The Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Windsor runs its formatting review before your oral defence rather than after it. That single design choice shapes everything else: your document has to be presentable weeks before you stand up to defend it, and a formatting problem found late pushes your defence date rather than your deposit date.
Which document you are writing
The format requirements apply to doctoral dissertations, master's theses in all programs except the M.F.A., master's creative writing projects in English, master's major papers in all programs, and major internship papers in Political Science.
Two groups are told to go elsewhere. M.F.A. thesis students and Faculty of Human Kinetics internship students should ask their departmental office for the standard that applies to them.
Graduate Studies is explicit that grammar and spelling are not part of the format review. The office checks structure, numbering and consistency. Nobody at that stage is copy-editing your prose for you.
Traditional or manuscript style
You choose one of two organizations, and the choice changes where your references live.
A traditional thesis organizes chapters around a central problem and is normally used where no part of the work has been published or submitted for publication. It has a single References or Bibliography section in the back matter, which may either precede or follow the appendices.
A manuscript-style thesis comprises the text of one or more papers that have been, or will be, submitted for publication. Each chapter carries its own References or Bibliography at the end of that chapter, so the reference list sits inside the thesis body rather than the back matter.
Two rules catch manuscript-style writers out. First, both formats require a single abstract in the front matter, so you strip the individual abstracts out of your papers. Second, the thesis must be more than a collection of manuscripts: it needs logical progression from chapter to chapter and one consistent style throughout, with the same chapter heading format, sub-heading levels, font, spacing and margins, and the same citation style in every chapter regardless of what the target journals use.
In both formats, appendices go in the back matter, never after individual chapters.
Page order and numbering
The front matter runs in a fixed order, and the numbering is the part people get wrong.
| Page | Numbering |
|---|---|
| Title page | Counted as page one, not physically numbered |
| Committee members page | Counted as page two, not physically numbered |
| Declaration (originality, or co-authorship / previous publication) | Physically numbered iii |
| Abstract | Roman numerals, continuing |
| Dedication, Acknowledgements (optional) | Roman numerals, and must appear in the Table of Contents |
| Table of Contents | Roman numerals |
| Lists of Tables, Figures, Appendices, Abbreviations (optional, in that order) | Roman numerals |
| Thesis body, from chapter one or the introduction | Arabic numerals starting at 1 |
| Back matter | Arabic numerals, continuing consecutively |
Pick the right declaration. The Declaration of Originality is for a traditional thesis with no co-authored or previously published material. The Declaration of Co-Authorship / Previous Publication is for a manuscript-format thesis, or a traditional one that incorporates joint research or published papers.
Abstract limits are firm: two pages maximum for a doctoral dissertation, one page maximum for a master's thesis, major research paper or creative writing project.
The back matter ends with the Vita Auctoris, which is required, must be the final page of the document, must be numbered and must appear in the Table of Contents. It carries your name, education and degrees, and related academic information such as publications and conference presentations arising from the thesis research. Leave out home addresses and full dates of birth. The same applies to appendices: strip signatures, personal phone numbers and addresses before they go in.
Do not restart page numbering at the appendices. If an appendix reproduces material that already carries its own page numbers, renumber it to fit your sequence.
Margins, font and spacing
| Element | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Margins | The same on every page, for example one inch all around. Illustrative material may extend into the left or right margin where needed |
| Font size | 10 points or larger; smaller permitted for graphs, formulas, figure and table captions, and appendices |
| Line spacing | At least 1½ recommended, except for notes, long quotations, captions, appendices and references. Must stay consistent throughout |
| Titles | Front-matter and back-matter section titles centred, uppercase and bold, consistent in size and style within each of the three sections |
| Tables and figures | One style used consistently across all chapters |
Those figures come from the page margins, font and line spacing page.
UWindsor does not mandate a font family, a citation style or a maximum thesis length. Margins are published as a consistency rule with one inch given as the example rather than as a fixed figure. Your citation style comes from your supervisor and your discipline. If you want certainty on any of these, ask your program rather than assuming a university-wide number exists.
Graduate Studies publishes an MS Word template and a format checklist, and the template is built around the traditional format. Start from it. Retrofitting section breaks and numbering into a document you have already written is slow and avoidable work.
Your committee
| Document | Minimum composition |
|---|---|
| Master's thesis | Supervisor from the program holding full graduate faculty status, plus two additional readers from the University of Windsor |
| Master's major paper | A supervisor holding graduate faculty status, one other program faculty member, plus any additional members the program coordinator approves |
| Doctoral dissertation | Supervisor or co-supervisors from the program, two additional program readers, and one reader from outside the program at UWindsor |
The committee rules require that a majority of members hold full graduate faculty status, including the supervisor and one program reader. Where there are co-supervisors, one must be from the program with full status, and the other must hold affiliate or full status. A master's major paper committee needs only departmental approval, not formal Faculty of Graduate Studies approval.
For a doctoral defence, the committee is supplemented by an independent external examiner.
