AN IN-DEPTH EXAMPLE OFTHESIS FORMATTING

_____________________________________

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

California State University, Fullerton_____________________________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Thesis Formatting_____________________________________

By

Eliot Cossaboom

Thesis Committee Approval:

M. S. Word, Department of Formatting, ChairM. S. Outlook, Department of Email

C. S. U. Fullerton, Department of Education

Fall, 2017

ABSTRACT

This paper is intended to provide an in-depth example of thesis formatting. This

paper differs from the template in that this work should be read and understood,

referenced if necessary, but I do not advise you to copy your thesis into this document.

Hopefully this fake thesis will provide answers to some of those nagging questions you

have had.

Specifically, this paper provides many examples of figures and tables, two areas

many students struggle with. Additionally, in the Appendices, I have provided blank

templates for tables.

Finally, please note that I have added comments to this paper to help with

formatting. To view these, click the “Review” tab, and then, above “Tracking”, click

“Show Markup.” “Comments” should be ticked, indicating that comments are visible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT................................................................................................................... ii

LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................... iv

LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................ v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................. vi

ii

Chapter1. TABLES................................................................................................................ 1

Table Basics........................................................................................................... 1Advanced Table Formatting.................................................................................. 5Tables Versus Figures........................................................................................... 10Final Table Tips..................................................................................................... 11

2. FIGURES............................................................................................................... 12

3. LANDSCAPE PAGES.......................................................................................... 17

APPENDIX: TABLE TEMPLATES............................................................................. 19

REFERENCES............................................................................................................... 22

iii

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. A Small Table with Lines and Few Numbers...................................................... 1

2. A More Complex Table with Few Lines............................................................. 2

3. A Larger Table with More Detail........................................................................ 4

4. A Large, Two-Page Table.................................................................................... 5

5. A Large, Landscape Table................................................................................... 9

6. Conversion Chart for Tables and Figure Numbering.......................................... 15

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Above are the alignment options for cells in a table............................................ 3

2. A number of cells are highlighted and Merge Cells is selected........................... 7

3. The Row tab clicked under Table Properties. Here, simply click “Repeat asheader row at the top of each page.”.................................................................... 8

4. This is a photo of my dog. Notice that we have a blank line between the photoand the caption and that the caption is single-spaced. Additionally, “Figure 4”is italicized. Finally, the caption and photo are right-aligned.............................. 13

5. This is a photo of my brother’s dog. Note that landscape pictures followsimilar rules to landscape tables, where we still need to be in the 1” marginson the left, bottom, and right, with a 1.5” margin up top.................................... 14

6. Since my dog has a hat she must be a little bit better than my brother’s. Noticethat we have two single-spaced lines above the photo to set it a little apartfrom the text......................................................................................................... 16

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to thank my dog. She’s great.

vi

1

CHAPTER 1

TABLES

Table Basics

For many students, Tables are amongst the most challenging parts of formatting

their Thesis. While CSUF does not have comprehensive table requirements, these are

some examples and suggestions on creating readable, printable tables.

Table 1. A Small Table with Lines and Few Numbers

Vocals Guitar Bass Drums Misc.

Paul Y Y Y Y Y

George Y Y N N Y

Ringo Y N N Y Y

John Y Y Y N Y

In the example above, we have four names in Column 1 (Paul, George, Ringo,

John). These are aligned-left. Above, we have five headings in Row 1 (Vocals, Guitar,

Bass, Drums, Misc.). All “data” is centered in their respective margins. This chart

has .06” cell margins, which will be explained later on.

Table 2 is a bit more complicated.

2

Table 2. A More Complex Table with Few Lines

Number of Songs Featuring Each Beatle on Lead Vocals a

Album Paul George Ringo John

Please Please Me 5 2 1 7

With The Beatles 8 5 1 8

A Hard Day’s Night 9 4 0 9

Beatles for Sale 8 1 1 9

Help! 6 2 1 6

Rubber Soul 7 3 1 8

Revolver 5 3 1 5

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

9 2 1 6

Magical Mystery Tour 5 1 0 5

The Beatles 13 4 2 10

Yellow Submarine 1 2 1 3

Let It Be 7 2 0 7

Abbey Road 9 5 2 7

a – Songs with multiple leads count towards all participating singers’ totals

Here, we see a few new things. The cell-margin is still .06”, but we have a header

for the first column (“Album”), which is not indented at all. Each item in the category

Album is then indented about .125”. Further, if an album’s title runs off onto multiple

lines, each of those lines is further indented .125” to be around .25” (see “Sgt. Pepper’s

Lonely Hearts Club Band”).

