cambridge phd thesis template

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PhD thesis formatting

There is no official pre-made departmental or University-wide style template for PhD theses. Some argue that learning (and advancing!) the art of beautifully typesetting a thesis is a crucial part of getting a PhD.

Here are some practical recommendations, examples, and useful starting points.

Most PhD authors in the Computer Laboratory prefer LaTeX as their typesetting system (under both Linux or Windows), mainly because of its

• excellent and yet unmatched support for mathematical formulae;
• good support for managing bibliographic references;
• good support for high-quality typography;
• easy integration with software-engineering tools (make, revision control, etc.);
• very safe and robust handling of large documents;
• long-term stability;
• comprehensive free tool support.

A common approach is to use the report style, with a suitable title page added, margins changed to make good use of the A4 format, and various other changes to suit submission requirements and individual tastes (e.g., other fonts).

For preparing publication-quality diagrams, some of the most powerful and popular tools used include:

• PGF/TikZ – the probably most sophisticated drawing package for LaTeX
• matplotlib – Matlab-style function plotting in Python

Official requirements

There used to be detailed Student Registry PhD format requirements , regarding font sizes and line spacing, but most Degree Committees have dropped these, recognizing that they were mainly motivated by past typewriter conventions. The rules left are now mainly about the word count .

In particular, it is no longer necessary for dissertations to be printed single sided or in “one-and-a-half spaced type”. If you still like to increase the line spacing, for easier proofreading, you can achieve this in LaTeX by placing into the preamble the line “ \usepackage{setspace}\onehalfspacing ”.

Recommendations

One Cambridge thesis-binding company, J.S. Wilson & Son , recommend on their web page to leave 30 mm margin on the spine and 20 mm on the other three sides of the A4 pages sent to them. About a centimetre of the left margin is lost when the binder stitches the pages together.

Write your thesis title and section headings in “sentence case”, that is use the same capitalization that you would have used in normal sentences (capitalize only the first word, proper nouns and abbreviations). Avoid the US-style “title case” that some conference-proceedings publishers require.

• Sentence case is normal typographic practice in the UK (see any UK-published newspaper, magazine, journals such as Nature , etc.).
• The catalogues of both the University Library thesis collection and our departmental Technical Report series record titles this way, and you don't want the cataloguers mess with your title capitalization when your thesis finally reaches them.
• It preserves useful information about the correct capitalization of any names or technical terms used.

Page numbers

Use a single page-number sequence for all pages in your thesis, i.e. do not use a separate sequence of Roman numerals for front-matter (title page, abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents, table of figure). In LaTeX that means using the report style, not the book style.

• PDF viewers number pages continuously starting from 1, and using anything else as printed page numbers causes confusion.
• This will save you some reformatting when submitting your thesis as a techreport .

Bibliographic references

If you use purely-numeric bibliographic references, do not forget to still mention authors’ surnames, as a courtesy to both the authors and your readers. Also, try to add the exact page number on which the quoted point is found in the reference; LaTeX supports this really well. (“suggested by Crowcroft and Kuhn [42,p107]”)

Technical Report submission

After a thesis has been approved by the examiners, the author normally submits it for publication as a Computer Laboratory Technical Report .

It is a good idea to read early on the submission guidelines for technical reports , as this may reduce the need to change the formatting later.

If you want to minimize any changes needed between your submitted thesis and the corresponding technical report version, then – in addition to applying all the above advice – you can

• make page 1 the title page,
• make page 2 the required declaration of originality,
• make page 3 the summary, and
• choose a layout suitable for double-sided printing (required for techreport, since 2010 also allowed for final PhD submission).

This way, there is a very high chance that turning your thesis into a techreport could be as simple as replacing pages 1 and 2 with the standard Technical Report title page (which the techreport editor can do for you).

