Theses, Doctoral Projects and Dissertations

Please ensure that your document has been prepared according to UIW style requirements and the editorial style standards of your academic discipline. All writing issues should be resolved before submitting for final review.

• Writing support for graduate students: Experienced writing development specialists are available to help with all aspects of the writing process. In-person and online assistance is available to UIW master's, doctoral, and professional students and UIW faculty members. To schedule an appointment with a writing specialist, visit WCOnline or email gradwriting@uiwtx.edu.

• Please read the instructions for preparing and submitting documents below and visit the Library's Copyright, Publication, and Licensing page for additional information on preparing and submitting your document.

Discuss hiring a professional editor with your mentors. Your mentors can help clarify which areas of your writing would benefit from expert help. Reminder: You are solely responsible for the contract and all contract details you make with an editor. Any information provided by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies about editors is neither an endorsement of an editor nor a guarantee of any level of service to the student.

Best Practice for Talking to an Editor: Before you contact an editor, decide on the scope of work needed and make a flexible timeline. To help the editor perform efficiently and quickly, it is best to be as precise as possible about your area or areas of need. You must provide the editor with your discipline's most recent document formatting guidelines and the relevant UIW format guides.

Do you have questions or concerns about any aspect of the document formatting and publication process? For further assistance, please email orgs@uiwtx.edu.

Submission cannot begin until your mentors finalize your defense approval, including approval of its written materials. Once this step is reached, you can start the submission process.

To submit, first create an account at The Athenaeum. Do not create more than one account! Next, follow the screen prompts to complete your submission (a request for publication) and finish by uploading your document. Dissertation (PhD) writers must also create an order for the ProQuest repository using UIW's ProQuest ETD Administrator tool.

If your project is under the oversight of the UIW Human Research Protection Program, go to the Guide to the UIW IRB Process page and look under the "After Approval" section for instructions on closing your research protocol. Research protocols must be closed before clearance will be given.

Students completing a research dissertation in a PhD degree program should complete the Survey of Earned Doctorates available here: National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates. After completing the survey, email a copy of the completion certificate to the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

All students who write a thesis, dissertation, or doctoral project as partial fulfillment of their degree requirements must submit an electronic copy to The Athenaeum. The Athenaeum is the University's repository of scholarly work, supported and maintained by the Mabee Library. Students in graduate programs culminating in a capstone project are encouraged to use this publicly available resource. 

Dissertation (Doctoral) writers, in addition, must use UIW's ProQuest ETD Administrator tool to deposit a copy of their dissertation into the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global database.

The policies governing theses, doctoral projects, and dissertations are presented in the Culminating Projects Policies and Procedures section of the Graduate Catalog. These policies include:

• Enrollment requirements
• The formation and composition of committees
• Student and faculty member responsibilities
• Deadlines for format review submission
• The document submission and review process
• The clearance process
• Student rights and responsibilities as owners of the copyrighted material
• University distribution, reproduction, and archival rights to these materials

Students format their thesis, dissertation, or doctoral project according to the style guide recommended for their subject area. Adherence to the appropriate style guide ensures that a student's work is prepared correctly and ready for deposit into UIW's institutional repository, The Athenaeum, and ProQuest ETD Administrator for dissertations.

Enrolled UIW students may view and download document style guidelines, template pages, and other helpful items from the Office of Research and Graduate Studies Canvas page.

Summary of Document Submission Requirements

Students must prepare electronic documents for review and publication; do not make print copies. When your project is ready for review, submit documents to The Athenaeum.

The University of the Incarnate Word requires all student scholarly work to be entirely and correctly formatted before depositing into The Athenaeum and, for dissertations, into UIW's ProQuest ETD Administrator. The student document must be approved by the advisor or committee and be formatted according to discipline publication standards and all additional UIW formatting requirements.

Format review is precisely that — it is not a content or grammar review. The student and committee are responsible for the document's content, citation integrity, writing mechanics, style and adherence to applicable regulatory requirements.

When your document is ready, visit The Athenaeum to create an account and submit it.

Log into the Office of Research and Graduate Studies Canvas page for detailed instructions about submitting your document to The Athenaeum.

You must obtain approval of your defense before uploading your documentation to The Athenaeum. The upload will begin the Office of Research and Graduate Studies format review process for all final theses, doctoral projects, and dissertations.

Format review completion deadlines:

• March 1 for degree conferral in May
• July 1 for degree conferral in August
• Oct. 1 for degree conferral in December

If a submission due date falls on a weekend, the submission is due the following Monday. Allow at least three weeks for the format review to be completed. Student work submitted after the deadlines may not be reviewed in time to meet the graduation deadlines set by the UIW Registrar. View the Academic Calendar for deadlines and other important information.

Reminder: All research protocols must be closed before a student can graduate. For information on the IRB closure process, visit the Office of Research and Graduate Studies Human Subjects Research page.