Style Policy

Graduate Division Requirements
The margin settings, title page and signature page of the thesis or dissertation must meet Graduate Division requirements. Students who submit pages that do not meet these requirements will be asked to reformat the pages. Consult the Style and Policy Manual for Theses and Dissertations for details.

For the rest of the manuscript, it is at the discretion of the graduate programs to require or suggest their own professionally acceptable style. Students are advised to consult with their committee chair regarding an acceptable style and familiarize themselves thoroughly with it, before they begin to prepare their manuscript. In general, the style should conform to the major professional or scientific journals in the students' discipline. For certain disciplines, suitable style manuals are readily available and may be used. Graduate programs in disciplines where no style manual exists may wish to develop their own. 

Margin Settings
To ensure that no part of the manuscript is cut off when it is bound and trimmed by the Hamilton Library, the Graduate Division requires standardized margins on every page of the manuscript. The left margin must be 1½ inches from the edge; all other margins must be 1 inch from the edge. The only exception is facing pages, which should have the 1½ inch margin on the right side.

The entire content on the page, including page numbers, must fall within the margins specified. The page number can be bottom center or top right.

Title Page
Please pay special attention to the following features on the title page:

• Include an okina before the last "i" when writing "Hawai'i." The okina is NOT an apostrophe. To insert the "okina," use the command "Insert > Symbols" or "Insert > Special Characters" in your word processing program.

• Indicate your degree and graduate program (e.g., Master of Science in Zoology). Use only the official degree name. If in doubt, refer to the Catalog or check with the Graduate Records Office. Certain graduate programs (e.g., Biomedical Sciences, Botanical Sciences, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas) include specializations in which students receive their degree. Indicate the specialization on the title page and signature page as shown in the examples below:

  Biomedical Sciences (Physiology)
  East Asian Languages and Literatures (Korean)
  Languages and Literatures of Europe and the Americas (German)
  Zoology (Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology)

• Indicate the month and year of graduation (December, May, or August). Do not separate the month and year of graduation with a comma. Do not use the date you completed or submitted the thesis/dissertation.

• Include committee members' names. Customarily, the name of the outside committee member is given last.

• Do not include titles such as Dr. or PhD for committee members or for yourself. However, the chair should be designated by the word "chairperson."

• Spell-check the title and signature pages. Some commonly misspelled words include "fulfillment." The word "requirement" needs to be in its plural form when used in the case of "degree requirements."

Signature Page
The signature page with original signatures must be submitted with the master copy of the manuscript. For the second copy of the manuscript, a photocopy of the signature page is acceptable.

Please pay special attention to the following features on the signature page:

• Do not include title or heading on the signature page.

• Position the page number consistently with the page numbers in the rest of the manuscript.

• Include the following statement in English or an approved equivalent statement in Hawaiian: "We certify that we have read this (thesis/dissertation) and that, in our opinion, it is satisfactory in scope and quality as a (thesis/dissertation) for the degree of (name of degree) in (graduate program)." See above for information on the use of official degree names.

• Include only as many lines as there are committee members signing; extra lines may suggest that some committee members found the thesis/dissertation unsatisfactory.

• Obtain original signatures of all the committee members. Signatures must be in permanent BLACK INK.

• To safeguard against a committee member signing into the right margin, increase the right margin on this page to two inches.