More information

• The Computer Laboratory house style page explains where to find the University identifier that many put on the title page of their thesis.
• Markus Kuhn’s simple PhD thesis template ( snapshot ) is just one possible starting point.
• The cam-thesis LaTeX class is a collaborative effort to maintain a Cambridge PhD thesis template for Computer Laboratory research students, initiated by Jean Martina, Rok Strniša, and Matej Urbas.
• Effective scientific electronic publishing – Markus Kuhn’s notes on putting scientific publications onto the web, especially for LaTeX/LNCS users.
• International Standard ISO 7144 Presentation of theses and similar documents (1986) contains also some general guidelines for formatting dissertations that may be of use.
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Physical & Digital Collections

Theses & dissertations: home, access to theses and dissertations from other institutions and from the university of cambridge.

This guide provides information on searching for theses of Cambridge PhDs and for theses of UK universities and universities abroad. 

For information and guidance on depositing your thesis as a cambridge phd, visit the cambridge office of scholarly communication pages on theses here ., this guide gives essential information on how to obtain theses using the british library's ethos service. .

On the last weekend of October, the British Library became the victim of a major cyber-attack. Essential digital services including the BL catalogue, website and online learning resources went dark, with research services like the EThOS collection of more than 600,000 doctoral theses suddenly unavailable. The BL state that they anticipate restoring more services in the next few weeks, but disruption to certain services is now expected to persist for several months. For the latest news on the attack and information on the restoration of services, please follow the BL blog here:  Knowledge Matters blog  and access the LibGuide page here:  British Library Outage Update - Electronic Legal Deposit - LibGuides at University of Cambridge Subject Libraries

A full list of resources for searching theses online is provided by the Cambridge A-Z, available here .

University of Cambridge theses

Finding a cambridge phd thesis online via the institutional repository.

The University's institutional repository, Apollo , holds full-text digital versions of over 11,000 Cambridge PhD theses and is a rapidly growing collection deposited by Cambridge Ph.D. graduates. Theses in Apollo can be browsed via this link . More information on how to access theses by University of Cambridge students can be found on the access to Cambridge theses webpage.   The requirement for impending PhD graduates to deposit a digital version in order to graduate means the repository will be increasing at a rate of approximately 1,000 per year from this source.   About 200 theses are added annually through requests to make theses Open Access or via requests to digitize a thesis in printed format.

Locating and obtaining a copy of a Cambridge PhD thesis (not yet available via the repository)

Theses can be searched in iDiscover .  Guidance on searching for theses in iDiscover can be found here .   Requests for consultation of printed theses, not available online, should be made at the Manuscripts Reading Room (Email:  [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0)1223 333143).   Further information on the University Library's theses, dissertations and prize essays collections can be consulted at this link .

Researchers can order a copy of an unpublished thesis which was deposited in print form either through the Library’s  Digital Content Unit via the image request form , or, if the thesis has been digitised, it may be available in the Apollo repository. Copies of theses may be provided to researchers in accordance with the  law  and in a manner that is common across UK libraries.  The law allows us to provide whole copies of unpublished theses to individuals as long as they sign a declaration saying that it is for non-commercial research or private study.

How to make your thesis available online through Cambridge's institutional repository

Are you a Cambridge alumni and wish to make your Ph.D. thesis available online? You can do this by depositing it in Apollo the University's institutional repository. Click here for further information on how to proceed.    Current Ph.D students at the University of Cambridge can find further information about the requirements to deposit theses on the Office of Scholarly Communication theses webpages.

UK Theses and Dissertations

Electronic copies of Ph.D. theses submitted at over 100 UK universities are obtainable from EThOS , a service set up to provide access to all theses from participating institutions. It achieves this by harvesting e-theses from Institutional Repositories and by digitising print theses as they are ordered by researchers using the system. Over 250,000 theses are already available in this way. Please note that it does not supply theses submitted at the universities of Cambridge or Oxford although they are listed on EThOS.