3

Below the chart is a footnote. The “a” corresponds to a superscript character at the

end of “Number of Songs Featuring Each Beatle on Lead Vocals.” The footnote is set one

space below the table, and there are two lines separating the footnote from this text.

This table has far fewer lines/borders—that is okay. So long as it is easy to read, it

is not a problem. Please note that the line above each Beatles’ name only extends along

the title above them; in order words: Album should not have a border immediately above

it.

Finally, notice that the numbers (the data) are centered both horizontally and

vertically. Look at Figure 1 to see the alignment buttons.

Figure 1. Above are the alignment options for cells in a table. First click in your table and then click the label marked “Layout” under “Table Tools.” The left cluster of nine options allow you to choose how your text is aligned. For example, the button in the three-o’clock position would align your text to the right, horizontally, but centered, vertically. Use these buttons to align your text.

Table 3 is more complicated still. This table is large and has many rows and

columns, meaning we must use smaller text. Please note that we can never use text below

10 pt. Table 3 uses 10 pt.

4

Table 3. A Larger Table with More Detail

Iced a Iced w/ Jimmies b

Variety of Donut Chocolate Maple Vanilla Pink Rainbow Chocolate No Jimmies

Old-Fashioned

w/ coffee 5 8 7 6 -1 -2 0

w/o coffee 3 6 6 6 -1 -2 0

Cake

w/ coffee 5 8 7 7 -1 -2 0

w/o coffee 4 5 5 5 -1 -2 0

Long-John

w/ coffee 4 9 5 5 -1 -2 0

w/o coffee 3 8 5 4 -1 -2 0

French (Cruller)

w/ coffee 5 7 6 5 -1 -2 0

w/o coffee 4 6 5 4 -1 -2 0

a – Iced Donut ratings are out of tenb – Jimmie values are subtracted from Iced Donut scores for Total Donut Value (TDV)

So, this table is more complex because we have more data. This is about the

fewest borders we can get. Fewer than this and it gets very difficult to read.

A few things to keep an eye on: the text here is 10 pt. (remember we cannot go

lower than that!); all numbers appear centered both vertically and horizontally; “Variety

of Donut” is not indented; the “kind” (e.g., “Old-Fashioned”) is intended to about .125”;

“w/” or “w/o coffee” is indented about .25”; category titles (“French [Cruller],” “Iced,”

“Chocolate,” etc.) are written in title-case; 0.06” margins; footnotes are single-spaced and

have two spaces after them.

One special note! The title of this table could fit on the page before, but we must

always have the title be on the same page as the table itself!

5

Advanced Table Formatting

When working with large amounts of data, formatting tables can become more

difficult.

While we can play with formatting to a certain extent, there are two things we

must keep in mind at all times:

1. We can never go below 10 pt. font

2. Tables must always fit inside the margins

With these in mind, how do we handle extremely large tables? Tables 4 and 5

represent the same data, but in two different ways. Table 4 is a portrait table that runs

onto two pages, while Table 5 is a landscape table.

Table 4. A Large, Two-Page Table

Circumstances in which it is acceptable to drink coffee with . . .

No Sugar With Sugar

No Cream

With Cream

No Cream

With Cream

School

Early class 1 1 1 0

Late class 1 1 0 0

Failed test 1 1 1 1

Aced test 1 0 0 0

Cancelled class 1 1 0 0

Home

Woke up early 1 1 1 0

Woke up late 1 1 0 0

Can’t sleep 1 1 1 0

Before dinner 1 0 0 0

6

Circumstances in which it is acceptable to drink coffee with . . .

