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Thesis / dissertation formatting manual (2024).

• Filing Fees and Student Status
• Submission Process Overview
• Electronic Thesis Submission
• Paper Thesis Submission
• Formatting Overview
• Fonts/Typeface
• Pagination, Margins, Spacing
• Paper Thesis Formatting
• Preliminary Pages Overview
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures (etc.)
• Acknowledgments
• Text and References Overview
• Figures and Illustrations
• Using Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Using Copyrighted Materials by Another Author
• Open Access and Embargoes
• Copyright and Creative Commons
• Ordering Print (Bound) Copies
• Tutorials and Assistance
• FAQ This link opens in a new window

Copyright page

The use of copyright notice is the prerogative of the copyright owner and does not require advance permission from, or registration with, the U.S. Copyright Office. The use of such notice is highly recommended , because it informs the public that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication.

Generally speaking:

• You should include a copyright statement for yourself for this manuscript.
• You must list copyright holders ​if any portion of your manuscript has been previously published (by you or by another author). See the using previously published materials overview .
• If a copyright statement is not being included, insert a blank page as a substitute. The UCI Libraries strongly recommends that you include a copyright statement.
• Please read the Copyrighted Materials sections (found in the tabs on the left-hand side of this page) for more information.

The notice must contain the following three elements:

• The symbol © (the letter in a circle), or the word "Copyright"
• The year of publication (i.e., the year in which you are filing your manuscript)
• The name of the copyright owner (i.e., your name as it appears on the title page)

Example: © 2015 John Doe

Copyright page example

Here is an example Copyright Page if the thesis/dissertation author is the only copyright holder listed.

If you need to list other copyright holders for other material included in your manuscript, those should be listed above your copyright for your graduate manuscript. Here is an example of a copyright page section with multiple copyrights listed:

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• Last Updated: Jul 18, 2024 9:46 AM
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Graduate Thesis Submission Guide

• Thesis Guide
• Formatting Requirements
• Submitting Your Thesis
• Managing References
• Database Pro Tips
• Avoiding Plagiarism This link opens in a new window
• Discoverability, Embargo, and the Scholarly Conversation
• Open Access Images
• Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials
• Thesis Collection This link opens in a new window

Copyright and Your Thesis

Respecting copyright — and understanding the basics of copyrighted-related issues — is an important aspect of your thesis-writing process and an issue that will continue to arise throughout your academic and creative career. We know copyright can be intimidating and hard to make sense of: after all, discussions of copyright often stray into complex legal, creative, and ethical terrain. While it isn't necessary for you to be a copyright expert, it is essential that you understand copyright issues as they relate to including and referencing the work(s) of others in your thesis. 

With that in mind, here are our overarching recommendations as you consider which third party materials to include in your thesis: 

• Use open access works and/or works covered by Creative Commons Licenses
• Ensure your use of copyrighted materials counts as "fair use" (in other words, repurpose, reinterpret, or otherwise "transform" the copyrighted work in question)
• Request permission for copyrighted works
• Remove potentially problematic materials entirely from your thesis

We recommend you follow the above guidelines in the order that they're listed ; that is, seek out open access works first to avoid any potential copyright infringements. If you are unable to do so, seek fair use for copyrighted materials. If each of these strategies is unsuccessful, your last resort may be to request permission for copyrighted work[s], or to remove problematic third party content from your thesis entirely if this option fails. The following three subpages — Open Access Images, Fair Use, and Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials — breaks each of these issues down into greater detail. 

• Image Use and Copyright for your Thesis (Slides)

Why Does Copyright Matter?

For the purposes of your thesis, you don't need to be an expert in copyright law. However, understanding the major issues and questions around copyright will help you make informed decisions about your thesis and protect it from copyright challenges once it's published. Understanding and respecting copyright is also about giving credit where it's due, an essential aspect of Pratt's Academic Integrity Policy . So while respecting copyright has to do with protecting your thesis from infringement challenges, on a deeper level it also has to do with pursuing your academic and creative work with integrity and acknowledgement of other's contributions.

The following excerpt from Kenneth Crews' article  Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis  summarizes this sentiment well: 

" Finishing your dissertation is exhausting and gratifying. You have invested countless days of research, followed by hours of writing late into the night. You made exciting breakthroughs, and you aspire to a career of further research. You probably did not expect to indulge in copyright at this stage of your study. However, attention to copyright can help avoid pitfalls and reveal opportunities to further your scholarly goals. Given the way that the law operates, copyright law most certainly protects your dissertation as well as the quotations, photographs, music, diagrams, and many other works that you have included in your doctoral study. The decisions you make about copyright can directly affect the quality of your work, your ability to publish your dissertation, and your opportunities for building upon your years of research throughout your career. Attending to the fundamentals of copyright can be important for your scholarship, regardless of your discipline or field of expertise ." (Crews, 2013). 

Copyright Checklist

The following checklist — also summarized from Kenneth Crews' article — should be referred to throughout the process of researching and writing your thesis. Though you might be tempted to put these considerations off until later, remember: any preparation or planning done early on will make things much easier as you get closer to submitting your thesis.  

• Do a thorough sweep or your thesis draft and identify all third-party materials you plan to include in your final project. Common third party materials include images, sources from the Web, and long quotations (over 1.5 pages, single-spaced) from published works. 
• Ask yourself, " Are any of these materials open access ?" If yes, they have no copyright restrictions.
• Ask, " Does my inclusion of this material count as fair use ?" 
• Ask, " Do any of these materials have Creative Commons Licenses ?" Creative Commons Licenses allow for free distribution of otherwise copyrighted works (with proper attribution).  
• For any materials that don't meet the above conditions, ask, " Do I have permission to use these ?" If not, refer to the "Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials" page of this guide. 
• Ask, " Am I including any materials that I've created but that have been previously published elsewhere ?" Even if you are the original author of these materials, you will need permission to include them in your thesis. 

Resources and Further Reading

We've provided relevant excerpts from these resources throughout this guide, and have also included them in their entirety below for you to review.  

• ProQuest Copyright Guide The following guide by ProQuest offers guidelines for avoiding copyright infringement and introduces the kinds of materials or sources that require copyright permissions. This document also includes a sample Permission Form and instructions to follow when requesting permission from copyright owners.
• ProQuest - Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis This article by Kenneth Crews offers a more extensive overview of copyright and its significance, before discussing the fundamentals of copyright — both protecting your own and respecting others' — as they relate to your thesis. Though not required reading, Crews' article has a wealth of useful information that will strengthen your understanding of copyright as you research and write your thesis.
• Pratt Institute Academic Integrity Policy Copyright issues directly relate to Pratt's Academic Integrity Policy, as each stress the importance of crediting and acknowledging the contributions other writers, artists, and thinkers have made to your work. "Giving credit where it's due" is a central aspect of academic integrity and an essential element of your thesis.
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• Last Updated: Apr 9, 2024 10:43 AM
• URL: https://libguides.pratt.edu/thesisguide

Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• « Thesis & Dissertation Resources
• The Graduate School Home

• Introduction
• Copyright Page
• Dedication, Acknowledgements, Preface (optional)
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Symbols
• Non-Traditional Formats
• Font Type and Size
• Spacing and Indentation
• Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• Formatting Previously Published Work
• Internet Distribution
• Open Access

Registering Copyright

Using copyrighted materials.

• Use of Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Submission Steps
• Submission Checklist
• Sample Pages

IV. Copyrighting

A copyright is an intangible right granted to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, under which they are invested for a limited period with the sole, exclusive privilege of making copies and publishing and selling them.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. There is no requirement that the work be published or registered to obtain protection under copyright law. The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work, unless it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written agreement.

Receipt of a submitted and approved thesis or dissertation in The Graduate School results in the publication of the document by the University Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. As such, each student grants the University a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce the student's work, in whole or in part, in electronic form to be posted in the University Library database and made available to the general public at no charge. This does not mean that UNC-Chapel Hill owns the copyright to your work (you do), but the University has the right to reproduce and distribute your work. Public universities often require students to allow reproduction and distribution of academic work to support the dissemination of intellectual thought and discovery. Please review the Copyright Policy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for additional information.

Regardless of whether or not you register copyright for your thesis or dissertation, UNC-Chapel Hill requires that you include a copyright notice following the title page. See Section I of this Guide and the sample copyright page for the format of this notice. Including this page helps to establish that you are the owner of the work. It also protects you, as the copyright holder, from anyone claiming innocent infringement or unintentional violation of copyright.

You may wish to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. As mentioned above, copyright registration is not a condition to copyright protection. There are, however, advantages to registration, especially if you have a claim of infringement of your copyright. Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright, but there are advantages to filing for registration within three months of publication. For more information on registration, consult the website of the U.S. Copyright Office .

There are two main ways for you to file for copyright of your thesis or dissertation:

• You may empower ProQuest to file the application on your behalf. When you submit your thesis or dissertation, ProQuest charges a fee for this service ($55, subject to change). The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress.
• Alternately, you may file for copyright directly. Visit the following U.S. Copyright website for more information about registering your work . There is a copyright fee for filing copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office ($35, subject to change).

Any copyrighted materials used in your work, beyond brief excerpts, may be used only with the written permission of the copyright owner. Book and journal publishers normally hold the copyright for all materials they publish. Therefore, even if you are the sole or one of several authors of material in a published book or journal, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder if you are including this material in your document. Remember that use of reproductions or excerpts of other media, such as music, graphic images, or computer software may also require permissions.

Your letter to the copyright holder needs to make clear that you seek written permission to preserve (on microfilm and digitally) and publish (in print and digital form) your thesis or dissertation through ProQuest and that ProQuest may sell, on demand, for scholarly purposes, single copies of your work, which includes the copyright holder's material. Your letter must also seek written permission for the document to be submitted in electronic format to UNC-Chapel Hill where it will be placed in a database and made available through the University Library to the general public at no charge via the Internet.

You are responsible for securing all necessary permissions and paying any permission fees in advance of using copyrighted materials in your work.

Use of Your Own Previously Published Material

Some academic programs permit you to include articles or other materials that you have previously published, that have been accepted (or submitted, in press, or under review) for publication, or that have been otherwise presented to the public within the body of your thesis or dissertation. In all such instances the following guidelines apply:

• If the material is co-authored, your academic program must approve its inclusion in your thesis or dissertation.
• If the material is copyrighted (if you are the sole author but the copyright is held by the publisher), you must fulfill the conditions specified in the section above on using copyrighted materials .
• The material, if included in the body of your text, must conform to all formatting guidelines outlined in this Guide. See the Formatting Previously Published Work section for details.

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/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="copyright for thesis"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Fair use, copyright, patent, and publishing options.

• Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?
• Embargo of online copies
• Creative Commons license
• Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?
• Register for copyright?
• Supplementary materials
• Make your work discoverable on search engines?
• Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

1. Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?

You are responsible for acknowledging any facts, ideas, or materials of others that you include in your work. You must follow the guidelines for acknowledging the work of others in the “Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others” (published in the Policy Notebook for the Cornell Community ) .

If you use any copyrighted material in the dissertation or thesis, it is your responsibility to give full credit to the author and publisher of work quoted. The acknowledgment should be placed in a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the paper or chapter. Additionally, you must determine whether use of the material can be classified as a “fair use” by performing an analysis of your use of each copyrighted item. The Cornell Copyright Information Center’s Fair Use Checklist ) is a helpful tool for performing this analysis. (See also, Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities , published by ProQuest, or The Chicago Manual of Style , published by the University of Chicago Press.)

If your use of material is not considered a “fair use,” you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Two copies of each permission letter must be submitted with the dissertation or thesis. ProQuest has specific requirements for the content of the permission letter. For these guidelines, consult the ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement form (published by ProQuest).

If you have already published or had accepted for publication part of your own dissertation or thesis material in a journal, depending on the terms of your publication agreement, it may be necessary to write to that journal and obtain written authorization to use the material in your dissertation.

2. Embargo of online copies

The value of your dissertation extends well beyond your graduation requirements. It’s important that you make an informed decision about providing online access, via ProQuest and eCommons, to your work. This decision can expand the visibility and impact of your work, but it can also shape the options available to you for publishing subsequent works based on your dissertation.

ProQuest’s ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database indexes almost all dissertations published in the U.S. and provides subscription access online to the full text of more recent dissertations. ProQuest also sells print copies of dissertations, paying royalties to authors, when they exceed a minimum threshold. Authors retain copyright in the works they submit to ProQuest.

eCommons is a service of the Cornell University Library that provides long-term, online access to Cornell-related content of enduring value. Electronic theses and dissertations deposited in eCommons, unless subject to embargo, are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. When submitting to eCommons, you retain copyright in your work. Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses submitted to ProQuest are automatically submitted to eCommons, subject to the same embargo you select for ProQuest.

Electronic copies of dissertations in PQDT or eCommons may be made accessible immediately upon submission or after an embargo period of six months, one year, or two years. You may wish to consider an embargo period which helps address publishers’ interests in being the first to publish scholarly books or articles, while also ensuring that scholarship is accessible to the general public within a reasonable period of time. Your decision should be made in consultation with your special committee.

3. Creative Commons license

Creative Commons licenses provide authors with a straightforward and standardized means of prospectively granting certain permissions to potential users of the author’s material. Authors may request proper attribution, permit copying and the creation of derivative works, request that others share derivative works under the same terms, and allow or disallow commercial uses. Authors may even choose to place their works directly into the public domain. You will have the option of selecting a Creative Commons license when you upload your dissertation or thesis to ProQuest, and your choice will automatically be applied to the copy of your work in eCommons.

4. Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?

Cornell University Policy 1.5 governs inventions and related property rights. Inventions made by faculty, staff, and students must be disclosed to the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University (CTL). Theses and dissertations describing patentable research should be withheld from publication, in order to avoid premature public disclosure.

Use the delayed release (embargo) option if a patent application is or will be in process, noting the reason for the delay as “patent pending.” If you have any questions, please contact Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing at 607-254-4698 or [email protected] .