Registration with EThOS is not required to search for a thesis but is necessary to download or order one unless it is stored in the university repository rather than the British Library (in which case a link to the repository will be displayed). Many theses are available without charge on an Open Access basis but in all other cases, if you are requesting a thesis that has not yet been digitised you will be asked to meet the cost. Once a thesis has been digitised it is available for free download thereafter.

When you order a thesis it will either be immediately available for download or writing to hard copy or it will need to be digitised. If you order a thesis for digitisation, the system will manage the process and you will be informed when the thesis is available for download/preparation to hard copy.

See the Search results section of the  help page for full information on interpreting search results in EThOS.

EThOS is managed by the British Library and can be found at http://ethos.bl.uk . For more information see About EThOS .

World-wide (incl. UK) theses and dissertations

Electronic versions of non-UK theses may be available from the institution at which they were submitted, sometimes on an open access basis from the institutional repository. A good starting point for discovering freely available electronic theses and dissertations beyond the UK is the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) , which facilitates searching across institutions. Information can also usually be found on the library web pages of the relevant institution.

The DART Europe etheses portal lists several thousand full-text theses from a group of European universities.

The University Library subscribes to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses  (PQDT) database which from August 31 2023 is accessed on the Web of Science platform.  To search this index select it from the Web of Science "Search in" drop-down list of databases (available on the Documents tab on WoS home page)

PQDT includes 2.4 million dissertation and theses citations, representing 700 leading academic institutions worldwide from 1861 to the present day. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full text coverage for older graduate works. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The University Library only subscribes to the abstracting & indexing version of the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database and NOT the full text version.  A fee is payable for ordering a dissertation from this source.   To obtain the full text of a dissertation as a downloadable PDF you can submit your request via the University Library Inter-Library Loans department (see contact details below). NB this service is only available to full and current members of the University of Cambridge.

Alternatively you can pay yourself for the dissertation PDF on the PQDT platform. Link from Web of Science record display of any thesis to PQDT by clicking on "View Details on ProQuest".  On the "Preview" page you will see an option "Order a copy" top right.  This will allow you to order your own copy from ProQuest directly.

Dissertations and theses submitted at non-UK universities may also be requested on Inter-Library Loan through the Inter-Library Loans department (01223 333039 or 333080, [email protected] )

• Last Updated: Dec 20, 2023 9:47 AM
• URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/theses

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Submitting your hardbound and electronic thesis (final thesis submission)

Please note the information on this page is for doctoral students. MSc and MLitt students are not required to submit a hardbound copy of their thesis or upload an electronic copy to Apollo

Please note also, this information is for submission of the final version of the thesis. Information about submitting your thesis for examination .

Submitting the hardbound and electronic (final) thesis (doctoral students)

Final approval for doctoral degrees is conditional on you submitting a hardbound copy of your thesis for deposit in the University Library and uploading an electronic copy to Symplectic Elements for deposit in the University repository Apollo. These should be the versions approved by your examiners and Degree Committee and should be identical with the exception of the 'Deposit & Copying of Hardbound Thesis Declaration' form which should not be included in the electronic version. The ‘Statement of Length and Declaration Form’ which you submitted with the thesis for examination should not be included in either the hardbound or the electronic copy of the thesis. If you received permission to submit additional materials alongside your thesis, they must be uploaded with the electronic copy of your thesis for deposit in the University repository. It is not possible to make any amendments to the hardbound or electronic thesis after they have been submitted.

We recommend that you submit the electronic copy of your thesis first, so any errors that are picked up can be rectified prior to getting the hardbound printed and bound.

Submission of the hardbound thesis, creation of a thesis record in Symplectic Elements and the uploading of a thesis access confirmation form to it are requirements for all access levels. A file representing the full thesis must also be uploaded for all access levels except Indefinitely restricted access (see below for further guidance).

If you plan to graduate as soon as possible, please note that both hardbound and electronic copies of your thesis should be submitted at least ten calendar days before the graduation ceremony you wish to attend. 