No Sugar With Sugar

No Cream

With Cream

No Cream

With Cream

After dinner 1 1 1 0

Home

While watching cartoons 1 1 1 0

Pretty much anytime 1 0 0 0

Travel

Regular commute 1 1 1 0

Irregular commute 1 0 0 0

Cause of an accident 1 1 1 1

Purchased a new car 1 1 0 0

Found a quicker bus-route 1 1 1 0

Spilled your other coffee 1 1 1 1

Animals

Adopted a puppy 1 1 1 0

Adopted every puppy at the shelter 1 1 0 0

Adopted every puppy at every shelter in Orange County 1 0 1 0

Adopted a cat 0 0 0 1

0 – It is morally/socially/emotionally unacceptable to drink coffee in this circumstance1 – It is morally/socially/emotionally imperative to drink coffee in this circumstance

A few things about this table are different. Category titles (e.g., “Home,”

“Animals”) have their own cell going all the way across. This is accomplished using the

“Merge Cells” feature. Merging Cells allows for the creation of larger cells. To merge

cells, simply highlight the cells you’d like to merge, right click, and select “Merge Cells.”

See Figure 2.

7

Figure 2. A number of cells are highlighted and Merge Cells is selected.

Additionally, notice that the top rows on the two pages are the same. First we see

“Circumstances in which it is acceptable to drink coffee with . . . ” and then the granted

categories. This can be accomplished a number of ways, but the easiest is to highlight the

cells you’d like to repeat (here, “Circumstance in which . . . ” and the categories of

coffee) and right-click. Under “Table Properties” click the tab labeled “Rows,” as shown

in Figure 3. Finally, click “Repeat as header row at the top of each page.”

8

Figure 3. The Row tab clicked under Table Properties. Here, simply click “Repeat as header row at the top of each page.”

Another thing to notice is that the category “Home” is repeated on the new page,

since that is the category we were last talking about. There is no easy way to automate

this, so I suggest making an extra row and just copy + pasting it in there.

9

9

Table 5. A Large, Landscape Table

Circ

umst

ance

s in

whi

ch it

is

acc

epta

ble

to d

rink

. . .

Scho

ol Early

cla

ss

Late

cla

ss

Faile

d te

st

Ace

d te

st

Can

celle

d cl

ass

Hom

e Wok

e up

ear

ly

Wok

e up

late

Can

not s

leep

Bef

ore

dinn

er

Afte

r din

ner

Whi

le W

atch

ing

Car

toon

s

Pret

ty M

uch

Any

time

Trav

el Reg

ular

Com

mut

e

Irre

gula

r Com

mut

e

Cau

se o

f an

acci

dent

Purc

hase

d a

new

car

Foun

d a

quic

ker b

us-

Spill

ed y

our o

ther

cof

fee

Ani

mal

s Ado

pted

a p

uppy

Ado

pted

eve

ry p

uppy

at

the

shel

ter

Ado

pted

eve

ry p

uppy

at

ever

y sh

elte

r in

Ora

nge

Cou

nty

Ado

pted

a c

at

Coffee 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Coffee w/ Cream 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0

Coffee w/ Sugar 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0

Coffee w/ Cream & Sugar

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1

10

Table 5 is a bit of a bear. I mentioned that it contains the same information from

Table 4, but clearly it is a lot harder to read. We had to invert the text, add one landscape

page, and futz with formatting. While Table 5 does meet all table requirements (10 pt.

font, consistent font, consistent lines, etc.), the fact is that it is much harder to read. For

those reasons, it is better to have a table that splits across two pages (Table 4). This may

not always be the case, and sometimes it is better to have a landscape page, but always

strive for high-readability!

Tables Versus Figures

Some students ask what the difference is between tables and figures. Put simply:

tables are tables and everything else is a figure. Graphs are figures, for examples. Tables

are intended solely to represent and organize data.

Now, some students submit tables in the form of images in their document,

meaning the table is inserted as an image, rather than created with Word’s Table feature.

While this may be acceptable for small tables with limited amounts of data, generally,

Word’s Table feature creates more easily changed, clearer tables. If an image of a table

has a problem (for example one piece of datum is wrong or the font is too small), I may

have to ask you to recreate your table using Word’s Table feature. This takes time! If at

all possible use Word’s Table feature. If you are every unsure of whether your table will

work or not, email me!