5. Register for copyright?

Copyright law involves many complex issues that are relevant to you as a graduate student, both in protecting your own work and in referencing the work of others. Discussion of copyright in this publication is not meant to substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys. A more detailed discussion of copyright law can be found in the publication from ProQuest entitled Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth D. Crews.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form and the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is not required to secure copyright; rather it is a legal formality to place on public record the basic facts of a particular copyright. Although not a condition of copyright protection itself, registering the copyright is ordinarily necessary before any infringement suits can be filed in court.

To register a copyright for your dissertation or thesis, register online or download printable forms . You may also request forms by mail from the Information Section, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20559, or contact them by telephone at 202-707-3000.

Doctoral candidates: You may authorize ProQuest to file, on your behalf, an application for copyright registration. This option will be presented to you as part of the submission process.

6. Supplementary materials

If supplementary materials (audio, video, datasets, etc., up to 2GB per file) are part of your thesis or dissertation, you may submit them as supplementary files during the online submission process. For help selecting long-lived file formats, note ProQuest’s guidance in their document, “Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission (Including Supplemental Files).” File formats for which ProQuest does not guarantee migration may still have a high likelihood of preservation in Cornell’s digital repository; please see the eCommons help page for further guidance.

Do not embed media files in the PDF version of your thesis or dissertation, as this can significantly increase the size of the file and make it difficult to download and access. Include a description of each supplementary file in the abstract of your thesis or dissertation. You may include an additional supplementary file containing more detailed information about the supplementary materials as a “readme” file or other form of documentation; this is particularly advisable for data sets or code. The Research Data Management Service Group ( [email protected] ) offers assistance in preparing and documenting data sets for online distribution.

7. Make your work discoverable on search engines?

ProQuest offers authors the option of making their graduate work discoverable through major search engines including Yahoo, Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books. If you chose the Search Engine option on their dissertation “paper” publishing agreement or within ProQuest’s PROQUEST ETD Administrator (electronic submission service), you can expect to have your work appear in the major search engines.

If you change your mind and do not want your work to be made available through search engines, you can contact customer service at [email protected] or 800-521-0600 ext. 77020. In addition, if you did not initially adopt this option but now want your works made available through this service, contact the customer service group to change your selection.

Please note that search engines index content in eCommons, regardless of the choice you make for ProQuest.

8. Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

When creating a PDF version of your thesis or dissertation it is important to keep in mind that readers may use assistive technology such as screen readers to access your document.  Follow best practices to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is accessible to everyone.  These resources may be helpful:

• Cornell CIT’s guidance for creating accessible PDFs
• Checking accessibility using Acrobat Pro
• Embedding alternative text for images in Word
• Save a Word doc as an accessible PDF

• University of Michigan Library
• Research Guides

Copyright for Dissertations

• Copyright in Your Dissertation
• Using Others' Content
• Publishing Your Dissertation

Copyright Questions?

The University of Michigan Library Copyright Office provides help with copyright questions for University of Michigan faculty, staff and students. Please email us with questions or visit our website for more information.

Legal Advice

The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have specific legal questions pertaining to the University of Michigan, please contact the Office of the General Counsel .

If you require legal advice in your personal capacity, the lawyer referral services operated by the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan may be helpful to you.

Copyright Formalities

In the United States today, copyright protection automatically covers all new copyrightable works, including your dissertation. The moment a copyrightable work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression (e.g., written on a piece of paper or on your hard drive), it is subject to copyright.

In the past, authors had to comply with certain formalities in order to obtain copyright protection. These formalities included registering the work with the US Copyright Office and placing a copyright notice on the work. Copyright law no longer requires that authors comply with these formalities merely to obtain copyright protection. However, registering a work and putting a copyright notice on a work still come with legal benefits, so authors often do these things anyway.

Copyright Notice

Under current US law, you do not have to provide a copyright notice on your work to receive copyright protection. However, if you are making your work publicly available, you may want to.

Putting a copyright notice (the copyright symbol (©), the year of publication, and the name of the copyright holder) on a work tells the rest of the world that the work is protected by copyright. If the copyright holder later sues someone for infringing her copyright in the work, she can point to the notice to show that the defendant is not an “innocent infringer," which can lead to higher damages. A copyright notice also lets others know whom to contact if they would like a license to use the work.

• Copyright Basics: US Copyright Office Circular 1 This PDF publication from the US Copyright Office explains the basics of copyright law, including copyright notice.

Copyright Registration

Under current US law, you do not have to register your work to receive copyright protection. You may want to register it anyway, because copyright registration comes with certain legal benefits. If the work is registered within three months of its publication date or before a particular infringement occurs, the copyright holder can recover statutory damages (monetary awards that need not be connected to actual harm suffered by the copyright holder) and attorney’s fees if she is successful in an infringement suit. Also, registration is required before the author can bring a lawsuit about the use of her work. However, despite these benefits, many works are never registered because registration takes time and money.

Registering a copyright is not difficult. For instructions and forms, visit the US Copyright Office website . If you have any questions regarding copyright registration, the US Copyright Office has a toll-free help line at 1-877-476-0778. You may register a work at any time while it is still in copyright.

Registration costs can vary depending on the type of work and whether or not you are the sole author. The U.S. Copyright Office's Circular 4  has the most up to date information about registration fees.

Registration by ProQuest

If you submit your dissertation to  ProQuest , they will register the copyright on your behalf, for a fee. The Rackham Graduate School encourages Ph.D. candidates to discuss this option with their advisors before selecting it.

Who Holds Copyright

Under US law, the initial copyright holder is the author of the work. In most cases, copyright law treats the creator(s) of the work as the author(s). Copyright is automatic; it applies to the work as soon as it is fixed (or recorded) in some way.

If multiple people created the work, only those who have contributed copyrightable elements are considered authors for the purpose of copyright law. Coming up with the idea for the work alone is not enough to be an author. See  Joint Works for more if you’d like to learn more about how having multiple authors affects how we think about copyright of the work.

If someone creates a work as an employee (or in certain cases, as a contractor), that person’s employer is considered the author of the work. See  Works Made for Hire  for more information on when a work is considered a work made for hire.

Who Holds Copyright in University of Michigan Dissertations

A University of Michigan dissertation author is the initial copyright holder for her dissertation. As the copyright holder, she has certain rights under copyright law. In the United States today, those rights can be separated and split. The author can give others permission to exercise some or all of those rights. That is called a license. If the author agrees only to give that permission to one entity at a time, the license is exclusive.

An exclusive license that lasts until the end of the copyright term is a transfer of copyright. To be valid, a copyright transfer must be in writing and must be signed by the copyright holder or the copyright holder’s agent. The recipient of a copyright transfer can then license or transfer the copyright.

In the academic context, licenses and transfers of copyright are particularly common in publishing agreements. In many cases, the author transfers all or part of the copyright in her publication to the publisher. Academic authors also use the Creative Commons licenses to increase access to their work, either in advance or as part of a publishing agreement.

Rights of Copyright Holders and Users

The author is granted rights in the work , including the right to reproduce the work, to make derivative works, and to distribute the work to the public. The author can transfer those rights to someone else and can give others permission to exercise them by means of a license . Users can also use the work without permission if their use falls within one of the user’s rights .

• Dissertation Copyright
• Dissertation Embargo Guidelines
• Dissertation Templates
• ETD Administrator
• Formatting FAQs
• Sample Dissertation Title Page

Copyrighting your Dissertation

In the United States, you automatically own the copyright in your original creative authorship, such as your dissertation, once it is fixed in a tangible form ( i.e. , written down or recorded). United States law does not require you to include a copyright notice on your dissertation or to  formally register  with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to secure copyright protection over your work. However, there are some benefits to including a copyright notice and registering your work. See the  Copyright Guide  for more information or to schedule a consultation.

Including a Copyright Page in your Dissertation

Including a copyright page in your dissertation is optional but recommended. For details on how to format the copyright page, consult the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist .

Dissertations Based on Joint Work

• For dissertations based on joint work with other researchers, a unique and separate dissertation must be presented by each degree candidate. You must include a concise account of your unique contribution to the joint work, and remainder of the dissertation must be authored solely by you. Authorship of an entire dissertation by more than one degree candidate is not allowed.

Using Your Own Previously Published Material in Your Dissertation

University of Pennsylvania  policy  allows you to include your own previously published work or articles submitted for publication as part of the dissertation with the following conditions:

• You must obtain approval of the dissertation committee and Graduate Group Chairperson.
• You must obtain written permission from the copyright owner, which may be the journal, publisher, and/or any co-authors, unless you are the sole copyright holder (depends on your publishing agreement).
• You must upload any permission letters in ETD Administrator as an  Administrative Document  titled “Permission Letter – Do Not Publish.”
• Your dissertation must be formatted as a single document with consistent formatting and styles throughout. If you are using multiple previously published articles, make sure to make the formatting consistent with the rest of the document.

When using previously published or in press work, you must disclose this information in your dissertation in the following format :

• Under the Chapter title, list the full citation for the previously published/in-press article in the citation style used in your Bibliography.
• If it is a jointly authored article, describe your contribution to the work in a separate sentence.

Using Other Copyrighted Material in Your Dissertation

If you use third party copyrighted material (images, quotations, datasets, figures), you are responsible for re-use of that material (see the  Policy on Unauthorized Copying of Copyrighted Media ). In many cases, you may be able to use copyrighted material under the “ fair use ” provision of U.S. copyright law. Consult the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist  for information on how to submit written permission from a copyright holder. Typically, you will need to request a permission letter and upload the letter as an  Administrative Document  in  ETD Administrator .

If you still have questions regarding copyright and “fair use” refer to the  Penn Libraries Copyright Guide  or email  [email protected]  for further support.

Patent and Intellectual Property

Any inventions that you make as part of your research for your degree and disclosed as part of your dissertation, and any patent or other intellectual property rights arising therefrom, are governed by the policies of the University of Pennsylvania, including the  Patent and Tangible Research Property Policies and Procedures  and  Policy Relating to Copyrights and Commitment of Effort for Faculty.  For more information, please contact the  Penn Center for Innovation .

There are strict deadlines under U.S. and international law regarding the timing for filing patent applications and the public availability of your dissertation. Contact the  Penn Center for Innovation  to discuss whether there might be a patentable invention disclosed in your dissertation prior to deposit of your dissertation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do i have copyright over my dissertation .

Yes. According to US Copyright law, you have copyright immediately and automatically over any of your new, original works in a “fixed, tangible form” ( i.e. , written down, recorded, etc.). You do not need to register or to include a copyright symbol © or any other formal marks to secure your copyright, though there are some benefits to doing so. See the  Copyright Guide  for more information or email  [email protected]  for further support.

Should I register the copyright in my dissertation with the U.S. Copyright Office? 

It depends on what you want to do with your dissertation. There are  some benefits to registering the copyright  in your dissertation depending on your future goals. However, keep in mind that you automatically have copyright over your dissertation without formally registering. To learn more about formally registering the copyright in your dissertation, see the  Copyright Guide  or schedule a consultation.  

Should I pay ProQuest to register my copyright?

Note that you already have copyright over your dissertation, but if you would like to  formally register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office , you can pay ProQuest to do it for you (you will have the option in ETD Administrator). For less cost, you can register it yourself on the  copyright.gov  web page. Information on registering your copyright is available in the  Copyright Guide . Please keep in mind that if portions of your dissertation are comprised of previously published co-authored material,  you cannot  register your copyright through ProQuest. 

What is a Creative Commons license?

A copyright license grants permission for someone else to use your copyrighted work.  A  Creative Commons  license is one type of copyright license. It works hand in hand with your copyright. It is not an independent type of copyright. By using a Creative Commons license you are telling the world under what circumstances they are able to use your work without asking your permission each and every time.  You can only add a Creative Commons license to your work if you are the copyright holder, and have not transferred your rights to someone else (like a publisher).

You may choose to apply a Creative Commons license to your dissertation by adding it to the copyright notice page; see the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  for an example. V isit the  Creative Commons website  to review all the licenses in full detail and select one that fits your needs. 

Refer to the  Services for Authors Guide  or  schedule a consultation  to learn more about using a Creative Commons license on your dissertation.

I want to use copyrighted materials in my dissertation. Is that okay?

It depends. If the materials you wish to incorporate into your dissertation are copyrighted, you will need to do a  fair use analysis  for each item you use to determine if you can proceed without getting permission. If you do not feel that you can make a good “fair use” case, you will need to  request permission  from the copyright holder and provide all permission letters as  Administrative Documents  in ETD Administrator. Just because you are using the work for educational purposes does not automatically mean that your work is “fair use” or that you have permission to use the work.  Request a consultation  to learn more about fair use and other copyright considerations.

I want to use my own previously published materials in my dissertation. Is that okay?

It depends. If the materials you may wish to incorporate into your dissertation are published in a journal or other publication, you may need to seek permission from the journal, publisher, or any co-authors. These permission letters must be uploaded as supplementary material in ETD Administrator before the deposit date. Please refer to your publication agreement for further information.

Additionally, using previously published materials as part of your dissertation requires approval of the dissertation committee and Graduate Group Chairperson.

I would like to know more about publishing, copyright, open access, and other/related issues. How can I find out more?

The Penn Libraries offers a range of workshops and presentations on these topics (and other digital skills related topics)  throughout the year . Groups can request a number of these workshops for classes or other group settings. For personal discussions about copyright, fair use, Creative Commons, scholarly publishing, and other related topics, please  contact your subject librarian  for support and further referrals. For more general information about these and related topics, review the  Penn Libraries’ guides  by keyword or subject.

University Library

Copyright for Graduate Students: Theses and Dissertations

• Public Domain
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Obtaining Copyright Permission
• International Materials
• State and Federal Governmental Materials
• University Policies on Copyright
• Depositing Your Dissertation/Thesis in IDEALS

Copyright Questions?

Copyright law can be difficult and confusing. This webpage is meant to provide you with guidance, but not legal advice.

Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to ask Sara Benson, the Copyright Librarian, for assistance. Sara can be reached at 217-333-4200 or [email protected]

Scholarly Communication and Publishing

The Fine Print

Copyright law is complicated. This guide is intended to provide you with some guidance on how to refer library users to accurate information. However, this guide is not intended to provide legal advice to you or library users nor should you attempt to provide legal advice to library users.

