FORMATTING YOUR DISSERTATION

Formatting a dissertation is as important as writing a dissertation. A well written dissertation can be rejected if it is not properly formatted. The formatting guideline needs to be followed and it also varies from institution to institution. There are few standard dissertation format styles such as Harvard and Chicago styles to name a few.

Students have to choose one dissertation writing format by consulting your supervisor or advisor. The choice of dissertation is normally influenced by the subject which means that the subject you choose for writing a dissertation plays an important part in dissertation format selection. You can take dissertation format help from internet, teachers and old dissertation present in your university library.

First of all, you must know the details about the dissertation writing formats and which is used for which subject. To get dissertation format help you can browse the internet and you can easily find all the important details about each and every dissertation formatting style. This will help you in making a correct decision. Any style you choose should be applied throughout your dissertation writing. Select one style and stick with it.

There are 3 main styles for documents followed around the world

• Chicago style
• Turabian style
• Harvard style

Chicago style has 2 systems: one is Notes and bibliography and the other is Author date system The Author-date system is used by natural and social science students while Notes and bibliography style is preferred by students of humanities. Chicago and Turabian styles are identical but Harvard style is widely used in scientific writing and helps the reader to know where the references have come from. Harvard style is different in a sense that it does not contain running header and page numbers.

MLA style is a mixture of Harvard referencing, and it is generally used within modern literature and linguistics. The difference between Harvard and MLA is that the year of publication is not included in between text. APA holds on to the author, date, in between text. Each style has different guidelines along with advantages and disadvantages. Discuss which style will be well suited for your dissertation with your supervisor then make a final decision.