four signatures collected: three committee members plus the Department Chairperson
- Enrolled in GR 699 for my completion semester, by its own registration deadline
- Abstract between 150 and 300 words
- Title page carries every required element
- Every appendix, table and figure referenced in the text and labelled
- One style guide applied consistently throughout
- Proofread properly, since the reader checks grammar
- Acceptance Sheet Form submitted with the final PDF after the defence
- Acceptance sheet placed at the correct point inside the document
- Uploaded to ProQuest once approved
Where to get help
The Graduate Studies Office owns the forms, deadlines and the reader's review. Your committee chair owns everything academic, including the length and style questions SEMO deliberately leaves open.
If the writing is the bottleneck rather than the paperwork, our thesis writing support works through it chapter by chapter with you.