And, of course, when in doubt, please refer library users to the Copyright Librarian, Sara Benson, at  srbenson @illinois.edu

Dual Copyright Aspects of Theses & Dissertations

When writing a thesis or a dissertation, you have two sets of copyrights you should bear in mind.

• Your own copyright as author of the thesis or dissertation; and
• The copyright owned by others in the material you incorporate into your thesis or dissertation.

This guide will discuss both issues.

Generally, when using others' work, you will either determine that you do not need to obtain written permission to use the work in your thesis or dissertation (either because the work is no longer copyright protected/in the public domain or because you have determined that your use constitutes a fair use) or that you do need to obtain permission from the copyright owner (often the publisher and not the author of the work) to use the work.

You may need to consider copyright agreements concerning your own previously published work as well, as you may have transferred copyright to a journal or publisher. In that instance, you may need to obtain permission to use your own work in your thesis or dissertation.

Finally, you should consider how you want to designate your work here at Illinois. Do you want to make the work as open as possible and deposit it both with the institutional repository (IDEALS) and Proques t? Do you want to embargo your work as you plan to publish it immediately? Do you want to make it available so as to find a publisher? These are decisions you will need to make when you deposit your work with the University and this guide can help you when making those decisions.

• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis [pdf] Kenneth D. Crews offers a complete guide on how copyright affects your thesis.

Using Your Own Previously Published Work

For your own previously published works, first read the fine print in the publishing agreement. Do you have the right to re-use your own work or did you transfer your copyright to the publisher? If you transferred your copyright, you may need to ask for permission to use your own previously published work! Sound crazy? Well, that's why many publishing agreements today expressly permit scholars to use their own work (even if published) for research and teaching. But, again, read the fine print. 

And, if you are planning to publish parts of your dissertation before you file your paper with the Graduate College, but you have not signed a copyright agreement or publishing agreement just yet, be sure to keep copyright in mind when negotiating with the publisher! Consider asking the publisher to let you add the SPARC Author's Addendum to your agreement. 

What if you no longer have a copy of your publishing agreement? Don't worry, your publisher most certainly has a copy. Just send them a friendly e-mail and ask them if they will send you a copy.  

• SPARC Author Addendum The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that you can use to modify your copyright transfer agreements with non-open access journal publishers. It allows you to select which individual rights out of the bundle of copyrights you want to keep, such as distributing copies in the course of teaching and research, posting the article on a personal or institutional Web site, or creating derivative works.

Fair Use or Seeking Permission: That is the Question

When using other scholars' work in your dissertation (or even your own work, for that matter) the question arises: do I need to ask for permission to use the work in my writing?

There are generally no truly simple answers to that question, except maybe for quotations. You may generally quote a small portion of another scholar's published work without seeking their permission to do so--this is a classic example of fair use.

When using the work of others, consider the following:

• Is it in the public domain ? If so, no permission is needed to use the work.
• Is it a work produced by the federal government in the course of their duties as government officials ? If so, no permission is needed.
• Is the work licensed with a creative commons license ? If so, no permission is needed to use the work, but you will need to carefully consider the terms of the license and comply with those terms to legally use the work.
• Is your use of the work a fair use ? If so, no permission is needed to use the work, but you should conduct a fair use analysis for each and every source you consider to be a fair use.
• If you've answered no to all of the above questions, then yes, you should seek written permission to use the work in your thesis or dissertation.

Except where otherwise indicated, original content in this guide is licensed under a   Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license . You are free to share, adopt, or adapt the materials. We encourage broad adoption of these materials for teaching and other professional development purposes, and invite you to customize them for your own needs.

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• Last Updated: May 8, 2024 3:09 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/copyrightforgradstudents

• Copyright Basics for Undergraduate Students
• Copyright Basics for Graduate Students
• Copyright Quick Quide
• Information for Authors
• Copyright In the Classroom
• Copyright Review for Graduate Students

Copyright and Your Thesis or Dissertation

Using copyrighted materials, using your own previously published material, registering copyright.

• Keeping Control of Your Copyright
• Seeking Permission
• About the Public Domain
• About Fair Use
• Additional Resources
• Need Additional Assistance
• About this Guide

A copyright is an intangible right granted to you as the author of your thesis or dissertation. You have the sole and exclusive privilege of making copies, publishing or selling your thesis or dissertation. Currently, this protection lasts for your lifetime plus an addition 70 years. These exclusive privileges belong to you unless you have transferred them to someone else via a written agreement or your work is a “work-for-hire.”

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time you place your thesis or dissertation in fixed form. A fixed form can be a digital file such as a word processing document, PDF file, or a printed page. There is no requirement to publish or register your thesis or dissertation to obtain protection under copyright law. The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work, unless as stated above it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written agreement.

Submission of your approved thesis or dissertation results in the publication of the document by Curtis Laws Wilson Library. As such, you grant the University a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce your thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, in electronic form to be posted in Scholars' Mine, our institutional repository, and made available to the general public at no charge. This does not mean that the University owns the copyright to your work (you do), but the University has the right to reproduce and distribute your work. The University requires this to support the dissemination of intellectual thought and discovery.

Regardless of whether or not you register copyright for your thesis or dissertation, you should include a copyright notice in your thesis or dissertation. Including the notice helps to establish that you are the owner of the work. It also protects you, as the copyright holder, from anyone claiming innocent infringement or unintentional violation of copyright.

Any materials belonging to someone else used in your thesis or dissertation, beyond brief excerpts, may be used only with the written permission of the copyright owner. Publishers of books and journals hold the copyright for all materials they publish. Therefore, even if you are the sole or one of several authors of material in a published book or journal, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder if you are including this material in your document. Also the use of reproductions or excerpts of other media, such as music, graphic images, or computer software will also require permissions.

Your letter to the copyright holder needs to make clear that you seek written permission to preserve (on microfilm and digitally) and publish (in print and digital form) your thesis or dissertation through ProQuest and that ProQuest may sell, on demand, for scholarly purposes, single copies of your work, which includes the copyright holder's material. Your letter must also seek written permission for the document to be submitted in electronic format to Curtis Laws Wilson Library where it will be placed in our institutional repository, Scholars' Mine, and made available at no charge to the general public  via the Internet.

You are responsible for securing all necessary permissions and paying any permission fees in advance of using copyrighted materials in your work. It is recommended that copies of the written permission you receive be placed in the appendix of your thesis or dissertation.

Some academic programs here at Missouri S&T permit you to include articles or other materials that you have previously published, that have been accepted (or submitted, in press, or under review) for publication, or that have been otherwise presented to the public within the body of your thesis or dissertation. This is referred to as the "Publication Option." In all such instances the following guidelines apply:

• If the material is co-authored, your thesis or dissertation advisor must approve its inclusion in your thesis or dissertation.

If the material is copyrighted (if you are the sole author but the copyright is held by the publisher), you must fulfill the conditions specified above on using copyrighted materials. If you are unsure of the copyright status you should review the copyright transfer agreement you signed with the publisher and  consult with the Scholarly Communications Librarian.   The material, if included in the body of your text, must conform to all formatting guidelines.

You can register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. As mentioned above, copyright registration is not a condition for copyright protection. However, there are advantages to registration if you have a claim of infringement of your copyright. You can register at any time within the life of the copyright, but there are advantages to filing for registration within three months of publication. For more information on registration, consult the website of the U.S. Copyright Office or contact the Scholarly Communications Librarian.

There are two main ways for you to register your copyright:

• You may request ProQuest to file the application for you when you submit your thesis or dissertation. ProQuest charges a fee for this service. The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress.  
• Alternately, you can register your copyright directly at the U.S. Copyright website. There is also a copyright fee for filing copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office.
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• Last Updated: Sep 1, 2023 2:45 PM
• URL: https://libguides.mst.edu/copyright

Is it worth $75? Copyright and copyright registration for theses and dissertations

Terrill, K., & Compton, L. (2021). Is it worth $75? Copyright and copyright registration for theses and dissertations. [White Paper]. Iowa State University Center for Communication Excellence, Graduate College. Retrieved from https://cce.pubpub.org/pub/copyright

Your head is still spinning with the mix of exhilaration, anxiety, and exhaustion from defending your graduate research to your POS committee. You passed! And you’ve jumped through most of the administrative hoops standing between you and your diploma. As you click through the ProQuest thesis/dissertation submission form, you click Save and Continue, and then you get to the “Register U.S. Copyright” screen. Your cover page contains a copyright statement, which was part of the ISU thesis/dissertation template. So, do you need to request for ProQuest to file for U.S. copyright registration? You skim over the wall of text on the ProQuest page and realize it raises more questions than it answers.

Introduction

The concept of copyright is often a confusing concept to many graduate students. This article is intended to define the concept and demystify some of the considerations so that you can make an informed decision about handling your copyright for your ISU thesis, dissertation, or creative component 1 .

As seen in the scenario, you will face the copyright questions when you plan to upload your thesis/dissertation to ProQuest. Figure 1 shows a screenshot from ProQuest.

At this point, you may begin to wonder how copyright impacts your thesis/dissertation. Here are some possible questions with the quick and easy answers.

Question: Do I need to request for ProQuest to file for U.S. copyright registration?

Answer : No. You own the copyright for your thesis/dissertation, whether or not it is registered.

Follow-up question : So, why should I copyright?

Answer : Registering your copyright gives you access to some additional legal protection.

Question : How should I copyright?

Answer : You can pay ProQuest to file the copyright for you, or you can file it yourself with a lower fee.

Figure 1: Screenshot of copyright questions from ProQuest

Now that you’ve gotten some quick and easy answers, you may want to understand more about what copyright is, how it works, and some guidance to help you decide whether and how to register your copyright. This article will give you some key ideas and links to other resources for further readings.

What is copyright?

Copyright concerns the legal right to share original works of authorship, which includes things like written work, artwork, non-patentable computer programs, sound recordings, choreography, and architectural works. Literally, it is the right to make a copy. [NO_PRINTED_FORM] It is illegal and a violation of copyright law to share and reproduce any kind of work without the copyright holder’s permission unless it falls under one of the exceptions to copyright law.

When you create an original work of authorship and you have not otherwise transferred or assigned ownership of that work to a third party, you might want to share it, and you are entitled to do just that. You are also entitled to get credit for the work. If people are willing to pay money for access to the work, you are entitled to receive payment for giving them access.

If someone else decides to share your work without your permission, you also have the right to prevent them from doing so, even if they modify the work in some way (this is called ‘preparing derivative works’). If someone else sharing your work leads to you missing out on the chance to collect payment for access to the work, you have the right to collect that payment from the person who shared your work.

The rights described above apply to all original works of authorship, whether the copyright is registered or not. Registering a copyright creates a formal record of a copyright ‘claim’, that is, of someone asserting their ownership of the original work of authorship.

In short, holding a copyright entitles you to share things that you create and to control who else can share things that you create.

How does copyright work?

“ Everyone is a copyright owner . Once you create an original work and fix it, like taking a photograph, writing a poem or blog, or recording a new song, you are the author and the owner.” US Copyright Office ( https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ )

As soon as an original work of authorship is “’fixed’ in a tangible medium of expression”, it is automatically subject to copyright protection. In other words, you hold a copyright for anything you have ever written down, drawn up, typed out, drafted, sculpted, video recorded, etc., unless it involved copying an existing original work of authorship. Even if you accidentally shot a video of your hand and part of your knee when you were trying to switch your smartphone camera to the self-facing view, you own the copyright to that video. However, you don’t hold a copyright for notes you copied from a teacher’s PowerPoint, or for Hello Kitty doodles you drew in the margin, because those are derivative works.

Question : Do I own the copyright to my thesis/dissertation?

Answer : Yes, you generally own the copyright in this original scholarly work as soon as it’s fixed in a tangible medium of expression, unless you have transferred your ownership to someone else or it is a “work for hire” under copyright law.

Question : Are there instances where I don’t own copyright to my thesis/dissertation?

Answer : Yes. In some cases, you may not be the copyright owner even though you wrote the thesis/dissertation. This can occur when your research is sponsored by an organization or company and the sponsor requires ownership of all copyrightable works resulting from such a project, including academic papers. In such cases, the sponsored project agreement would require assignment of copyright to the sponsor. Graduate students are discouraged from working on such sponsored projects in order to preserve the student’s ability to publish and to minimize academic impacts. This can also occur if you are employed by an organization who is supporting your thesis/dissertation and you are required to assign your intellectual property to the organization as part of your terms of employment or your engagement constitutes “work for hire” under copyright law.

Question : What do I need to do if I am not the copyright owner of my thesis/dissertation or if I am unsure?

Answer : You may be asked by your major professor and/or sponsor to exclude the copyright statement from the Title Page. If this is the case, be sure to indicate this information to the Thesis/Dissertation Reviewer in ProQuest.

Question : What else do I need to do?

Answer : Email [email protected] to let the Graduate College know. The Graduate College will verify the copyright ownership with the Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (OIPTT) https://www.techtransfer.iastate.edu/

Question : Are there any other considerations?

Answer : Check with your major professor and/or sponsor about the possibility of an embargo. For more information about embargoes, go to https://www.grad-college.iastate.edu/thesis/embargo-copyright/ or watch this Center for Communication Excellence’s YouTube video “Thesis/Dissertation Embargo: What Graduate Students Need To Know”.

Transferring copyright

Some graduate students have complicated situations involving other parties who may have rights or licenses related to the copyright on their thesis, dissertation, or creative component. Here are a couple of common scenarios where you may need to transfer your copyright.

Granting a license

As the author of an original work, you may choose to give others permission to reproduce your work. For instance, you may submit a manuscript based on your thesis to a peer-reviewed journal, or your poem to a publisher. If you agree to give permission to only one entity at a time (which some journals and publishers require), then you grant them an exclusive license.