It is important to ensure your mailing address, email address(es) and telephone numbers are updated over the 12 months following the submission of your thesis. We will primarily contact you by email. You can update your details via  CamSIS Self Service

1. Hardbound thesis submission

What are the requirements for the hardbound submission.

The minimum requirements for the hardbound thesis are as follows:

be typescript on A4 paper; recommended 100gsm - check with the binders if you want to use a different weight, but should not be lower than 100gsm

be in A4 portrait format

use one-and-a-half spaced type

we recommend you use double-sided printing where possible; however, single-sided printing is acceptable

Cover and spine:

hard bound (hand stitched and not stuck)

cover colour is up to you

your thesis title, your initials and surname reading down the spine

letter colour must be gold

Bound inside the thesis:

Please ensure pages are in the correct order. 

1. the 'Deposit & Copying of Hardbound Thesis Declaration' form must be bound into your final hardbound thesis as the very first page . Do not include this form in the electronic version

2. title page, displaying:

• the full title of the thesis;
• your full legal name (as it appears on your passport, marriage certificate or deed poll);
• your college;
• the date of submission (month and year).  Please note - the date on the title page should be the same as on the thesis originally submitted for examination - this applies even if you were required to make corrections to your thesis. However, if your original viva outcome was to revise and resubmit you should put the month and year you submitted the revised thesis for examination. 
• a declaration stating "This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy/Doctor of Education etc... (as appropriate)."  

3. a typewritten declaration (this is different to the declaration form mentioned above),  following the title page , stating (you can copy and paste the following text): 'This thesis is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any work that has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted, for any degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the preface and specified in the text. It does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the relevant Degree Committee'. 

The declaration does not need to be signed.

For more information about word limits see the word limits for the respective Degree Committee .

4. a copy of your Summary/Abstract. This must be bound inside the thesis following the typewritten declaration.

5. [if applicable] the list of additional materials that were approved for submission alongside the thesis. This must be bound inside the thesis  following the Summary/Abstract.

Where can I have my thesis bound with hard covers?

There are a number of bookbinders available, including:

• J S Wilson & Son  Bookbinders Ltd  Est 1830. You can place your order with the Cambridge SU who act as a collection and drop-off point for J S Wilson. 
• Brignell Bookbinders
• Blissetts/Thesis Online

Cambridge SU Print Shop offer self-service printing.

Where do I submit my thesis?

Student Registry Student Services Centre New Museums Site Cambridge CB2 3PT

What if I am not in Cambridge?

The two Cambridge Bookbinders listed above accept an electronic copy of the thesis and will arrange for printing, binding and delivery to the Student Registry. Please note that this is only a service offered by the two bookbinders directly - the Cambridge SU do not offer this service.

How many copies of the hardbound thesis must I submit?

One copy is required for the University Library. However, the following Departments require a second copy, usually for their own library.  Submit both copies to the Student Registry:

• Earth Sciences
• History and Philosophy of Science
• Judge Business School

2. Electronic thesis submission

NB: MD under Special Regulations candidates should contact the Thesis Team ( [email protected] ) for advice on uploading the electronic copy of their thesis once the Student Registry has informed them that they are eligible to do so.

In addition to submission of a hardbound thesis (please see above), you are required to upload an electronic version of your thesis to Symplectic Elements for deposit in the University repository, Apollo. Information can be found on the Open Access webpages. However, please see below if you choose indefinitely restricted access for your thesis.

Details of a training session can be found here .

A module on deposting your electronic thesis can be found here.

What are the requirements for the electronic submission?

Complete the thesis access form which can be found on the Open Access webpage (see below for information about managing access).

The electronic submission must be identical to the hardbound copy with the exception of the ' Deposit & Copying of Hardbound Thesis Declaration' form - do not include this form in the electronic version.

