Electronic Thesis and Dissertation

Graduate students at Southern Illinois University who are required to submit a Thesis or Dissertation must follow the Graduate School formatting guidelines and submit through the ProQuest submission website. Review the guidelines for formatting and submission on this website and/or download Guidelines for the Preparation of Dissertations, Theses, and Research Papers. 

Two submission deadlines must be met: Initial Submission and Final Submission.

Submission Deadlines

Initial Submission

Upload your ETD (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation) in one PDF file to the ProQuest submission website. Your ETD does not have to be perfect for this first upload, but it must be close enough to being complete that your committee chair has approved you sending it to your committee members. The initial submission will take several minutes, since you must respond to several questions. (See below). Within 1-3 days after submission, you will receive an email from the ETD Administrator with a list of corrections that must be made to meet formatting requirements. Make those changes and upload your ETD again, using the same ProQuest login. There is a charge for the first upload, and no charge for subsequent uploads. Upload as many times as needed to meet all formatting requirements.

Initial Submission Questions

Before you can upload your thesis or dissertation for the initial submission, the following questions must be answered on the ProQuest website. Look in the Guidelines (pdf) for more information about initial submission questions.

1. In which primary subject category and additional subject categories does your paper topic belong?
2. What are the keywords that fit with your paper topic (up to 6)?
3. What are the names of your committee chair and committee members?
4. Which type of publishing, traditional or open access? (Choose traditional, since OpenSIUC offers open access free of charge.)
5. Do you want to delay the release of your paper after graduation? (Optional. Some choose to delay due to pending publication, pending patent, or sensitive content.)
6. Do you want search engines to have access to your paper?
7. Do you want ProQuest to file for copyright registration on your behalf? (Optional. You will own the copyright of your paper, but ProQuest is offering to register it, for a fee.)
8. Do you want to purchase bound copies of your paper? (One bound copy is required, $30. This is the library copy and will be stored in special collections at Morris Library. You have the option of purchasing additional bound copies through ProQuest. You also have the option of purchasing bound copies through another vendor.)