Work made for hire

If your research takes place during the course of your employment through your place of employment, then your thesis, dissertation, or creative component may be considered work made for hire. In this case, the person or company who hired you is considered the author and copyright owner of the work. You cannot register a copyright for a work that you made for hire as you are not the copyright owner. (see also Section 3. How does copyright work? )

Registering copyright

So far, this article has discussed how you are the copyright owner of your thesis/dissertation unless you have otherwise transferred or assigned copyright in your work to a third party or it is considered a work for hire. This section discusses whether it is necessary to file for a copyright for your work.

Copyright claims are valuable because they entitle the holder to enjoy the benefits of creating the work. These could include esteem and honor, money, and feelings of satisfaction and pride. Setting an original work of authorship loose into the world can put some of these benefits in jeopardy.

Question : Must I register my copyright with the US Copyright Office?

Answer: No. You automatically own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation as the creator of the original work unless you have otherwise transferred or assigned your copyright to a third party or it falls under “works made for hire”.

Question : So, what is the big deal about copyright?

Answer: Even though you own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation, registering for a copyright will be necessary if you ever need to bring a lawsuit for the infringement of a US work.

You may be wondering now if you should or shouldn’t register your thesis/dissertation. Only YOU can answer that question. If you have purchased an air-ticket or booked a vacation before, you will know that you have the choice of purchasing an insurance policy to protect your cost in case something prevents you from making the trip. In most cases, you do not need to claim the insurance because the chances of something preventing you from your trip are slim. However, in some cases, you may be glad that you did buy the insurance policy because something did happen. The same goes for your decision to register your thesis/dissertation. You may also want to seek out counsel from your major professor and the Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (OIPTT) if you have questions about registering your thesis/dissertation especially if it contains a patent, an original concept, or marketable materials.

If you have more questions about Copyright in General, it is a good time to pause and read up on this Frequently Asked Questions from the US Copyright Office: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#protect

Types of damages

Copyright protection is automatic, but there are many reasons why you might choose to register your thesis/dissertation. One common reason is simply to have your copyright as a public record and have a copy of certification of registration. A second reason, as mentioned earlier, is to have a legal claim if you need to bring an infringement lawsuit.

Copyright holders can sue people who infringe on their copyright. In this situation, the copyright holder may simply want to force the infringer to stop what they are doing. However, they can also sue the infringer for money, which is called damages. There are two types of damages: actual damages and statutory damages.

Actual damages

Actual damages refers to the loss of money or other material asset that is caused by the infringement. Say, for instance, that your thesis contains a poem, which you later publish in a book that gets sold in bookstores. If a poetry blogger were to reprint the poem that you included in your thesis on their website, some poetry enthusiasts might choose to read your poem on that website instead of purchasing your book at a bookstore. If you can prove that the sales of your book were harmed because the poem was published without your permission on the blogger’s website, then you could sue that blogger for actual damages. However, this could be challenging to prove.

Statutory damages

Statutory damages refers to amounts pre-determined by statute to be awarded to a plaintiff if copyright infringement is found, including attorney fees. Unlike actual damages, statutory damages are not linked to loss of money or material asset experienced by the plaintiff. A copyright holder who receives statutory damages does not need to prove that the copyright infringement caused them to lose profit; all they need to prove is that their copyright was infringed. However, statutory damages are generally not available in infringement of an unregistered work. Additionally, statutory damages are only available if the thesis/dissertation was registered within 3 months of publications, or if the thesis/dissertation was unpublished, it must have been registered prior to the act of infringement.

Question : So, if I did not register my thesis/dissertation, I cannot bring my copyright infringement case to court?

Answer: Yes. Even though you own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation, you can only be eligible to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement if you registered your copyright with the US Copyright Office prior to the act of infringement.

Question: What if I registered my copyright after I discover the act of infringement and brought a claim to court?

Answer: You can register your copyright and then bring a claim, but it will not be eligible for statutory damages since the copyright was not registered prior to the act of infringement. Furthermore, as indicated in 6.1 Actual damages, actual damages must be proven, and that could be challenging.

Exercising copyright

You can register your copyright with the US Copyright Office at any time; it does not have to be registered when you publish your thesis/dissertation. However, if someone infringes your copyright when it is not registered, you may waive your ability to seek statutory damages and will be required to prove actual damages.

Should you register for U.S. copyright through ProQuest?

Having read through this article and learned more about copyright than you ever thought you would, you may have made up your mind to register your copyright for your thesis, dissertation, or creative component. The only question that remains is whether you should do this through ProQuest.

Using ProQuest to register your thesis/dissertation will cost more money than registering it yourself directly with the U.S. Copyright Office. The extra cost is a convenience fee that ProQuest collects in exchange for completing your registration application on your behalf.

To register your copyright yourself costs about $45; the cost to have ProQuest register your copyright is about $75.

Note: The fees listed are based on the time of publication. The fees may change over time. Please check with the US Copyright Office and ProQuest for actual fees.

Additional Resources

Below are additional resources that may help you decide if you should or should not register your copyright.

Copyright Basics Information provided by the U.S. Copyright Office summarizing the rights of copyright holders

Should I Copyright my Dissertation? Provides guidance on whether to register a copyright for your thesis, dissertation, or creative component 

Copyright for Dissertations List of definitions of relevant terms in everyday language

Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright List of definitions, rights, and limitations of copyright in formal legal language

Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis Provides guidance on how to avoid infringing on someone else’s copyright, and how to request official permission to reproduce copyrighted material

Acknowledgement

We offer our deepest appreciation to Barbara Biederman from Iowa State University’s Office of University Counsel for her knowledge and feedback; her expertise provided invaluable information about the topic and guided our final draft.

Menand, L. (2004). Crooner in rights spat: Are copyright laws too strict? The New Yorker , October 20, 2014.

US Copyright Office (2021). Register your work: Registration portal. Copyright.gov. https://www.copyright.gov/registration/

Theses & Dissertations

• Submitting your Thesis or Dissertation
• Depositing with ProQuest
• Understanding Copyright
• Understanding Embargoes
• Frequently Asked Questions

Copyright is an important component to publishing your dissertation or thesis. Students should consider copyright as early in their work as possible, especially if you wish to reuse content from another copyright holder, such as images or figures. Here are some details on things that students should consider when reviewing their copyright needs and uses.

For additional information and resources on copyright, please visit the Copyright Guide . 

Determining Copyright Ownership

Under Carnegie Mellon University’s  Intellectual Property Policy , you most likely own the copyright to your dissertation. However, if the research was sponsored by the university or conducted under an agreement between an external sponsor and the university, check the agreement to see who owns the intellectual property. When in doubt, consult Carnegie Mellon’s  Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation  (CTTEC),  412-268-7393  or  [email protected] .

Neither the University Libraries nor ProQuest/UMI require copyright transfer to publish your dissertation. Both require only the non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute your work.

Copyright Permissions

According to the  Fair Use Policy of Carnegie Mellon University , all members of the University community must comply with U.S. Copyright Law. When a proposed use of copyrighted material does not fall within the fair use doctrine and is not otherwise permitted by license or exception, written permission from the copyright owner is required to engage in the use.

To avoid publication delays, Carnegie Mellon’s Office of the General Counsel encourages graduate students to get permission from copyright holders as early in the dissertation process as possible. This includes permission to use your own previously published work if you transferred your copyright to the publisher. See  Copyright Issues Related to the Publication of Dissertations  for more information.

If you choose to publish your dissertation with ProQuest/UMI, you must sign an agreement indicating that you have the necessary copyright permissions, and provide UMI with copies of the permission letters. If you choose to publish with Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, you need not provide copies of the permission letters. The assumption is that you have complied with university policy.

Registering Your Copyright

The  Copyright Law of the United States  gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to copy and distribute the work, perform and display it publicly, and create derivative works. Copyright owners do not need to register their work with the U.S. Copyright Office to acquire these rights. However, if you own the copyright to your dissertation and you have a compelling need to acquire additional legal rights, such as the right to file a copyright infringement lawsuit, then you should register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office.

You can register your copyright using the U.S. Copyright Office’s  eCO Online System  for a fee of $35. Alternatively, if you choose to publish your work with ProQuest/UMI, UMI will register your copyright for you for a fee of $55. (See page 6 of the  ProQuest Publishing Agreement .)

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• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 2:30 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cmu.edu/etds

Penn State University Libraries

Copyright and your thesis or dissertation.

• Using Others' Work
• Reusing Your Published Work
• Your Copyright
• Publishing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• Frequently Asked Questions and Resources

Using Third-Party Materials in Your Thesis or Dissertation

If you use materials (such as text, images, sound recordings, etc.) created by a third party in your thesis or dissertation, you need to consider whether copyright law allows your use of those materials. Even when copyright permits your use of a work, contract law may prevent it. When you agree to terms of use in order to gain access to a copy of a work (such as a letter in an archive or a newspaper article in an online database), those terms also control what you can do with the work.

In some cases, even reusing your own published articles can raise copyright concerns, if you have transferred your copyright to someone else, like your publisher. For more information, see Reusing Your Published Work .

You can proceed without copyright permission if you are using something that is in the  public domain . You also don't need permission if you are using it in a way that is not regulated by one of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights or is permitted by fair use or another user’s right. If none of these circumstances applies, you need a  license  to use the work. In some cases, an existing license may cover your use. In others, you will need to get a new license from the copyright holder.

In addition to the copyright issues, it is also vital to follow attribution norms within your discipline. For more information about the distinction between plagiarism and copyright infringement, see below.

Contracts at Libraries, Archives, and Museums

Some institutions require you to sign an agreement before accessing their collections. That agreement may limit your ability to use their materials. These agreements can be valid even when the materials are in the public domain or using the materials would qualify as fair use. For instance, if you agree to get permission from the institution before publishing any images of items from its collection, you are bound by that agreement.

To avoid trouble on this issue,

• Ask up front what the terms are and whether you can use the materials in your thesis or dissertation;
• Carefully read the terms of any agreements you sign; and
• Keep a copy of the terms, noting the materials to which they apply.

Fair Use in Theses and Dissertations

Fair use allows certain uses of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. There are four factors to consider when determining whether your use is a fair one. You must consider all the factors, but not all the factors have to favor fair use for the use to be fair. The outline below explains how the fair use factors and their subfactors apply to using third-party material in a Penn State thesis or dissertation.

First Factor: "The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"

Uses that fall under one of the favored purposes listed in the fair use statute (17 U.S.C. § 107) or have a nonprofit educational purpose will weigh in favor of fair use. Favored purposes include scholarship, research, criticism, and comment. Since uses in theses and dissertations often have these purposes, this subfactor favors fair use.

Uses that are commercial weigh against fair use. Most uses in theses and dissertations are not for commercial purposes. If you are writing a doctoral dissertation at Penn State, you will be required to license it to ProQuest for distribution. Because ProQuest is a commercial entity, you should consider this when evaluating fair use. Although commerciality weighs against fair use, other subfactors can outweigh that — commercial uses can still be fair.

Uses that are transformative weigh in favor of fair use. A use is transformative when the use adds new meaning or message to the original work, giving it a new purpose. For example, using advertisement images from the 1960s to discuss use of race in advertising is a transformative use, because the advertisements were originally created to sell products. Quoting another scholar's analysis of the advertisement would not necessarily be transformative, though it is still often fair use.

Second Factor: "The nature of the copyrighted work"

If the work used is creative, that will weigh against fair use. If the work used is factual, that will weigh in favor of fair use. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the work used.

If the work used is unpublished, that will weigh against fair use. However, the fair use statute explicitly states that the unpublished nature of a work will not bar fair use if the use is otherwise fair. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the work used.

Third Factor: "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"

Using all or much of the original work will weigh against fair use. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the use.

Using the most important part of the original work (the "heart") will weigh against fair use, even if it is only a small amount of the work. The outcome of this subfactor varies depending on the use.

The third factor is neutralized if the amount used is necessary for a transformative purpose, even if the entire original work is used. For instance, the third factor would be neutralized in the use of the advertisement described above if all of the advertisement has to be used in order to achieve the transformative use.

Fourth Factor: "The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work"

Uses that decrease demand for the original work by providing a substitute will weigh against fair use. In many cases, using a work in your thesis or dissertation will not provide a substitute for the original work, but the outcome of this subfactor can vary depending on the use.

Uses that decrease demand for the original work by criticizing it (as with a negative film review) have no impact on the fourth factor.

If the licensing market for the use you are making is "traditional, reasonable, or likely to develop," that will weigh against fair use.

Resources on Fair Use

• Penn State Fair Use Page From the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright, this page explains the four fair use factors and recommends resources on fair use.
• Fair Use for Nonfiction Authors This guide, published by the Authors Alliance, explains when fair use applies to the use of sources in nonfiction works such as scholarly articles. It has been endorsed by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association for Information Science and Technology.
• Codes of Best Practices in Fair Use These codes document the shared best practices of communities that rely on fair use, including fair use for online video, fair use of images for teaching, research, and study, fair use for OpenCourseWare, fair use for documentary filmmakers, fair use for the visual arts, and fair use for academic and research libraries.
• Summaries of Fair Use Cases This set of case summaries from Stanford is a good resource for learning about fair use law.
• US Copyright Office Fair Use Index This index of fair use cases is searchable by media format, case outcome, jurisdiction, and date. It is helpful for learning about legal precedents and judicial interpretation of the fair use doctrine.

Using Material Under an Existing License

A Creative Commons license makes it easy for you to know how you can use a work. Images licensed under Creative Commons licenses can be particularly useful if you need a generic rather than specific image. Because the rights holder has already given everyone permission to use the image under the terms of the license, you do not need to evaluate fair use or seek permission in order to use it.

When you use a work licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses, you need to comply with the license requirements (unless your use is otherwise permitted, e.g., by fair use). All Creative Commons licenses require attribution. Using the work without giving attribution means you do not meet the legal conditions of the license. However, the licenses are deliberately flexible about the requirements for that attribution. The  Best Practices for Attribution  are outlined on the Creative Commons wiki. Our page about Creative Commons licenses has more information on this topic.

Searching for Licensed Works

When works are marked with code generated by the Creative Commons License Chooser , that mark is machine readable. A number of search tools allow users to limit their search by license.