The doctoral defence schedule
The PhD timeline tracker sets out a chain of deadlines that all count backwards from your defence date.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| End of first term of study | PhD committee proposed, form uploaded to UWinsite for Graduate Studies approval |
| At least 6 weeks before | External Examiner Request Form to Graduate Studies, with the proposed examiner's full CV, recent relevant publications, email, mailing address and phone number |
| At least 5 weeks before | Dissertation approved for submission; room booked, committee and examiner invited |
| At least 4 weeks and 2 days before | Approval to Submit form, PDF and confirmed defence date to Graduate Studies, which then sends the dissertation to the external examiner |
| At least 4 weeks before | Defence-ready dissertation, completed format checklist and intended defence date emailed to the thesis office |
| At least 9 days before | External examiner's report must be received |
| At least 8 days before | Chair package sent; defence notice posted in the department and sent to Graduate Studies |
Three details are worth writing on your wall. You must have no contact with the external examiner, at any point; your department may contact them only to schedule the defence. If the examiner's report has not arrived seven days before the defence, the defence must be rescheduled, with a maximum two-day extension available on the nine-day deadline. And the last day to send a dissertation to an external examiner for a January defence is the last Monday in November.
The defence chair is selected by Graduate Studies, must hold full graduate faculty status and must come from outside your home program. The defence itself is a public oral presentation.
Ethics review
If your work involves human participants, it goes to the Research Ethics Board before you collect anything. The REB reviews research with human participants conducted by faculty, staff or students, regardless of funding or where the research takes place, and that includes secondary data and human biological materials.
Since 1 January 2023, the REB requires the TCPS 2: CORE-2022 certificate with main application submissions, and pre-2022 CORE certificates are no longer accepted. Principal and co-principal investigators need it, and other team members who interact with participants or their data may need it too. The tutorial is free and takes a few hours. Do it early, because a superseded certificate holds up the whole application.
The REB asks researchers to meet with them before submitting, which genuinely shortens time to clearance on anything unusual.
After the defence: the deposit
The deposit is what actually completes your degree, and it has three parts.
- Make any post-defence changes your committee asked for, then collect a signature from each member on the Post-Defence Committee Approval form and submit it to your department.
- Upload the final, committee-approved PDF to the ETD Administrator system, selecting your access options, including delayed release if you want an embargo.
- Email Graduate Studies the signed approval form, the thesis or dissertation non-exclusive licence (theses, dissertations and creative works only), and a Request for Withholding form if you are asking for an embargo.
You get an automatic confirmation email on upload, then a decision from the Thesis Administrator within three to five business days. There is no charge, and no printed copies are required. Once approved, your document goes to ProQuest and appears on the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global portal and in Scholarship@UWindsor after roughly six to eight weeks.
Embargo
Withholding is available for six months without justification, or up to one year with good cause as judged by the Faculty of Graduate Studies, with supervisor endorsement. During the embargo a brief record including your abstract is still posted. Extensions can be requested within one month of expiry. Decide this before you upload, not after.
Phase I and Phase II deadlines
UWindsor ties deposit deadlines to tuition. Under the Phase I and Phase II policy, Phase I is a grace period at the start of each term that lets you deposit without registering or paying tuition for that term, provided the defence was completed in a previous term while you were registered. Phase II applies if you miss that window: you register and pay, then receive a 50% reduction of base tuition once the criteria are met, and you graduate at the following convocation rather than the current one.
The exact dates move every term. Check the current important dates for graduate students before you plan a defence around a convocation, because missing Phase I by a few days costs you a term of fees and a convocation.
Pre-submission checklist
- Committee formed and approved, with a majority holding full graduate faculty status
- REB clearance in hand, with a current TCPS 2: CORE-2022 certificate, before any data collection
- Traditional or manuscript style chosen, and references placed accordingly
- Correct declaration used: originality, or co-authorship / previous publication
- Abstract within one page (master's) or two pages (doctoral)
- Title and committee pages counted but not numbered; Declaration numbered iii
- Body numbering restarts at Arabic 1 and runs unbroken through the back matter
- Vita Auctoris present, numbered, listed in the Table of Contents, free of private details
- Margins identical on every page; font 10 pt or larger; spacing consistent
- Format checklist completed and PDF emailed to the thesis office, program office copied, four weeks (doctoral) or two weeks (master's) ahead
- PhD only: External Examiner Request Form in six weeks ahead, and no contact with the examiner
- Post-defence: committee approval form signed, ETD upload done, non-exclusive licence sent
- Withholding request submitted if you need an embargo, before upload
Where to get help
Your supervisor and committee are the right people for scope, methodology and citation style, since none of those are set centrally. The thesis office handles format checking and the deposit, and the Faculty of Graduate Studies administrative address handles the approval to submit and the external examiner request. Your graduate program office knows the departmental variations and should be copied on most of it. The Research Ethics Board answers ethics questions before you submit, not after.
If the difficulty is the writing rather than the paperwork, our thesis writing support works chapter by chapter, which suits a manuscript-format thesis where each chapter has to stand alone and still connect to the ones around it.
