Thesis & Dissertation Aids

Templates: These documents serve as models for formatting a journal-ready thesis, a journal-ready dissertation, a journal-ready 3-article dissertation, a traditional (5-chapter) thesis, and a traditional (5-chapter) dissertation and include all formatting required by BYU and the American Psychological Association (7th edition). Much of the instruction you need for your thesis or dissertation is in the directions found in each section in the templates. Check with your department for specific guidelines. All theses and dissertations that include human subjects need to include a copy of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) Letter of Approval to Conduct Research and the stamped IRB consent/assent forms in an appendix.

• Journal-Ready Thesis Template
• Journal-Ready Dissertation Template
• Journal-Ready 3-Article Dissertation Template
• Traditional (5-Chapter) Thesis Template
• Traditional (5-Chapter) Dissertation Template
• Traditional (5-Chapter) Qualitative Thesis Template

McKay School of Education Checklist for Formats and Conventions of Theses and Dissertations: The checklist describes the important writing and formatting requirements of the MSE and BYU Graduate Studies. Students must submit this completed checklist (electronic or paper) to the MSE dean's office with their thesis/dissertation for approval. The more carefully you review your thesis or dissertation for these items, the faster your submission process will be. 

For extra support with the writing and formatting requirements, schedule a meeting with Jena Green here and email the section you're working on to jena.green@byu.edu 3-5 days before your meeting.

MSE Thesis & Dissertation Approval Process: When you have finished your thesis or dissertation, you will need to receive approval from your committee, chair, graduate coordinator, and the dean's office. This flowchart illustrates the approval process. First submit your MS Word document to your committee and chair. When they have all reviewed it, send it to the graduate coordinator. Finally, when the graduate coordinator has reviewed it and you have made all of the corrections from the committee, chair, and graduate coordinator, you or your graduate coordinator will send an updated, clean MS Word final version to msegradsec@byu.edu. This process will take a few back-and-forths to finish. Plan enough time ahead of the submission deadlines to make corrections you will receive from your committee, chair, graduate coordinator, and the MSE dean's office. 

Creating and Uploading Your Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD): After making changes from the dean's office, you will convert your MS Word document to a PDF with bookmarks and embed the fonts. This works best with Adobe Acrobat Pro and this video will show you the quickest way to embed fonts. After doing this, send the PDF to msegradsec@byu.edu, and after approval, upload it to the Graduate Progress website. Below are example PDFs to help you see how the bookmarks should appear in your final ETD.

• Journal-Ready Thesis ETD Example
• Journal-Ready Dissertation ETD Example
• Journal-Ready 3-Article Dissertation ETD Example
• Traditional (5-Chapter) Thesis ETD Example
• Traditional (5-Chapter) Dissertation ETD Example

Once your thesis/dissertation has been released for publication on the BYU Scholars Archive website, it will be available for worldwide access. You can search for and download theses/dissertations and faculty publications on this website and access article metrics (e.g., number of downloads).

2023-2024 Graduation Deadlines for the McKay School:

(Check with your department for your program's deadlines.)

December 2023 Graduation Deadlines:

April 2024 Graduation Deadlines:

June 2024 Graduation Deadlines:

August 2024 Graduation Deadlines:

The following individuals can be hired to support students in the formatting and writing process. It is not mandatory to hire an editor. Please contact editors concerning prices. Inclusion in this list does not constitute an endorsement by the McKay School of Education.