University Library

Doctoral dissertations and master's theses

Entry in Reference List

For an unpublished thesis:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title (Unpublished doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis). Institution issuing degree, City, Country.

For a thesis available through a database service, such as ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database, include the name of the database and the accession or order number in the reference:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title (Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis). Retrieved from Name of Database. (Accession or Order No.)

For a thesis from an institutional database:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title (Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis). Retrieved from web address

For a thesis available on the web:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title (Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis, Institution issuing degree). Retrieved from web address

When citing the abstract for a thesis, as from Dissertation Abstracts International:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section. Title of section, Volume(Issue), Number of abstract.

Style Notes

• Italicize the title of the thesis, unless citing only the abstract.
• When citing a thesis from outside the Unites States, include the city and country of the institution, e.g., (Doctoral thesis, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany).
• Capitalization: Capitalize only the first word of the title and of the subtitle, if any, and any proper nouns.
• If pages are being directly referenced in the text, include the page number/s in the in text citation after the year.