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If you’re wondering about making your dissertation cover page, chances are you’re nearing the final stretch of your doctoral journey. Congratulations!
Luckily, making your title page is one of the simplest tasks you’ll have to complete. Generally speaking, there’s a template your institution will use and you just have to fill in your information.
What Should a Dissertation Cover Page Include?
The inner artist in you might want to make your dissertation cover page beautiful: printed in color, maybe with pictures, or with an interesting font or design. However, you’re going to be limited by your university.
Pretty much every university that I’ve come across has a template and guidelines that you must follow for your dissertation cover page. You may just be filling in things like your title, name, your university’s name, maybe your committee members’ names, and not much more. You won’t have much (if any) creative license.
The advantage of this is, by the time you get to that stage, you may be tired of writing and it will be easier to follow directions than to come up with something creative. Your dissertation cover page doesn’t need to be a work of art. It just needs to convey what the dissertation is about.
Dissertation Cover Page: The Title
The aspect of your dissertation cover page that you have the most control over is the title. It’s also the most important to get right.
The main thing to remember is, keep the title simple. It should simply tell a person what they’re going to read in the document. Don’t try to intrigue people or be too clever, just tell them directly. Having a straightforward title helps your committee approve your dissertation more quickly.
Over 50% of doctoral candidates don’t finish their dissertations.
Your title should include relevant information that gives the reader a complete picture of what your study was about. Generally speaking, you’ll want to cover a few specific areas.
Quantitative Title Requirements
- Type of relationship between variables.
- Key variables (independent and dependent).
- Population.
Qualitative Title Requirements
- Central conceptual issue investigated.
- Qualitative tradition applied.
- Participant group.
See this article for a more in-depth discussion of choosing your dissertation’s title.
Sample Dissertation Cover Page
Your dissertation cover page should look something like this:
While each university has slightly different requirements, generally speaking, a dissertation cover page looks something like this, above. The required sections are as follows:
TITLE
A Dissertation
Submitted to XXXXX University
Graduate Faculty of the School of XXXXXXXX
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF XXXXXXXXXX
by
NAME
City, State (of the university)
Month Year
Final Thoughts
While your dissertation title page doesn’t have to be fancy, it’s important that it aligns with your university’s requirements. Take a look at their rubric and, if needed, look at completed dissertations’ title pages as well. If all else fails, ask your mentor for help.
Once you’ve finished this, pat yourself on the back. You’re almost done!
PS. Need support getting through the final stages of your dissertation, or moving into the world of your career? As a dissertation coach and career coach, I’ve helped countless students achieve their dreams. Let’s achieve yours. Book a free 30-minute consultation today.