While your paper will very likely only have figures and tables, the one major

exception is for equations. Equations are not listed in the Table of Contents (i.e., there is

no List of Equations), but they are often numbered similarly to tables and figures. CSUF

11

has no formal standard for equations, so please consult me or your committee if you are

concerned or have questions.

Final Table Tips

When working with your committee, they likely have valuable input on how to

make your tables. There may be standards in the field, or your advisors may simple have

experience in wrangling large amounts of data. Additionally, I am always happy to help

with formatting tables. The following are some suggestions to help you with any issues

you may encounter.

1. Remember: 10 pt. font or higher!

2. It must fit inside the template margins

a. Portrait: 1” on top, right, bottom and 1.5” on left

b. Landscape: 1” on right, bottom, left and 1.5” on top)

3. Use single-spacing for all table-text. It is much easier to format.

4. Large tables may be split across pages (with repeating headers) or made landscape.

5. Your table font must match the font of the rest of the document.

6. Images of tables might be okay, but if they are too small or blurry I may have to ask you to recreate them by hand.

7. Do not use bolding in column or row labels. Bolding is reserved to emphasize findings.

8. If you are unsure of how to do something, ask! Check Google, email me (ecossaboom@fullerton.edu), or make an appointment with a GLS!

12

CHAPTER 2

FIGURES

Figures are (luckily) quite a bit simpler than tables.

With figures, we really only have a few things to remember:

1. Figures are any image that is not a table (this include graphs, for example, but not equations).

2. Figures may either have simple numbers (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, etc.) or chapter-reflective numbering (e.g., Figure 1.1, Figure 1.2, Figure 2.1, etc.). Either is equally appropriate, but usually chapter-reflective numbering is reserved for papers with a large number of instruments. Whichever you choose you must be consistent.

3. Figure captions should be in sentence-case. Sentence-case just means that only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. This is in contrast to table titles, which always receive title-casing.

4. Figure captions should be single-spaced.

5. Figures should have spacing enough on the top and bottom to make them standout and readable (more on this later).

6. Figure numbers (i.e., Figure 4) are italicized in captions, but not in body-text.

7. Figures must always fit in the margins.

8. Figures and captions always align-right (that is: do not center them).

9. No text boxes!

In Chapter 1 we had a few figures, and you will see by looking back that they all

observe these requirements, but Figures 4-6 provide additional examples and notes.

13

Figure 4. This is a photo of my dog. Notice that we have a blank line between the photo and the caption and that the caption is single-spaced. Additionally, “Figure 4” is italicized. Finally, the caption and photo are right-aligned.

Taking a look at Figure 4 there is not a whole lot to worry about, but a few

common mistakes include forgetting to italicize “Figure 4,” forgetting to make the

caption single-spaced, and having too much (or too little) space around the image. After

the caption, we have two single-spaced lines. This makes it easy to tell where the caption

ends and where this body text begins.

14

14

Figure 5. This is a photo of my brother’s dog. Note that landscape pictures follow similar rules to landscape tables, where we still need to be in the 1” margins on the left, bottom, and right, with a 1.5” margin up top.

15

Figure 5 is a landscape picture, but that does not change the general requirements

of the image. It still needs to fit in the margins of the page and all of the caption

formatting rules still apply. Note that the examples in this paper follow the simple

numbering pattern (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). As stated at the beginning of the chapter,

using chapter-reflective numbering is also okay as long as we are consistent. This applies

to tables as well. Table 6 shows how each figure and table might be renumbered to be

chapter-reflective.

Table 6. Conversion Chart for Tables and Figure Numbering

Table/Figure Numberin This Paper

Table/Figure Numberif Chapter-Reflective

Table 1 Table 1.1

Table 2 Table 1.2

Table 3 Table 1.3

Table 4 Table 1.4

Table 5 Table 1.5

Table 6 Table 2.1

Figure 1 Figure 1.1

Figure 2 Figure 1.2

Figure 3 Figure 1.3

Figure 4 Figure 2.1

Figure 5 Figure 2.2

Figure 6 Figure 2.3

Finally, we see one more simple example in Figure 6. When we reference a figure

in the body of our paper we always want to capitalize “Figure,” but not italicize it.

Additionally, we never use locational terms like “see above,” or, “in Figure 6, below,”

16

because we cannot be sure that formatting will be perfectly preserved every time your

paper is printed. Instead we want to use “cues,” meaning we want to specifically

reference the figure in the text (so “see Figure 6” is great and necessary, while “see the

figure below,” would need revision. All figures and tables must have cues before the

figure appears.

Figure 6. Since my dog has a hat she must be a little bit better than my brother’s. Notice that we have two single-spaced lines above the photo to set it a little apart from the text.

17

CHAPTER 3

LANDSCAPE PAGES

Inserting landscape pages can be a bit of a chore.

In Chapters 1 and 2 we saw the two most common instances where we want to

use landscape pages: large tables and large pictures. Landscape pages allow us to increase

readability of the paper by giving more real-estate to a table or figure, but there are a few

things to watch out for.

The first is page-numbers. Confusingly, landscape pages have two page-numbers:

one in the lower right-hand corner, written sideways, and one in the upper right-hand

corner written normally. This is correct!

The first number, written in the lower right-hand corner, is so that upon printing

your thesis, any landscape pages still have numbers in the correct location and direction.

If you imagine inserting your landscape page into a book, so that the top edge of your

page goes into the inner-spine (gutter) of the book, the bottom right-hand corner will be

in the same place as your other page-numbers.

The second page-number is a little more complicated, but it is there for two

reasons. The first is that your document is also going to be available digitally as a .PDF.

In that instance, your landscape pages will appear as they do in Word, where they are

displayed differently from portrait pages. The second reason is that it helps us preserve

numbering across different sections.

18

If you are wondering what “sections” means, it refers to how Word keeps track of

different formatting rules for different parts of your paper. For example, our front matter

(Title Page, Abstract, Table of Contents, List of Tables [if applicable], List of Figures [if

applicable], Acknowledgements [if applicable]) has page-numbers written on the bottom

of the page, centered, in Roman numerals, whereas the body of our paper has page-

numbers in Arabic numerals in the top right corner. Word counts these as different

sections, which is how we are able to have different headers, footers, and margins for

different parts of the paper. This can get a little technical and finnicky, so I will not go

into detail beyond that, but just know that if you see two page-numbers on your landscape

pages (as are on mine), that is why.

Now, some students have told me that they do not like how two page-numbers

looks. When the paper is physically printed the top page-number will disappear, because

it is outside the printable margin. It will be present in the digital copy, but that is

intentional. If you are unhappy with the appearance of two page numbers, please keep

that in mind!

19

APPENDIX

TABLE TEMPLATES

Below are several blank(ish) templates. Please use them! Feel free to adapt them

in whatever way you need to, but watch those rules above! Remember, if you are going to

create a table based on the No-Lines template, all of your tables should reflect that. In

general, we want as much uniformity as possible.

All tables’ header rows are set to Repeat, so these tables will work broken across

multiple pages, too.

Table A1. No Lines, Basic

Listing Thing 1 Thing 2 Thing 3 Thing 4

Thing 1

Thing 2

Thing 3

Thing 4

Thing 5

Thing 6

Thing 7

20

Table A2. Lines, Basic

Thing 1 Thing 2 Thing 3 Thing 4 Thing 5

Thing 1

Thing 2

Thing 3

Thing 4

Table A3. No Lines, Larger

Categories Thing 1 Thing 2 Thing 3 Thing 4 Thing 5 Thing 6

One

One Sub One

One Sub Two

Two

Two Sub One

Two Sub Two

Three

Three Sub One

Three Sub Two

Four

Four Sub One

Four Sub Two

21

Table A4. Lines, Larger

Categories Thing 1 Thing 2 Thing 3 Thing 4 Thing 5 Thing 6

One

One Sub One

One Sub Two

Two

Two Sub One

Two Sub Two

Three

Three Sub One

Three Sub Two

Four

Four Sub One

Four Sub Two

22

REFERENCES