Upload your thesis and thesis access form to Symplectic Elements for deposit in the University repository, Apollo. If you were granted permission to submit additional materials alongside your thesis for examination, these must also be uploaded alongside the electronic version of your thesis. If you are unsure how to do this, please contact the Office of Scholarly Communication for further advice at [email protected] . 

Please note that it is not possible to make any amendments to the thesis once it has been submitted.

Managing access to your thesis (hardbound and electronic)

Before you upload the electronic copy of your thesis to the University’s repository, you will need to confirm the appropriate level of access to your thesis.  University Library staff will apply the access level to the hardbound and electronic version of your thesis. If your Degree Committee requires a second copy of the thesis to be retained in the department library, you need to ensure that the librarian knows which access level to apply.

Guidance on the different access levels is available on the Open Access webpage.  

• You should agree the appropriate level of access with your supervisor, taking account of any terms and conditions of your funding or other contractual arrangements, use of copyrighted or sensitive material or patent applications. You are advised to start this discussion as early as possible following your viva. This will help to prevent delays when you submit your electronic thesis.
• A common cause for delays to students graduating is missing thesis access forms or forms which do not have the appropriate signatures.  Supervisors and Degree Committees should provide handwritten signatures or exact digital equivalents. If this is not possible, contact the thesis team ( [email protected] ) to ask about approval via email.
• Complete the thesis access form (which can be found on the Open Access webpage) and upload the completed form ( signed by your supervisor and also the Degree Committee where appropriate ) when you upload your thesis. 

Students who submitted the final version of their thesis before 1st October 2017

If you submitted the final version of your thesis before 1 st October 2017 and wish to extend a period of restricted access that was previously agreed, you can apply for this using the Restricted Access Extension form . You can apply to extend the period of restricted access to your thesis by a maximum of two years with each application.

Your Supervisor and Degree Committee will need to sign the form to confirm their approval of the extension of the period of restricted access. Once the form is complete and signed by all parties, it should be submitted to the Student Registry by email to [email protected] for final approval.

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PhD theses (HPS)

We hold bound copies of all PhD theses completed by students in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in the University of Cambridge since at least the mid 1980s. These are available from the staff desk (you will be asked to sign a copyright declaration form). They can be read in the library, but may not be copied or borrowed.

All our PhD theses are catalogued on iDiscover : find them by searching for author name and title keywords in the same way as for a printed book. Alternatively, select the Whipple as the holding library and search for "dissertation" to get a more comprehensive list. 

In addition, the following lists give you a quick overview of the PhD theses we hold, in alphabetical and chronological order:

• HPS PhD theses (alphabetical)
• HPS PhD theses (chronological)

If the thesis you are looking for is not held here at the Whipple it's possible it was submitted to a different department or faculty in the University. Cambridge University Library holds hard copies of all PhD theses in all subjects approved by the University of Cambridge since 1921. These can be consulted in person in the Manuscripts Room .

How can I obtain a copy of a Cambridge PhD thesis?

Unfortunately we are not able to provide copies of PhD theses, either in hard copy or digital, from the Whipple. However, our colleagues in the Digital Content Unit at the University Library may be able to help; visit their website for further information about their image ordering service and to access the online request form.

Other HPS theses

The Library has a small collection of PhD and Masters-level theses and dissertations on a variety of HPS topics from other universities, acquired by donation. These are not catalogued on iDiscover, but are listed separately. Please ask staff for details.

MPhil and Part III dissertations

We have a large - but not comprehensive - collection of MPhil dissertations completed in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science since the late 1990s. These are catalogued on iDiscover , and are available for use in the Library only. Please ask at the staff desk for further details.

The following lists give you a quick overview of the MPhil and Part III dissertations we hold:

MPhil History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine

• Alphabetical list
• Chronological list

MPhil Health, Medicine and Society

Part iii history and philosophy of science.