• CC Search CC Search enables users to search across multiple platforms for content licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses.
• Google: Find Free-to-Use Images This page explains how to use Google's search engines to find images, text, and videos that are licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

Copyright Infringement vs. Plagiarism

Copyright infringement and plagiarism are related but distinct concepts. Plagiarism is using the work of another without attribution. Copyright infringement is any reproduction, distribution, modification, performance, or display of a copyrighted work without the permission of the rights holder that does not fall under fair use or another user's right.

It is possible to plagiarize even when you have cleared permission for all the copyrighted works. Similarly, it is possible to infringe copyright even when you have given careful attribution. In addition to resolving the copyright issues, you must follow attribution norms within your discipline in order to avoid plagiarizing others' work.

U.S. copyright law does not require citation in a particular form. However, following academic citation norms can help improve your fair use analysis. Check with your advisor for help figuring out what citation style you should use in your thesis or dissertation.

The Graduate School's Thesis and Dissertation Guide says:

Source citations are required in the text whenever you use a direct quotation, paraphrase another author’s words, or include specific information that is not common knowledge (and is not the result of your own research reported in the thesis/dissertation).

For further information on citation, check out the PSU Libraries’ Citation Guide .

Attribution

This guide is based in part on Copyright for Dissertations , a guide from the University of Michigan Library Copyright Office, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license .

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Copyright on Campus: Theses & Dissertations

• Introduction
• Copyright Law Basics
• Public Domain
• Theses & Dissertations
• Author Rights
• Showing Movies in Class and on Campus
• Copyright & Data Management
• Copyright in Special Collections
• Open Education

Publisher Policies

Students often receive mixed messages when it comes to including a published paper in a dissertation, or publishing from the dissertation beyond graduation. Both of these scenarios are common and familiar to publishers, but there might be specific guidelines or requirements such as:

• Be transparent. Include a brief explanation when you submit your publication. More often, journals use plagiarism detection software; letting them know your work is out there and publicly available will help sidestep any questions.
• Include a citation to the published work in your thesis or dissertation, and/or a citation to the thesis/dissertation in the resulting publication.
• Specific rules for formatting.
• Resource: Publisher Policies MIT Libraries has compiled a list of major publishers with links to relevant policies

Reusing Material

Theses and dissertations often use charts, graphs, images, and quotes from other journal articles, books, or websites. When doing this, be aware that most content is protected by copyright, though it's likely fine for you to use these materials if you can do one of the following:

• Use public domain content. If you are including factual data presented in a straightforward way (e.g., a simple bar graph or pie chart showing the results of an experiment), it's very likely the figure does not meet the minimum threshold for creatively and is not protected by copyright.
• Use openly licensed content. Open access journal articles and books, as well as other media labeled with a Creative Commons license, 
• Decide your use is "fair." Fair use is a specific provision within U.S. Copyright Law that allows for limited use of in-copyright material without seeking permission. In general, quotations from the work of others should be no longer than is necessary to support the scholarly point you wish to make. In the case of images, you should be sure that the pictures you reproduce are closely tied to your research goals and are each made the subject of specific scholarly comment. More on fair use .
• If you're not sure about relying on fair use, you can often seek permission. Most of the time, this means navigating to the publisher's website or a journal article page and finding a link to "rights" or "permissions." Many publishers allow graduate students to use content without charge, with the understanding that if you publish your work formally in future, you may need to obtain permission again and pay a fee. It's a good idea to get permission in writing, but even an email is sufficient.

From Dissertation to Publication - FAQ on Your Rights as Author

Who owns the copyright of a thesis or dissertation?

You do! The copyright of a thesis or dissertation belongs to you as the author. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, works are automatically copyrighted at the moment they are fixed in a tangible form, including residing on your computer's hard drive. You continue to own that copyright until you transfer it to another party.  A transfer of copyright must be in writing.  If parts of a work have already been published and copyright in those other works was transferred to someone else (e.g. a publisher), copyright of those parts remains with whom it was transferred to.

Who owns copyright in work produced as part of a team or in a lab?

Whenever a group undertakes a project or research, it is best to have a discussion up front, including the faculty advisor or chair, to clarify how copyright, patents and other intellectual property will be managed and who will retain and manage rights for all portions of the project. Be sure to consider not only publications arising from the project, but also data sets, software, websites, user interfaces, specifications, and any other outputs. It is always best to make sure that faculty make clear to graduate students and others working for them how research outputs will be owned or used in order to avoid confusion. In circumstances where grant funds or University funding is significantly invested in the project or research, other ownership interests may be at play, which should be discussed and understood.

Do I need to register my copyright?

You do not need to register with the Copyright Office in order to enjoy copyright protection. Such protection is automatic, coming into effect at the moment a work is fixed in a tangible form. However, registration has certain advantages.  First, if your work is registered you have strong evidence that you are the author of the work and the owner of its copyright. Also, registration is necessary to enforce a copyright against an infringer or plagiarist. For full detail, read the U.S. Copyright Office circular " Copyright Basics ". The benefits of registration are outlined on Page 7.

Registration can be completed online directly (for a fee of $45) through the Copyright Office website  or through ProQuest (for a fee of $55) who will register the copyright for you and in your name.

Can I use previously published articles of my own in my work?

It depends. You will need to review the agreement you signed with the publisher of our previously published article. Most agreements require you to transfer your copyright to the publisher. If this is the case, you must request permission from the publisher to "reprint" the article as a chapter in your dissertation. However, some agreements specify that you retain the right to reprint the article in your dissertation. The chart below details several publishers' policies with respect to reusing your own previously published work in a thesis or dissertation; however, you should always review the terms of any agreement you signed.

Why do I have two publishing agreements to review and sign, and what do I need to understand about them?

University of Florida dissertations are distributed by both ProQuest/UMI and the UF Libraries. Both will make your work available and preserve it for the future (ProQuest through its Dissertations and Theses database and print sales if you choose to allow that, and the UF Libraries through its institutional repository, the IR@UF ). In return for those services, both ProQuest and the UF Libraries require you to certify that the work is your own and that you are not infringing the rights of others. These agreements also provide a mechanism for all parties to recognize your rights as an author.  

Please note, by signing these agreements you still retain copyright, including the right to publish your work; the licenses you give to ProQuest/UMI and to the UF Libraries does not preclude publishing any part of your dissertation in another form or prevent you from transferring your copyright to some other party at a later date. A license is a permission you give to others to use your work in ways that would otherwise not be permitted by copyright law; they are not a transfer of your copyright.

The agreement with UF Libraries requires that you give a license to UF to put your dissertation in the IR@UF and distribute it in a way that allows other scholars to read it and use it for non-commercial purposes, as long as they do not make changes to your work and always give you credit. This license is designed to enable scholarship and to protect you from plagiarism. The agreement with ProQuest/UMI  grants ProQuest the non-exclusive right to reproduce and disseminate your work according to the conditions you elect in the agreement, including whether to make your work available after a specified embargo period and whether to make it available open access. 

Both publishing agreements allow students to elect to make their dissertations available immediately or after a specific limited period of time known as an embargo. An embargo may be appropriate and desired when a student wants to allow time to explore publishing part of it in other forms, if the dissertation contains material for which a patent might be sought, or if it includes other sensitive or confidential information.

What is open access, and how does it apply to my thesis or dissertation?

Articles, books, theses and dissertations are said to be "open access" when they are "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions." By making publications open access, the widest sharing of ideas and research results is made possible, which is generally done either by publishing in open access journals or depositing them in open access repositories such as PubMed Central, arXiv, or the IR@UF. University of Florida policy is for all new dissertations to be available open access through the IR@UF, either immediately or after an embargo period. 

Will journal or book publishers consider publishing my work if it is based on an open access thesis or dissertation?

Recent surveys  show that a majority of journal editors and university presses would accept submissions of articles and book manuscripts that were based upon theses or dissertations, even if they are available in an open access repository. This is in part because most publishers consider theses and dissertations to be "student work" that will require substantial editing and revision before being published in article or book form. The chart below summarizes the policies of some publishers regarding the publication of new works from a thesis or dissertation.

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• Last Updated: Jan 30, 2024 4:37 PM
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Submitting Your Dissertation, Thesis, Or PDE: Copyright

• Converting to PDF
• Publishing Options
• Publishing Agreement
• Ordering Copies

Copyright and Your Dissertation

There are two important areas of interest under this topic:

Copyright Law and Graduate Research

• Proquest presumes that you have made appropriate attributions and references to the intellectual property of others used to support the work contained in your dissertation. 
• Proquest also presumes that you have made good-faith attempts to secure permissions to use the intellectual property of others, if needed.

Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis    You should review this document by Proquest for a detailed discussion of these matters: 

Protecting Your Intellectual Property

While it is true that printing your name, a copyright marking, and a date on any page of your dissertation does assert your rights to your intellectual property, you should go further and  register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office.  For a $55 fee that you can pay during the submission process, ProQuest will do this for you. If you ever have to challenge legally someone's misuse of your intellectual property, a legally registered copyright greatly facilitates that process.

Register U.S. Copyright

The rest of this page is quoted verbatim from the Register U. S. Copyright menu page you will see on the submission website. You should review it carefully.

If you find the section named Previous U.S. Copyright Registration puzzling, here is an explanation of why you would choose Yes rather than No . In all likelihood, you will have no reason to choose Yes.

If you registered your copyright for a pre-existing work and reused that work in large part or totally to generate a new work, namely, your dissertation, you would need to report that copyright as you register your copyright for the dissertation. Some excellent examples include the reuse in a new work of a previously published scholarly article, book, patent, musical work, short story, and so on.

At ProQuest, we make copyright registration easy - by submitting your application to the United States Office of Copyright on your behalf and providing you with the certificate from the Library of Congress. Registering your copyright via ProQuest is the fastest and most efficient method currently available.

How to take advantage of our copyright service:

Registering with the U.S. Office of Copyright establishes your claim to the copyright for your dissertation/thesis and provides certain protections if your copyright is violated . Because of the availability of content on the open web via repositories and other avenues, registering for U.S. copyright can be a significant benefit for the protection of your work. By registering for U.S. copyright, you can protect your dissertation or thesis and become immediately eligible for statutory damages and attorney fees. Registering for copyright allows for the claimant to receive statutory damages set out in Title 17, Section 504 of the U.S. Code , which range from $750 - $150,000 USD plus attorney fees per copyright infraction. This contrasts with those who do not register for copyright - authors without copyright registration can claim only actual damages and no attorney fees.

If you wish, ProQuest/UMI Dissertation Publishing will act on your behalf as your agent with the United States Copyright Office and apply for copyright registration as part of the publishing process. Learn more

1. Previous U.S. Copyright Registration

Has registration for your published dissertation/thesis, or for an earlier version of the manuscript, been made with the Copyright Office? 

