Part of the task of writing a thesis is desktop publishing (i.e., formatting a document for publishing).  There are a variety of tools built into MS Word that are useful for formatting a thesis.  A short description, including the purpose, of each tool is included beside each link.  Please review the Office of Graduate Administration's Formatting Guidelines: Graduate Dissertations, Theses, Projects,& Practicum Reports prior to formatting a thesis using the following guides.

Creating a New Style
A first step towards creating a table of contents and following a specific publication manual is creating new styles.  Once appropriate styles have been generated, they can be applied to the relevant sections of the document.

Inserting a table of contents
Once styles have been applied, a table of contents can be inserted into the document.  The table of contents will include text with the selected styles applied, and page numbers can be automatically inserted and updated.

Formatting page numbers
To apply Roman numerals to the preliminary pages and Arabic numerals to the main body, a section break must be inserted between the two sections.

Paragraph formatting
To adhere to a specific publication manual, the paragraph formatting may need to be adjusted for indenting, block quoting, and spacing.

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