• Alphabetical List
• Chronological List

Sample Part II, Part III and MPhil coursework

We also have a selection of sample work submitted for Part II, Part III and MPhil exams in recent years, which is available to consult in the Library. This includes Part II Primary Source Essays and Dissertations, Part III Research Papers, and MPhil Essays. The samples include a range of historical and philosophical approaches and are intended to provide good examples of each type of work. Please ask at the staff desk for further details.

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phd-thesis-template

Here are 84 public repositories matching this topic..., kks32 / phd-thesis-template.

A LaTeX / XeLaTeX / LuaLaTeX PhD thesis template for Cambridge University Engineering Department (CUED)

• Updated Jul 30, 2023

joaomlourenco / novathesis

A LaTeX template for academic monographs (e.g., dissertations and thesis). This template serves both beginners and proficient LaTeX users.

• Updated May 26, 2024

latextemplates / scientific-thesis-template

LaTeX template for Master, Bachelor, Diploma, and Student Theses

• Updated Dec 11, 2023

liubenyuan / nudtpaper

A LaTeX template for Master/PhD Thesis of NUDT

• Updated Nov 2, 2022

alexpovel / latex-cookbook

A comprehensive LaTeX template with examples for theses, books and more, employing the 'latest and greatest' (UTF8, glossaries, fonts, ...). The PDF artifact is built using CI/CD, with a Python testing framework.

• Updated Mar 20, 2024

wang-chen / thesis_template_ntu

Thesis Latex Template for Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

• Updated Oct 14, 2021

agude / UMN-PhD-Thesis-Template

The LaTeX thesis template provided by the University of Minnesota, with various improvements.

• Updated Jan 4, 2022

latextemplates / uni-stuttgart-dissertation-template

Unofficial LaTeX template for a PhD thesis at University of Stuttgart, Germany

• Updated Oct 12, 2022

holgern / TUB_PhDThesisTemplate

An unofficial PhD Thesis template for pdflatex, lualatex and xelatex for the Technical University of Berlin. The pdf-files are following the PDF/A-1b standard.

• Updated Nov 10, 2017

drshahizan / phd

The daily life of a PhD student may differ significantly from that of an undergraduate or Masters student. There will be much more independence and very few 'taught' elements. A typical week will almost certainly include the same number of PhD study hours as a full-time job.

• Updated May 9, 2024

valentjn / uni-stuttgart-phdthesis-template

Unofficial LuaLaTeX template for PhD theses at the University of Stuttgart, Germany; used e.g. for my PhD thesis: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.05379

• Updated Aug 23, 2019

Veerachart / Thesis-template

A template (example) for Master/PhD thesis in LaTeX for The University of Tokyo.

• Updated May 15, 2018

georgedeath / University_of_Exeter_Thesis_Template

University of Exeter PhD in Computer Science thesis template

• Updated Dec 11, 2019

fmilthaler / Thesis-LaTeX-Template

This is a generic LaTeX template for dissertations (layout according to Imperial College London).

• Updated Jul 8, 2019

cai4cai / XCLThesisTemplate

A thesis template compliant with King's College London and UCL rules

• Updated Mar 28, 2024

bcschiffler / phdthesis_ki

Unofficial bookdown template for a doctoral thesis at Karolinska Institutet (KI)

• Updated Dec 6, 2017

k4rtik / uchicago-dissertation

University of Chicago electronic dissertation LaTeX class and template

• Updated Apr 13, 2023

kourgeorge / tau-thesis-latex

A LaTeX template for Masters (M.Sc.) and Doctorate (Ph.D) theses in the Tel-Aviv University.

• Updated Feb 4, 2021

UtrechtUniversity / UU-dissertation-template

This is a Utrecht University dissertation template for LaTeX

• Updated Mar 22, 2024

rorygregson / OSCOLA-LaTeX-Template

A LaTeX template using the OSCOLA referencing system, intended for law theses, articles, and books.

• Updated Aug 9, 2022

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