2. Requesting ProQuest/UMI to file for U.S. Copyright Registration - I am requesting that ProQuest/UMI not file for copyright on my behalf. - I am requesting that ProQuest/UMI file for copyright on my behalf. << Previous: Publishing Agreement Next: Ordering Copies >> Last Updated: Oct 19, 2021 9:05 AM URL: https://mc.libguides.com/submit Copyright and research Copyright and your thesis Researchers own copyright in their thesis. Under copyright, researchers have certain rights in their thesis such as: reproduction rights. publishing rights. communication rights, such as making the thesis available online. As authors, researchers also have moral rights over their theses. In some cases, research agreements or publishing agreements may affect the rights of a researcher's work, such as determining if a thesis can be made available on open access or if a thesis is connected to an embargo period. Making a thesis available on open access Before making a thesis available on open access, check that there are no legal or contractual qualifiers connected to the planned Open Access material release. Below are some possible examples: The clearance of any third-party material rights when they are included in the thesis. Any agreements/contracts, involving pre-published works. Any pending patent applications. The terms of research or funding agreements. The inclusion of any politically or legally sensitive information. Dealing with copyright material created by other people Seek permission from the copyright owner before including third-party copyright material in a thesis, unless there is a licence, agreement or exception that allows the inclusion of the third-party works in the thesis. Permission does not need to be sought if: Copyright in the work has  expired . An  insubstantial portion is included, for example, quotes from a book or journal article. Be careful if using quotes or excerpts from short works such as songs, poems or pieces of music as small portions are less likely to be considered insubstantial. An express  license allows the inclusion of the work, in the thesis, e.g. a contract, website conditions. Creative Commons material, copyright owner has explicitly waived copyright, etc. Use is covered under  fair dealing provisions . Particular care should be taken if the thesis includes music, sound recordings or films as clearing the rights for this material can be difficult. If unable to clear the rights for third party copyright material, it may be possible to publish a redacted version of the thesis on open access. A redacted version is one with any uncleared copyright material removed. For more information see the section on redacted version of your thesis. Make sure that all third-party copyright material is acknowledged in theses, include full bibliographic citations. Seeking permission to use copyright material It is important to start the process of obtaining permission, as soon as possible when seeking permission to clear the rights to use third-party copyright material. Obtaining permission is an often lengthy and complex process. Sometimes a licensing fee may have to be paid, as it may not be possible to obtain permission. All permission requests must be in writing. Keep copies of all permission documents as records of what permissions have been obtained. These records are considered legal documents and need to be kept for the copyright length of the thesis or as long as the thesis remains in open access. The University may request access to these permission documents. Theses may need to be embargoed or published in redacted versions, where the third -party material has been removed while permission is being obtained or because permission cannot be obtained. Refer to the Requesting permission from a copyright owner to reproduce material page for information on how to seek permission to use third-party copyright material. Listing third party copyright material The preparation of graduate research theses' rules requires the listing of all third-party copyright material included in theses and whether permissions from the copyright owners has been obtained. These permissions will be included in any open access version of theses. Third-party copyright includes: Audio-visual material, including sound recordings – both musical and non-musical – or films. When creating the list of third-party copyright material included in a thesis, please use the template for listing third party copyright material (DOCX 13.5 KB) . Managing copyright material in your thesis Making your thesis available in the research portal At Bond all Doctoral theses are uploaded into the University's Research Portal which is an Open Access repository. As an original work you own the copyright in your thesis and data, but if you include any work created by another person this must be cleared before upload into the Research Portal.   To ensure that your thesis is 'Open Access' copyright compliant, you must check the following: you have permission in writing from the copyright owner, or have a publisher's permission licence, to use any copyrighted material created by others in your thesis. you have a publisher's agreement, or copyright permission, allowing you to reproduce a portion or the whole Accepted version of your own published article in your thesis. You do not need permission to use: an insubstantial portion of a work, for example short quotes from a book or a journal article work that carries a Creative Commons licence  (but you should state the licence) works where the copyright has expired. When the copyright has expired, the work is considered in the Public Domain and can be used without the copyright owner's permission. Copyright for researchers toolkit Using the  Copyright for Researchers Toolkit  is essential to keep track of any third party copyright material in your work, or if you are planning to produce a thesis by publication.   Download the Toolkit and Copyright Log Template in excel format (available below)   to record and track copyright permission requests and licences during your research. The Tootlit contains a sample permission letter, as well as easy-to-read information on gaining copyright permissions for higher degree research students. Copyright for Researchers Toolkit A downloadable toolkit for researchers including a sample permissions letter, checklist and simple-to-read information about copyright. Copyright Log Template Excel format Using copyright material created by others Management of copyright material is an important element of your thesis journey.  Careful management of other peoples' work, also known as third-party materials, when writing your thesis will ensure an uncomplicated submission. If copyright material that does not belong to you is included in a thesis, e.g., images, tables, graphs, charts, or a survey template, then you must obtain permission from the copyright owner/publisher to include the reproduced material.  Copyright permission is also required if you want to adapt or modify a copyrighted work, e.g., a diagram in a published article or website. Gaining Permissions or a Publisher Licence Permission for the reproduction of copyright works, e.g., diagrams, photographs, maps, and tables, can take different routes.  Website content belongs to the website owner. Check the Terms of Use, usually found in the website footer, before copying images or diagrams from a website. Ask for permission by sending a request via the website Contact page using the template letter in the Copyright for Researchers Toolkit . The reproduction of figures and diagrams from scholarly journal articles in a thesis is typically available free of charge, but permission is still required. The permission letter template in the Copyright for Researchers Toolkit  can be used in many cases, however, many publishers direct user permission requests to the RightsLink automated permission-granting service, whilst other publishers have their own online permission request form. The 'Request Permission' link is often found on the same page as the published article, or the journal website. Publishers generally have a 'Permissions' link near the title of the article as shown in the example below.  Permissions from a publisher come in the form of a licence. Step 1:  The first step in gaining permission to reproduce a figure/table/diagram from a research article, or an entire article of which you are an author, in your thesis is to go to the published article in the journal and open the 'Tools' or 'Permissions' link or icon then select 'Request permission'.  Note: A journal's 'Permissions' link is found in various places on the article webpage depending on the publisher, e.g. left or right-hand sidebar. Step 2: The link will take you to the CCC RightsLink page as shown below. Select 'reuse in a dissertation/thesis'. Complete the form.  Step 3: Click the 'Continue' button to acquire the licence that will provide permission to reproduce the self-authored article, or figure/table/diagram, from the article in your thesis.  Note that the licence is commonly free of charge. The Manager, Scholarly Publications & Copyright can assist with copyright permissions and general copyright queries. Please make contact at least three (3) months before your thesis submission date for a thorough copyright check. Example publisher licence application process Step 1 - request permission. The first step in gaining permission to reproduce a figure/table/diagram from a research article, or an entire article of which you are an author, in your thesis is to go to the published article in the journal and open the 'Tools' or 'Permissions' link or icon then select 'Request permission'.  Step 2 - Complete the form The link will take you to the CCC RightsLink page. Select 'reuse in a dissertation/thesis'. Complete the form.  Step 3 - Acquire licence Click the 'Continue' button to acquire the licence that will provide permission to reproduce the self-authored article, or figure/table/diagram, from the article in your thesis.  Note that the licence is commonly free of charge. Step 4 - Compile permission files All the publisher permission licenses should be compiled into one pdf file (named: Copyright Permissions) and this should be uploaded into WorkFlowGen with the pre-examination copy of your thesis. Avoid plagiarism Plagiarism occurs when the work of another person, or persons, is used and presented as one's own. If you include other people’s words, ideas, or materials without proper acknowledgment (such as including an intext citation, footnote, and reference list entry) you are plagiarising. This is classified as academic misconduct. The University regards very seriously any acts of cheating, or dishonesty by way of plagiarism and there is a range of penalties that may be imposed on an HDR student for instances of plagiarism which is a breach of the University's Research Misconduct Policy (available below). Bond University uses Turnitin to check HDR student work for plagiarism.  Read the poster below which illustrates a wide range of actions that are plagiarism. Did I plagiarise? Download the 'Did I plagiarise?' poster. Research Misconduct Policy RES 4.5.5 Academic integrity at Bond Academic integrity at Bond Academic Integrity at Bond means adhering, in words and actions and across all aspects of student life, to an academic moral code bound by the seven integrity principles of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, courage, and professionalism. Breaches of academic integrity are known as academic misconduct or academic dishonesty. Moral rights Creators of copyright material hold moral rights in the material they create even if they do not hold copyright. They include the right: to be acknowledged or attributed as the creator of the work not to have their work falsely attributed, to anyone else, and not to have their work used in a derogatory manner. You must fully acknowledge any copyright material that you use. The attribution must be clear and reasonably prominent in captions under artistic works such as images, diagrams and photographs no matter the source, whether it be a journal article, book, another thesis, or a website.  Literary works should always carry in-text citations and all works should appear in the reference list. Further information Copyright Guide for Research Students: What you need to know about copyright before depositing your electronic thesis in an online repository . This is a useful guide for PhD students that contains copyright scenarios. See the ' Submitting a thesis ' tab for further information on presenting your copyright permissions and licences with your thesis. << Previous: Writing your thesis Next: Reproducing your own published articles in your thesis >> Writing your thesis Reproducing your own published articles in your thesis Submitting your thesis - A stepped process Creative Commons licences Finding theses Faculty Help & Support Manager, Scholarly Publications & Copyright +61 7 5595 1523 [email protected] Study and research support Copyright for theses When publishing your thesis you need to ensure you have cleared any copyright and permissions and have thought about the terms under which you make it available for others to use. If you are publishing material from your thesis, whether before or after submission, you need to understand whether you can reproduce the material. If you are publishing material prior to submission it is essential that you understand how you can then use it in your final submission. Using copyrighted material in your thesis You should try to use free content wherever possible in your thesis. If you must use copyrighted material, ensure you seek permission from the copyright owner. Most theses are now published as eTheses, and are made public on White Rose eTheses Online . Therefore you need to be sure that you have permission to use any copyrighted material – including images, video, quotes, and trademarks – or have removed it in the version you upload. You can use copyrighted material in the version that is not made public (the version you submit for assessment), as long as the use is fair to the copyright owner  and is crucial to your argument. Publishing material from your thesis If you want to include your published work in your thesis, or publish work based on your thesis, you must consider who owns the copyright. Publishers will often require authors to assign copyright to them. If you sign a contract with a publisher, check to see whether you have the right to reproduce your material. Check any copyright agreements carefully. If you publish prior to submission of your thesis, and the publisher retains copyright, you may not be able to reproduce this material in your final thesis. The University recommends that PhD students make their thesis available under a Creative Commons licence (open access). Making your thesis available without a licence can cause confusion because terms of reuse are not specified. Publishing prior to submission If you would like to publish prior to submission of your thesis you should: Publish as open access where possible. Provide the publishers with a licence to publish . Negotiate with publishers for the right to re-use material in your thesis. Publishing after submission If you would like to publish after submission of your thesis you should: Check with the publisher that they are happy for you to reproduce material that is already available online in your thesis. You may want to apply an embargo to your thesis, restricting access for a set period of time to allow for publishing. When dealing with publishers you will be asked for the signature of the copyright owner. You can sign this agreement on the University’s behalf. You may also be able to sign on behalf of your co-authors, but you should ask their permission and check with the publisher that this is acceptable. For more information see the University’s guidance on ethesis preparation , and  copyright for publishing . Mardigian Library Subject Guides Formatting Your Thesis or Dissertation with Microsoft Word Copyright Page Introduction Dedication, Acknowledgements, & Preface Headings and Subheadings Citations and Bibliography Page Numbers Tables and Figures Rotated (Landscape) Pages Table of Contents Lists of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations Some Things to Watch For PDF with Embedded Fonts Copyright page A copyright page is optional. Many students include one, but under current U.S. copyright law, just the act of writing your thesis gives you copyright protection. There are three common ways that we see the copyright page formatted and the video tutorial below explains how to format each of these common copyright pages. Option 1: 0:37 Option 2: 3:01 Option 3: 5:56 << Previous: Front Matter Next: Dedication, Acknowledgements, & Preface >> Last Updated: Jul 23, 2024 5:50 PM URL: https://guides.umd.umich.edu/Word_for_Theses Call us at 313-593-5559 Chat with us Text us: 313-486-5399 Email us your question 4901 Evergreen Road Dearborn, MI 48128, USA Phone: 313-593-5000 Maps & Directions M+Google Mail Emergency Information UM-Dearborn Connect Wolverine Access Stack Exchange Network Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Q&A for work Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. How can I find images to use in my thesis that are free/unrestricted by copyright? I need to add some images to my thesis. I would strongly prefer that these are free (no cost) and not restricted by copyright. I have used Google Image to find images, I don't know how to determine what the copyright restrictions are, or what license types apply. I will not use them in any published paper, just for my unpublished thesis. P.S. Here are the search options for Google Image: creative-commons 2 Depends on the license terms under which your thesis will be distributed and the laws of the country in which you're writing it. –  David Z Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 7:32 1 The easiest solution (if you had a budget for it) would be to commission an artist. –  emory Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 10:11 1 In addition to the helpful answers below, and the mention of Flickr, there are websites which specialise in copyright-free images. For example, I use Pixabay frequently - all the images there are under Creative Commons. You may be able to use Google to find a similar website which provides the pictures you want. –  Luna Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 10:17 3 @phresnel For my thesis, I had to inquire about the copyright for one single image; so this is not really something that comes up often. Degrees tell only a small fraction about overall ability, indeed. For example, I am not great at knitting. –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 14:01 2 Could you tell me why does your thesis need generic images (i.e. ones which can be found on the Internet, whether free or not)? –  Piotr Migdal Commented Jul 6, 2015 at 13:37 10 Answers 10 You can't rely on the options for Google Image search. Instead, you will have to do additional research for each of the images you find and intend to use. First, you need to find the original author/creator of that image. It may or may not be the same as the owner/creator of the web site where you find the image. (They may have copied the image from somewhere else, with or without permission.) You can use Google Image search "search by image" option to find other copies of that same image on other sites. Second, you need to find the copyright statement for that image on the site of the owner . In many cases, you'll find a copyright statement as part of the "Terms of Service" for the whole web site. In other cases, there will be a copyright statement for each and every image. Third, when in doubt, you need to contact the author/owner and ask for permission to use the image. If all this seems cumbersome and so non-digital, be aware that copyright law (and intellectual property rights law in general) still lives in the pre-digital age. Lawyers still send faxes to each other and to the courts. Think about that. Thanks @MrMeritology. From your comment I can assume that Google Image filters are totally useless. The idea was to use some images from others in order to save some time. If there is no straightforward way to find free scientific images, I might skip images in thesis. Only text in the introduction and discussion. For me is OK, lets see for the committee. –  biotech Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 9:54 @biotech yes, google filters are completely useless. And also, you may have to cite the image author in your sources, depending on where you are. –  Mindwin Remember Monica Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 13:26 1 What is this thing you call "fax"...? (just kidding, but that is pretty ridiculous) –  user541686 Commented Jul 3, 2015 at 10:03 This depends highly on your countries laws and regulations. For example: The German copyright laws has some limitations for the use of works in the area of teaching and research . With the CC licenses you risk less mistakes. But you have to take care of the correct distribution. name the author and source if the license contains BY. don't change the file and only use it in the original composition when license contains ND (no derivate). don't use media with licenses containing NC (not commercial) in a thesis or paper that contributes to (pending) patents. That could be interpreted to be a commercial use. [changed:] according to the (IANAL-)comments one can use SA (share alike) licensed material without putting your thesis under the same license In any case, pages that give information about the media-license are good sources, because you mostly have a clear licensing statement for any file. So you can easily decide whether and how to use it. I doubt that an author will change the license later on. You could use a web preservation repository service like WebCite to create evidence that the file had a specific license when you found and decided to use it. Suggestions for search: Wikimedia Commons Flickr (thanks to Henning for the suggestion) 3 "be aware to put your thesis under the same license as the used media if their licenses contain SA (share alike)" - I wonder whether this is accurate. Just like a software package can contain single files whose license deviates from the license of the rest of the files in the package, can't a thesis document be subject to license X, with the exception of some graphics depicted in the thesis that are (both originally, and still in the thesis) subject to license Y? –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:47 1 @O. R. Mapper: That's a good point. The sentence I wrote is my understanding of the share alike (SA) property. Maybe someone else can provide a more detailed view on SA property as a comment. –  André Kleinschmidt Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:51 2 In particular, I could create a graphic on my own, include it in my thesis and declare that particular graphic to be licensed as CC-BY-SA, even though the entirety of my thesis is not. That sounds like it should work, as otherwise, non-CC-BY-SA-licensed "works" (books, websites, ...) could never publish CC-BY-SA-licensed graphics, which probably isn't the case (?) But if that is possible, it sounds reasonable to assume that CC-BY-SA-works that I took from elsewhere could just as well be integrated (and republished as CC-BY-SA) in non-CC-BY-SA-works. IANAL. Maybe warrants a new question. –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:54 2 Case in point: Websites such as Wikimedia Commons could never contain both images subject to the CC-BY-SA license and images subject to the CC-BY-NC-SA license at the same time. (Not to mention other share-alike-licenses with more incompatible other terms.) –  O. R. Mapper Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 8:58 3 Yes, you can use a CC-BY-SA image in eg. a book without it having to be CC-BY-SA itself. The bigger work is what is called an aggregation . Note that for instance Creative Commons considers that you can use sharealike images in a document without infecting the document. The FSF thinks the document would need to be under such license. Other people consider that in both cases you can include the images. And of course, for legal advice you should consult your lawyer about the specific license, IANAL. –  Ángel Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 13:07 I'm a strong supporter of Wikipedia and her sister projects. One of those projects is exactly what you're looking for. The Wikimedia Commons is a database of 26,536,356+ freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute. There are millions of images (not just photographs) and thousands added each day. You can view all the licensing for every media file, although that might not be entirely necessary considering all of them are free to use. I was going to suggest the same. Wikimedia Commons is awesome. –  Miguel Commented Jul 4, 2015 at 16:34 Flickr makes it very easy to find images that have a "free" license in the sense explained in Andrés answer . These also include beautiful images from public archives , such as the British Library. In contrast to a google image search (see MrMeritology's answer ), the author and copyright information on Flickr are reliable. However, one caveat is that the author might change the license and you have no way to prove that the work was "free" when you first used it. If you are confused whether or not you can reuse a copyrighted image, this flowchart might help. I wanted a very specific image for my dissertation, and found a simple solution - I drew it myself, and scanned the result. Since I created it, the copyright status was exactly the same as the words I was writing. It did not need any acknowledgement or reference. It cost me a few dollars for materials, and about an hour of my time. Are you kidding? The images I need are from the papers I cite in the introduction. –  biotech Commented Jul 6, 2015 at 17:28 No, I'm not kidding. Whether draw-it-yourself works for a specific image depends on the situation. If you need images from existing papers, I don't see any alternative to contacting the copyright holders of those papers to request permission to use those images. –  Patricia Shanahan Commented Jul 6, 2015 at 18:17 There are a number of sites where you can download images. For certain sites, attribution isn't required (but usually appreciated). For example: https://picjumbo.com/ https://pixabay.com/en/ https://stocksnap.io/ http://www.pexels.com/ https://unsplash.com/grid Flickr ( https://www.flickr.com ) also offers a great database of free images. You can use the search tool and then filter by copyright types: Images under "Commercial use & mods allowed" are free but attribution is required. This means you'll have to link to their author and to the License page. if you've modified the image, you also have to specify it Images under "No known copyright restrictions" are in the public domain or universal commons (CC0 1.0 Universal) and no attribution is required. May I add to the list of site: free-images.com imagefree.com/en freepik.com –  Imageree Commented Jul 27, 2022 at 23:04 In order to use images in your thesis you need to know who made them so that you can properly credit them, regardless of the issue of copyright. Proper accreditation is probably a more significant issue for your thesis than complying with copyright laws since failure to properly credit images including in your thesis is plagarism . Since you will need to identify the original creator of each piece anyway, I would suggest you rely much more on what you learn through this route than anything Google tells you. I think, if you guide yourself by the creative commons it could get easier but Im not aware of how your contry takes this online practices so you might want to check that This is an article that helped me a lot some weeks ago with free photos and images ready to be used, some shared under the creative commons other freely shared by their owners https://www.shopify.com/blog/17156388-22-awesome-websites-with-stunning-free-stock-images There are a few sites which allows you to use images copyright free. Just note that you cannot re-sell those images. Follow this Another royalty free stock image site is: http://www.sxc.hu/ I would also suggest take pictures of your own. You can pose for yourself or ask family or friend. 2 I'm not sure OP would be interested in the "pose for yourself" option you mentioned; can you elaborate on how that helps them? –  Mad Jack Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 21:55 Pose for yourself if a model is required. Your thesis will look much more credible if the pictures are also created by you. –  user3108698 Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 23:17 3 «royalty free» is not what the OP meant. also, this section of the legal information section looks fishy: «Freeimages cannot be held responsible for any copyright violations, and cannot guarantee the legality of the Images stored in its system. If you want to make sure, always contact the photographers.» –  henning no longer feeds AI Commented Jul 3, 2015 at 9:03 You must log in to answer this question. Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged thesis copyright graphics creative-commons license .. 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Published Dissertation or Thesis References This page contains reference examples for published dissertations or theses. Kabir, J. M. (2016). Factors influencing customer satisfaction at a fast food hamburger chain: The relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (Publication No. 10169573) [Doctoral dissertation, Wilmington University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Miranda, C. (2019). Exploring the lived experiences of foster youth who obtained graduate level degrees: Self-efficacy, resilience, and the impact on identity development (Publication No. 27542827) [Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University]. PQDT Open. https://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/2309521814.html?FMT=AI Zambrano-Vazquez, L. (2016). The interaction of state and trait worry on response monitoring in those with worry and obsessive-compulsive symptoms [Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona]. UA Campus Repository. https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/620615 Parenthetical citations : (Kabir, 2016; Miranda, 2019; Zambrano-Vazquez, 2016) Narrative citations : Kabir (2016), Miranda (2019), and Zambrano-Vazquez (2016) A dissertation or thesis is considered published when it is available from a database such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global or PDQT Open, an institutional repository, or an archive. If the database assigns publication numbers to dissertations and theses, include the publication number in parentheses after the title of the dissertation or thesis without italics. Include the description “Doctoral dissertation” or “Master’s thesis” followed by a comma and the name of the institution that awarded the degree. Place this information in square brackets after the dissertation or thesis title and any publication number. In the source element of the reference, provide the name of the database, repository, or archive. The same format can be adapted for other published theses, including undergraduate theses, by changing the wording of the bracketed description as appropriate (e.g., “Undergraduate honors thesis”). Include a URL for the dissertation or thesis if the URL will resolve for readers (as shown in the Miranda and Zambrano-Vazquez examples). If the database or archive requires users to log in before they can view the dissertation or thesis, meaning the URL will not work for readers, end the reference with the database name (as in the Kabir example). Published dissertation or thesis references are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Section 10.6 and the Concise Guide Section 10.5 Schools & departments How to submit the final version of your PhD thesis At the end of the examination process all successful PhD and MPhil candidates are required to submit the final version of their thesis to the appropriate College Postgraduate Office. COVID-19 Update The requirement for one hard copy thesis to be submitted has been waived during the current circumstances which require remote working for most staff/students. Submission of PhD theses will be electronic only.  A signed declaration is not required in the final version when the submission is deposited in Pure.  This concession from the regulations about physical thesis submission will continue for the foreseeable future, and will be reviewed by Academic Services once the pandemic is over.  Before you submit your thesis The University has an expectation that a PhD thesis is a document available for public consultation. As such, unless a legitimate reason for restricting access to the thesis exists, all PhD theses will be made publicly available on the internet via the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA). It is highly recommended that you discuss with your primary supervisor the implications of publishing your thesis online in ERA . If your thesis contains confidential or sensitive data it may not be appropriate to make the full text freely available online. Similarly if there is the intention to publish the whole, or extracts from, your thesis you may want to restrict access to the electronic version. Submitting the PDF version Go to Pure and log in with your EASE account Click on the green ‘Add new’ button on the top right and select ‘Doctoral Thesis’, or alternatively click on ‘Student theses’ on the left-hand-side navigation bar followed by ‘Doctoral Thesis’ The record should be auto-populated with most of your thesis award information. Please check for completeness, and add in the title of your thesis in the appropriate box. Upload your electronic thesis files by clicking on the ‘Add document’ button. If you require an embargo for the PDF add the date and reason in the appropriate boxes. The initial embargo length is one year from date of graduation. The date will be checked by Library staff and changed if a different value is added without permission. Please remove any signatures, personal postal and email addresses from the PDF version. Upload your Access to Thesis form alongside your thesis files. Supplementary data can be added alongside the thesis text. Change the ‘Type’ to ‘Supplementary materials’ and upload the files as described above. The record Visibility needs to be set to ' Backend - Restricted to Pure users '  To finish, set the status to ' Entry in progress ', click the blue ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the screen and the submission is ready for validation by college office staff. Submitting the final hardbound version is not required Submission of PhD theses is now electronic only - see the steps above. Data preservation and sharing If your thesis has supplementary data (for example images, videos, source code or analytical data) we would like to store a copy of this data alongside the thesis text. We do this to try and preserve the fullest record of the work as possible. Datasets should be supported by good accompanying documentation which is appropriate to your subject discipline. The UK Data  Service offers some specialist advice in this area. We do not routinely allow public access to this data; however, if you wish to share your data with others we recommend the Edinburgh DataShare service. Edinburgh Datashare If you have a lot of supplementary files - for example lots of images, data in multiple spreadsheets or video formats - we don't recommend depositing them in PURE. Instead, contact the Scholarly Communications Team and we can advise the best way to send them to us. Redacting material from your thesis If you wish to make your thesis available to the public to consult, but there are  problematic elements that cannot be openly shared then it is possible to submit a redacted version. We typically recommend partial thesis redactions are suitable for the following scenarios: Third-party copyright Where third party copyright has not been obtained, students may submit an edited thesis, as an alternative to requesting an embargo.  Sensitive material  If the thesis contains confidential or sensitive information, e.g. transcripts of interviews, which cannot be shared or anonymised. Photographs If your thesis contains photographs of people and you do not have their permission to publish their image online. It is possible to design your thesis in a way which means the problematic material is easy to remove. For example, if you are planning to use a large number of photographs, you could layout your thesis with the photographs in a separate appendix which can be  easily removed. Students who have chosen to submit a redacted version of their thesis would also need to submit a full unedited copy which will be securely kept stored by the Library. This is important to preserve the integrity of the academic record of the University. Both versions of the files should be uploaded to the Thesis Module in Pure with the files clearly named to differentiate between the two. We recommend the following file naming convention: <Last name><First initial>_<Year>_COMPLETE     <Last name><First initial>_<Year>_REDACTED e.g. SmithJ_2023_COMPLETE.pdf   Reasons for requesting an embargo period If the redaction option is not possible then students are permitted to embargo their thesis under certain conditions described below: Planned publication Normally a longer embargo period may be granted when there are firm publication plans in place, e.g. where a manuscript has been submitted to a publisher and is in a formal stage of publication (submitted, accepted, in press). Vague plans for publication are not normally accepted. Commercial confidentiality There may be contractual restrictions imposed by a sponsor, which could include industrial sponsors or governmental agencies. Patent application Patent applications can be rejected by the premature publication of research. Where the research might lead to a commercial application or patent then we recommend that the Intellectual Property needs to be protected. Contains personal data Where a thesis contains personally identifiable or ethically sensitive data or where material obtained in the thesis was obtained under a guarantee of confidentiality we would consider placing an embargo. These issues should have been addressed at an early stage of the research project. Where third party copyright has not been obtained, students may submit an edited thesis, as an alternative to requesting an embargo. They would also need to submit an unedited hard copy which will be secured kept. Publication could endanger health and safety or prejudice national security The thesis contains sensitive material (political or otherwise) which could put at risk the authors or participants if made openly available. These issues should have been addressed at an early stage of the research project. How to request a Thesis Restriction How to request a 12 month embargo. You can restrict access to the electronic version of your thesis for one year without any special permissions. If an embargo is required, this must be indicated on the Access to Thesis form, otherwise, the thesis may be made publicly available. This form should be deposited in Pure alongside the full text of the thesis. At the end of the embargo period, the University is under no obligation to contact you about extending the period of restriction. If towards the end of your embargo period you have any concerns that the forthcoming public availability of your thesis would be problematic please contact the Library ( [email protected] ) and the Scholarly Communications Team will be able to help. Embargo requests longer than 12 months Requests for embargoes that exceed 12 months starting from the date the work is added to the Library’s collection require Head of School approval and must be accompanied by a clear rationale as to why a longer period is required. Complete Section 2 of the Access to a Thesis form to request an extended embargo. Extended embargoes beyond five years will not normally be approved unless there are very exceptional reasons. Normally any relevant evidence to support a request for an extended embargo should be attached to the request, e.g. publishing contract or correspondence from industrial sponsors. Click here to download the  ACCESS TO THESIS & PUBLICATION OF ABSTRACT FORM  , or visit the general  Doctoral Thesis Submission webpages for more information. Further help and information Scholarly Communications Team Contact details. Email: [email protected] Information Services Floor F East, Argyle House 3 Lady Lawson Street Availability You can book a one-to one video consultation with an expert from our team. If you want to find out more about open access (journals, funding, policies etc ), Copyright & Intellectual Property, General publishing activities (request an ISBN or DOI), or research metrics (using Web Of Science or Scopus) please contact our team via email to book a session at a time that suits you. my research contributions and comments category is – limitations, part 2 – the thesis conclusion Imagine that you are an examiner. You are reading a doctoral thesis. And you’ve nearly got to the end. You’ve read a lot of carefully crafted words which have explained what the research is and why it is as it is. You’ve read the results and what these mean and how they fit with the current understandings in the field. Along the way the doctoral researcher has explained their choices and decisions to you and provided enough detail for you to follow what they did, when and why.   But nor you’re at the conclusion and you can see that they have not only shown how they have answered their initial question, but also clearly spelled out how their research results add up to several explicit contributions to knowledge. You are very pleased to see that the claims for contribution are well grounded in the actual results, and neither under-sell nor over-stretch what the research results can support.  You are looking forward to reading the final section of the conclusion which, you assume, will go on to discuss the implications of the research. Alas, this is not the case.  Instead you arrive at a section called “limitations” which reframes all of the choices and decisions that the researcher made as deficits and short-comings. And the limitations section in front of you doesn’t include anything that explains the doctoral researcher’s learning. You don’t know what they now know that they will carry forward into their future research agenda. Noooooooooooo! By the time you arrive at the actual research implications, some of which are of course related directly to the inevitable blank spots in the research, you are struggling to retain the sense you had of a strong and successful piece of research. The discussion of the limitations has undercut the writer’s movement towards a final and authoritative conclusion. Was the research really as good as you’d initially thought, you wonder? Perhaps you’d better reconsider in the light of this rather daunting list of deficiencies…. OK. So this is not a popular opinion. I had you with me until I made it clear that I reckon that concluding with a specific section called limitations is both limiting and limited. I know it’s a textual convention which some people hold as a rule. But I really don’t agree. I always find a lengthy reiteration of what is beyond the scope of the research, or omitted for pragmatic or practical reasons, to be an undermining move. Not an own goal, but certainly the start of something unnecessarily negative. So what do I suggest? Is there an alternative? Well yes, and it’s not to dodge the reality that any research can do only so much. It’s a matter of how you discuss the scope, scale and procedural choices and decisions and their consequences, not whether you do.   My preference is for the thesis writer to  Spell out the various choices and decisions they make throughout the thesis, when and where they occur – see the previous post –  making clear that they understand the consequences for what can be seen, said and concluded. If the choices and decisions are made explicit in the thesis, the reader doesn’t need them laboriously summed up at the end in a cumulative list of what I didn’t do.   In the conclusion, reframe the limitations as opportunities. Discuss the most pertinent alternative choices in terms of the spaces created for further research. You basically say … Because this research did not do x , there is a clear opportunity for this to be done next, making sure that… . You see, acknowledging that the research has blank spots doesn’t have to be completely negative, nor presented as a deficit. All research can do some things and not others. Showing you know this is helpful. Say you know that what isn’t done in this research can still be done next/later. Use the conclusion to show you now think like a researcher. Some choices seem right at the time but look different in retrospective. So the doctoral researcher can use the conclusion to reflect on what they learnt from acting on their choices and carrying out their decisions. The PhD is about both being and becoming a researcher. So you basically say… I began this research thinking that…. however as it progressed I came so understand that …. this is in itself a contribution, not only to my own learning but something that other researchers might also find of benefit etc… Signalling what has been learnt is an important indication to the reader that the researcher  has been thinking about their own research education as well as their topic. It demonstrates reflexivity, an important aspect of research practice.  OK. So not writing a limitations sections is probably not a popular opinion. It’s not the orthodoxy of concluding a thesis (or a paper). But it is a possibility. And because it’s an option you get to choose whether do it or not. As you are deciding how to construct your concluding chapter and you think about writing a separate section called limitations, then do know that there is an alternative – a final choice and decision to make. Do you want a limitations section or to reframe your choices an d decisions in discussions of implications and learnings? It’s up to you. Photo by  Jackson Hirsch  on  Unsplash Share this: About pat thomson 3 responses to category is – limitations, part 2 – the thesis conclusion. I wish I’d read this before I submitted! It is really compelling. Never mind I will reflect on this for my viva. Congratulations on submitting Jules. Always so wonderfully helpful, Pat, and worthy for me to pass on to my doctoral researchers and various masters’ students. Like Liked by 1 person Leave a comment Cancel reply Search for: Follow Blog via Email Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address: patter on facebook Recent Posts Category is – “limitations” Part One Getting over bad/limited advice – journal article introductions what do you do for your reader? on bad writing advice, again do you read – or talk – your conference paper? your conference paper – already published or work in progress? a musing on email signatures creativity and giving up on knowing it all white ants and research education Anticipation research as creative practice – possibility thinking SEE MY CURATED POSTS ON WAKELET Top posts & pages. category is - limitations, part 2 - the thesis conclusion Category is – “limitations” Part One writing a bio-note aims and objectives - what's the difference? problem, problematisation - what's the difference? 20 reading journal prompts I can't find anything written on my topic... really? use a structured abstract to help write and revise connecting chapters/chapter conclusions Entries feed Comments feed WordPress.com Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now. Subscribe Subscribed Copy shortlink Report this content View post in Reader Manage subscriptions Collapse this bar Main navigation Our Programs Funding Opportunities For Incoming Graduate Students Health and Wellness For Supervisors / Instructors Biomedical Undergraduate Programs Health Professions Programs Minimum Funding Packages in FMHS Graduate Programs 2024-2025 Discover our Graduate Programs Graduate Program Contacts Postdoctoral programs Exchange Program Get Involved! Excellence Spotlight Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Minimum Funding Policy for Thesis-based Graduate Students for 2024-2025 Academic Year Overview: Full-time MSc-Thesis and PhD graduate students in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences will receive funding to support for their living expenses, tuition and fees. A student’s funding may come from a combination of sources including, but not limited to, the supervisor’s research funds, Graduate Excellence Funds, Differential Fee Waivers, and scholarships awarded to the student. Travel and presentation awards do not contribute to the minimum funding package. Funding will be provided to students for a minimum of two years for MSc-Thesis programs and for five years for PhD programs. Shorter periods of funding support are acceptable if the final thesis is submitted prior to the these time limits. It is strongly encouraged that funding be extended until submission of the final thesis. Students must demonstrate adequate progress and meet required program milestones. Minimum funding levels are outlined below.   MSc1 QC MSc2 QC MSc1 OOP MSc2 OOP MSc1 INTL MSc2 INTL $22,285 $22,285 $22,285 $22,285 $22,285 $22,285 $5,368 $5,568 $11,662 $8,715 $23,245 $14,769 $27,652 $27,853 $33,947 $31,000 $45,430 $37,054   PhD1-4 CDN PhD5-7 CDN PhD1-4 INTL PhD5-7 INTL $23,785 $23,785 $23,785 $23,785 $5,368 $4,581 $21,165 $5,106 $29,153 $28,366 $44,950 $28,891 QC = Quebec; OOP = out of province Canadians/Permanent Residents, INTL = international; CDN=Canadians/Permanent Residents   * Tuition/Fees/Insurance are estimated based on an anticipated 3% increase over Annual fees for 2023-2024 Fall/Winter ,  which is reflected in the tuition fee tables at this time. It's subject to be adjusted after review of the Spring referendum period results . * Living allowance is based on a 5.2%  CPI increase in Montreal from Aug 2022-2023 Top-up policy (Supplemental funding) in recognition of scholarship awards: Awards < living allowance: Students receive FMHS minimum living allowance + tuition/ancillary fees/insurance + 10% of the value of the scholarship. Awards ≥ living allowance and  < $40,000: Students receive their full award + tuition/ancillary fees/insurance + 10% the value of the award. OOP and INTL tuition/fee/insurance differentials should continue  to  be provided. Awards ≥$40,000 and <$50,000: Students receive their full award + tuition/ancillary fees/insurance. Additional top-up at the discretion of their supervisor. OOP and INTL tuition/fee/insurance differentials should continue to be provided. Awards ≥$50,000: Students receive their full award + differential tuition fees if international student (note that these are usually covered by GPS). Department and University Information Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Graphos Writing Resources Health e-News International Student Services SKILLSETS Workshops & Resources Student Wellness Hub 489 IMAGES Formatting Help ETD Format Guidelines (PDF) Copyright protection of dramatic works Theses of PhD dissertation Thesis (with copyright page included) Formatting Copyright Tools COMMENTS Copyright Page You should include a copyright statement for yourself for this manuscript. You must list copyright holders if any portion of your manuscript has been previously published (by you or by another author). See the using previously published materials overview. If a copyright statement is not being included, insert a blank page as a substitute. Copyright and Your Thesis However, attention to copyright can help avoid pitfalls and reveal opportunities to further your scholarly goals. Given the way that the law operates, copyright law most certainly protects your dissertation as well as the quotations, photographs, music, diagrams, and many other works that you have included in your doctoral study. Copyrighting When you submit your thesis or dissertation, ProQuest charges a fee for this service ($55, subject to change). The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress. Fair Use, Copyright, Patent, and Publishing Options Use the delayed release (embargo) option if a patent application is or will be in process, noting the reason for the delay as "patent pending.". If you have any questions, please contact Cornell's Center for Technology Licensing at 607-254-4698 or [email protected]. 5. Copyright in Your Dissertation 818 Hatcher Graduate Library South 913 S. University Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1190 (734) 764-0400 Send us an email Copyright Resources: Copyright for Dissertations and Theses Select "Reuse in a thesis/dissertation" and complete the rest of the information requested. Read the resulting screens carefully to see if the article can be used in the thesis or dissertation. If not, see Asking for Permission, below, for some tips. Copyright for Graduate Students: Theses and Dissertations Except where otherwise indicated, original content in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.You are free to share, adopt, or adapt the materials. We encourage broad adoption of these materials for teaching and other professional development purposes, and invite you to customize them for your own needs. Dissertation Copyright 122 College Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 215.898.5000 Copyright for Graduate Students: Theses and Dissertations When writing a thesis or a dissertation, you have two sets of copyrights you should bear in mind. Your own copyright as author of the thesis or dissertation; and; The copyright owned by others in the material you incorporate into your thesis or dissertation. This guide will discuss both issues. Research Guides: Copyright: Writing Your Thesis or Dissertation A copyright is an intangible right granted to you as the author of your thesis or dissertation. You have the sole and exclusive privilege of making copies, publishing or selling your thesis or dissertation. Currently, this protection lasts for your lifetime plus an addition 70 years. Is it worth $75? Copyright and copyright registration for theses and Answer: Even though you own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation, registering for a copyright will be necessary if you ever need to bring a lawsuit for the infringement of a US work. You may be wondering now if you should or shouldn't register your thesis/dissertation. Only YOU can answer that question. CMU LibGuides: Theses & Dissertations: Understanding Copyright When in doubt, consult Carnegie Mellon's Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation (CTTEC), 412-268-7393 or [email protected]. Neither the University Libraries nor ProQuest/UMI require copyright transfer to publish your dissertation. Both require only the non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute your work. Your Copyright Penn State thesis and dissertation authors are the initial copyright holders for their theses and dissertations. As copyright holders, they have certain rights under copyright law. In the United States today, those rights can be separated and split. The author can give others permission to exercise some or all of those rights. Using Others' Work If you use materials (such as text, images, sound recordings, etc.) created by a third party in your thesis or dissertation, you need to consider whether copyright law allows your use of those materials. Even when copyright permits your use of a work, contract law may prevent it. Guides @ UF: Copyright on Campus: Theses & Dissertations Articles, books, theses and dissertations are said to be "open access" when they are "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions." By making publications open access, the widest sharing of ideas and research results is made possible, which is generally done either by publishing in open access journals ... Submitting Your Dissertation, Thesis, Or PDE: Copyright By registering for U.S. copyright, you can protect your dissertation or thesis and become immediately eligible for statutory damages and attorney fees. Registering for copyright allows for the claimant to receive statutory damages set out in Title 17, Section 504 of the U.S. Code , which range from $750 - $150,000 USD plus attorney fees per ... Copyright and Your Thesis The Graduate School grants students permission to use their previously published works in their thesis or dissertation using an article-based thesis structure (see Thesis & Dissertation Structures and Formatting ). If you plan to include previously published works into your thesis, you should gain approval at the departmental level. Your ... Copyright and your thesis Researchers own copyright in their thesis. Under copyright, researchers have certain rights in their thesis such as: reproduction rights. publishing rights. communication rights, such as making the thesis available online. As authors, researchers also have moral rights over their theses. In some cases, research agreements or publishing ... Managing copyright material in your thesis Step 1 - Request permission. The first step in gaining permission to reproduce a figure/table/diagram from a research article, or an entire article of which you are an author, in your thesis is to go to the published article in the journal and open the 'Tools' or 'Permissions' link or icon then select 'Request permission'. Copyright for theses Check any copyright agreements carefully. If you publish prior to submission of your thesis, and the publisher retains copyright, you may not be able to reproduce this material in your final thesis. The University recommends that PhD students make their thesis available under a Creative Commons licence (open access). Making your thesis ... "Should I Copyright My Dissertation?" by Paul Royster Abstract. 1. Your dissertation (and any other creative work) is already automatically copyright in your name as soon as it assumes "fixed form," i.e., as soon as it is written. It's publication (or deposit) in ProQuest's dissertations database or in the UNL DigitalCommons provides an independently verified date of record. Copyright Page A copyright page is optional. Many students include one, but under current U.S. copyright law, just the act of writing your thesis gives you copyright protection. There are three common ways that we see the copyright page formatted and the video tutorial below explains how to format each of these common copyright pages. Option 1: 0:37. Option 2 ... How can I find images to use in my thesis that are free/unrestricted by In order to use images in your thesis you need to know who made them so that you can properly credit them, regardless of the issue of copyright. Proper accreditation is probably a more significant issue for your thesis than complying with copyright laws since failure to properly credit images including in your thesis is plagarism . Published Dissertation or Thesis References A dissertation or thesis is considered published when it is available from a database such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global or PDQT Open, an institutional repository, or an archive. If the database assigns publication numbers to dissertations and theses, include the publication number in parentheses after the title of the ... How to submit the final version of your PhD thesis The University has an expectation that a PhD thesis is a document available for public consultation. As such, unless a legitimate reason for restricting access to the thesis exists, all PhD theses will be made publicly available on the internet via the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA).. It is highly recommended that you discuss with your primary supervisor the implications of publishing your ... category is If the choices and decisions are made explicit in the thesis, the reader doesn't need them laboriously summed up at the end in a cumulative list of what I didn't do. In the conclusion, reframe the limitations as opportunities. Discuss the most pertinent alternative choices in terms of the spaces created for further research. You basically ... Libraries to Offer Three Free EndNote Web Virtual Instruction Sessions Use saved references to "Cite While You Write" and produce a formatted term paper, thesis or dissertation. SESSIONS. The first session will be held from 2:30-3:20 p.m. Friday, Aug. 16; The second session from 10:45-11:35 a.m. Monday, Aug. 19; and. The third session from 11:50 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 20. Minimum Funding Packages in FMHS Graduate Programs 2024-2025 Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Minimum Funding Policy for Thesis-based Graduate Students for 2024-2025 Academic Year Overview: Full-time MSc-Thesis and PhD graduate students in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences will receive funding to support for their living expenses, tuition and fees. A student's funding may come from a combination of sources including, but not limited ... Completing University Thesis with Character Creator and Blender Alberto Méndez Rojas. My name is Alberto Méndez Rojas. I am 25 years old. I am a professional cinematic artist based in Costa Rica. I graduated as a 3D Artist from Véritas University with a short film called Rebus.This opened opportunities for me due to my precious skills. assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis