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Formating MSc or PhD thesis at Sultan Qaboos University

This document with the attached CD, is a system of templates and examples designed to help students format their thesis in a stan-dard, professional and uniform way. You will find on the CD:

A Microsoft Word 1. tm template of the introductory pages of a generic thesis (ThesisIntro.docx)

A Microsoft Word 2. tm template of the body of a generic thesis (ThesisBody.docx).

An electronic copy of the present document explaining the 3. format expected for MSc and PhD thesis written in English at SQU.

A series of annotated Pdf documents illustrating and giving 4. details on the format of the thesis (Folder Pdf)

IntroductionMaster of Science and Doctor of Philosophy Thesis at SQU are composed of several sections: some are mandatory, others are not. The thesis includes the following sections and pages:

Section 1: Title pages

Cover page1.

Title page2.

Section 2: Introductory pages

Thesis Committee1.

Thesis Examining Committee2.

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Dedication page (optional)3.

Acknowledgement page (optional)4.

Abstract (in English)5.

Abstract (In Arabic)6.

Epigraph (optional)7.

List of Tables ( optional)8.

List of Figures (optional)9.

List of Symbols and Abbreviations (optional)10.

Glossary (optional)11.

Section 3: Body of the thesis

Table of Contents1.

A series of Chapters (numbered), each with numerous pages2.

Section 4: Appendices

A Series of Appendices (numbered and optional)1.

As in most scientific documents, the format of the thesis is relative-ly strict. This is for two main reasons: (a) to give a similar appear-ance to all thesis produced within the graduate programs at Sultan Qaboos University and (b) to give the reader a sense of predictabil-ity of the locations of the various elements within the thesis through visual cues. This document and the attached templates describe in details the format suggested for the various sections of the thesis as specified by the Postgraduate Academic Regulations (2008) and the recommendations of the Postgraduate Board.

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IntroductionScientific documents are always read or interpreted at two differ-ent levels: textual or semantic and visual or graphic. The first level, textual, corresponds to the informational content of the text of the document. It contains all the information the writer wants to convey to the reader in the language chosen for the communication. This implies that grammar, spelling, abbreviations, etc., must conform to the standards of the language at the time of writing. This level of communication is related to the part of the brain dealing directly with processing language(s). The second level of communica-tion, visual or graphic communication, deals with a more intuitive, perhaps more primitive part of our brain. It allows the writer to complement the text with a visual structure, normally mimicking its linguistic structure and facilitating thus its reading and interpreta-tion. This is the level of communication that makes us automatically understand that larger text is probably more important that smaller text and that white space between parts of the document probably means some form of “separation” or change of context in the text. However, for the sake of homogeneity, and sometimes perhaps ar-bitrarily, Sultan Qaboos University Postgraduate Board has defined a set of rules that define the “correct” presentation of postgraduate thesis. This document defines and explains these rules.

The templates attached to this document include a large number of Microsoft WordTM Styles that help to format the thesis according to these rules and also facilitate the creation of documents homog-enous both internally (showing the same visual presentation for the same elements of text in the thesis) and externally (showing similar visual presentation between thesis). If the reader feels unfamiliar with the concept of Style within a word processor or a typesetting software, please refer to the appendix 2.

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Sections 1 and 2 of the thesis includes a series of introductory pages, end-ing before the table of contents. The templates described here follow the same structure. A first document —ThesisIntro.docx— includes all the styles required for the introductory pages (Sections 1 and 2). A second document —ThesisBody.docx— includes all the styles used to format the thesis itself (Section 3) and includes also an automatic table of contents (TOC). Both templates use a “Pseudo-Latin” language as placeholder for most paragraphs to give the user a visual indication of the appearance of the document. Clearly these placeholders need to be filled by the actual text of the thesis.

The body of the thesis must be divided into various chapters numbered se-quentially. Each chapter begins with two elements: the chapter number and the chapter title and begins on a new page (this is done automatically with the style used here: i.e. a page break is introduced automatically with the “Chap_nb” style. Each chapter also has a title (Chap_Title style) which is used to index the chapters automatically. The various levels of headings H1, H2, H3… correspond to additional levels of Table of Contents entries. Typically, the thesis is divided into Introduction, Literature review, Methodology (or Material and methods), Results, Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations but other successions of chapters and chapters titles are acceptable depending on the type of thesis produced.

LanguageThe language of the thesis must be English. The student and the supervisor should agree and choose whether the “US English” or “UK English” conven-tions are chosen for abbreviations, spelling and punctuations. In this document well as in the attached templates, the “UK English” conventions were used (see also Appendix 3).

General formatting guidelines

Font and font size

All the text of the thesis should be set in the same font. For the template, the font Helvetica, was chosen throughout, although it may be possible to choose a different font for the text (Times New Roman, Myriad Pro or Arno Pro for in-

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stance) as long as the thesis remains homogenous typographically. Point size, leading (space between lines), space between paragraphs, etc., do vary and are used to visually structure the text. For body text paragraph, the leading was set to exactly 18 points which correspond to a 1.5 interline in typewriter language. Extra blank “paragraphs”, obtained by pressing the return key sev-eral times were avoided to guarantee as much as possible a “what you see is what you get: WYSIWIG” format. Make sure, that while working on the thesis, you select the “Show all non-Printing characters” option by either pressing the “show all characters” button or selecting the appropriate menu on your word processor.

Special purpose paragraph styles can be added to accommodate specific requirements. Fixed space fonts such as courier for instance are often used to typeset software code or sequences of amino acids. Similarly, it is possible to differentiate two different translations of the same original using different fonts. These usages should remain exceptional and consistent within the thesis.

Margins

The margins of the body of the text (Section 3: the actual thesis text) is typeset with a 2.5 cm margin on the top and external side of the page, a 4 cm in-side margin (left side in English)—to accommodate binding— and a 3.75 cm margin at the bottom of the page. This seemingly large margin helps clearly identifying the page number at the bottom, center of each page. These margin sizes correspond to a thesis printed on only one side of the paper (appearing on the right when bound).

Paragraph Styles

The different paragraph styles used in the Microsoft Wordtm templates are described in details in Appendix 2 and in the .pdf illustrations on the attached CD.

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Paper

A white A4 paper of minimum 80g/m2 is suitable for the production of the final copies of the thesis. Avoid paper with frames, colored background, flowery margins or any other forms of ornaments.

Pagination

All pages should be numbered with the exception of the Cover and Title pages. Introductory pages are numbered with Roman numer-als (i, ii, iii, iv, v, ...) whereas the main body of the thesis (section 2) must be numbered consecutively by Arabic (English) numerals: 1, 2 , 3, 4, etc. The page number is placed at the center of the bottom margin.

Appendices

Appendices should be used for material inappropriate in the body of the thesis but nevertheless important. This may include for in-stance the code of a “statistical procedure” in a specific computer language, a complicated and lengthy mathematical proof, a long list of equipment or geographic locations... Appendices should only be added if they help the reader to understand, evaluate or repli-cate the study.

Cover and binding

The color of the binding for the library copy of the thesis should be dark brown for the doctorate and dark blue for the masters thesis. Photographs of acceptable bindings are shown on the CD (folder pdf). The lettering on the cover should be in gold and be identi-cal to that of the title page minus the copyright sign at the bottom of the page. In addition, the student’s name, degree and year of

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completion should also appear on the spine of the thesis in gold letter.

The student is responsible to the final verifications of the format before printing and binding. Thesis declared unsuitable by the Deanship of Postgraduate studies because they do not meet all format requirements will be rejected.

Formatting the thesis

Cover and title pages

The cover page and the title page should be identical to the template (pdf/ ThesisIntro.pdf). The title of the thesis should be in Helvetica or Arial font, bold face in 14 points size and all capitals. The rest of the page should be in Arial or Helvetica, regular face and 12 points and follow English language capitalization and rules. Latin names of living organism species should they appear in the title should be spelled with an initial Capital on the Genus and no initial capital on the species name; both should be in italic.

The title page should include at the bottom and at the center of the page a small copyright sign (©) whereas the cover page should not.

Spelling should be correct and conform to the actual thesis title filed with the Deanship of Postgraduate studies. Department and Degree names should also be conform to the actual registration information of the student despite possible changes of names of Colleges, Departments and Degree programs that may have taken place after the first registration of the student in the program.

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Thesis committee page

The page should include: the full name and SQU ID number of the Student as well as the title of the thesis. Spelling and form should be identical to that of the title and cover pages but capitalization should be in agreement with English grammar. The rest of the page consists of a list of members of the thesis committee including for each: his/her role (supervisor, co-supervisor or member), his/her full name, title and affiliation (Fig. 1). Sufficient space should be made available for a handwritten signature and a date (pdfs/The-sisCommittee.pdf).

Thesis examination committee

The thesis examination committee page is very similar to the thesis committee page and uses the same format with the exception of the title of the thesis and its author that are omitted. It is customary for committee members external to SQU to include a more detailed affiliation; for instance:

Member: Jane S. Doe

Title: Associate Professor

Affiliation: Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, Sultan Qaboos University

Signature Date

Figure 1. Suggested presentation of the various members of the thesis committee. Each is in fact a small tables with 3 rows of 1 column each and one row with two columns. The page includes thus 4 such tables.

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Institution: Florida museum of Natural history, University of Florida, Gainsville, Florida, USA.

Dedication

The dedication is a short paragraph, usually limited to one sen-tence often without any verb. It begins usually with To…This page is optional.

Examples:

To my uncle KhalfanTo my late grand father Said, to whom I owe my interest in biologyTo my daughter Laila

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements (UK spelling) or Acknowledgments (US spell-ing) is the section of the text in which the student thanks supervi-sors, mentors and colleagues who actively supported the research. He/she can also acknowledge technical assistance for field work or for laboratory analysis or perhaps some family assistance in typing the manuscript or taking photographs. If the thesis is directly financed by a private sponsor, (through individual scholarship or research contract to the supervisor) it has also to be acknowl-edged. The acknowledgement section should be meaningful and not exceed one page.

There are many ways to thank people in English using either the passive voice or the active voice. For instance:

I am grateful to Name1, Name2, Name3 for comments that greatly improved earlier drafts of this thesis.

I would like to thank Name1, Name2, Name3…for their sugges-tions and discussion of the main topics of my thesis. I am also indebted to the staff of the Jebal Al-Akhdar Field Station for their

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continuous support during field work. The Diwan of the Royal Court also provided logistical and financial support to this study.

The funds for this research were provided by Muscat Municipal-ity Research Grant MCT/ROV/Wat/20.45.75 to Dr. XXXX. This study was financed in part by the Research Council of Oman (Grant……).

Support throughout fieldwork was provided by Name1 and Name2 of Petroleum Development Oman and Name 3 of UNDP in Nizwa.

Thanks are due to List of Names for their contribution to the iden-tification of species. Name 1 and Name 2 are gratefully ac-knowledged for their support in calculating diversity indices and obtaining rare photographs of some of the species.

Abstract

The abstract page contains 4 paragraphs (1) the title of the thesis, centered in bold face and 14 points, using the style AbstractTitle (2) the name of the author of the thesis, same font, same size but flushed left as a AbstractAuthor style, (3) the word “Abstract” as a AbstractHeading style then (4) the body of the abstract using the style Abstract: same font size but slightly smaller leading (14pts). The abstract is limited to one page and is required.

It is very important to write an abstract that is meaningful. It should be a very short version of the thesis. An abstract should include three sections (usually paragraphs). The first paragraph provides the reader with background information on why the study was car-ried out and informs the reader on what is known of the subject. It then introduces the problematic followed by the thesis. In any case this is a BRIEF paragraph. The second paragraph should sum-marize the methodology used. Field sampling, lab methodology, reasons behind particular choices etc. A brief description of the

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method, experimental design, level of replication etc. should con-cisely be presented. The last paragraph should summarize in a few lines the main results. There is no need to add statistical testing or confidence intervals. There should be no reference to the text nor to figures nor tables in the abstract. The last sentence may be a conclusion or a recommendation.

Abstract in Arabic

The Arabic abstract should provide a faithful translation of the abstract in English and contains exactly the SAME information but follow the Arabic language usage and styles. The Arabic abstract is also required and limited to one page only.

Epigraph

An epigraph is optional. It is a small paragraph, taken from a known book and illustrating the contents of the thesis or its philoso-phy. The epigraph is concentrated on the right hand side of a right hand page. Because it is typically a citation, it is traditionally set in italic and must include the name of the author of the book and the title of the book.

List of Tables ( optional)

The list of tables is optional. If included it must list ALL the tables of the thesis, their legend and their page number. The easier solution is to create a long table to include this information (one line per table reference), and to remove the “borders of the table” when formatting.

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List of Figures (optional)

The list of figures is optional. If included it must list ALL the figures of the thesis, their legend and their page number. As for tables, the easiest solution is to create a long table to include this information (one line per figure reference), and to remove the “borders of the table” when formatting.

List of Symbols and Abbreviations (optional)

The list of symbols and abbreviations is optional. In many sci-ence and engineering thesis, it is important to list and explain the symbols used to facilitate the interpretation of the text. Abbrevia-tions of units (P for pascal, K for Kelvin, ºC, m, kg, etc. ) should not be listed. Units follow a thorough code of typesetting: the prefixes for kilo (x1000), hecto (x100), mega (x106), milli (x10-3) etc. are for instance k, h, M, m. There is no choice of capitalization. Similarly, a watt is W and a joule is J, a pascal is P and a hertz is Hz, be-

Figure 2. When clicking on the TOC in the template, a mini-menu appears allowing the user to modify (or remove) the TOC.

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cause these units were named after people, but seconds are s and meters are m.

Glossary (optional)

The glossary is optional. It should only be used to describe words or jargon associated with the type of work described in the thesis and that a reader who is not specialized in the field may have dif-ficulties understanding. There is no need to explain abbreviations such as DNA, ATP as they are now part of the common language.

Table of Contents

In the thesis, the introductory pages are numbered using Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.) whereas for the body of the thesis start-ing at the table of contents, it is customary to use English numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).

In the attached templates, the table of contents is built automati-cally using an internal coding of Microsoft Word TM using the head-ings of the ThesisBody.docx document. The front pages (title page, epigraph, summaries....) are manually entered at the beginning of

Figure 3. The first option updates the table content, but not its structure. the second recreates the tables from all the headings.

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the table of content. In the template ThesisBody.docx, the heading H1-H4 are used to create the table of contents. The actual format of the entries in the TOC is based on the styles TOC 1 to TOC 4.

To use the automatic table of contents:

Format all headings of the body of the thesis as H1, H2, H3, 1. etc. : H1 being the title of chapters.

Click on the Mini Menu displayed at the top of the TOC in 2. Blue (Fig. 2).

In this menu, select the menu option <Update Table>. 3.

A new dialog-window opens up (Fig. 3). If you have not 4. modified the text and just need to adjust the page numbers, choose the top option, if you want to modify the entire table (you have added new chapters, or headings, or modified the organization of the thesis), choose the bottom option.

You can repeat (2) as often as necessary during the final 5. stage of the thesis editing after making some changes to the headings in the text. The new TOC will reflect both structural changes (H2 becoming H3 for instance) but also reorganiza-tion of the text or addition of new headings.

Make one final check just prior to printing your thesis to 6. insure that all page numbers are correct in the TOC. Do not forget that the automatic TOC does not “know” the pages, it uses the information from the position of the H1-H4 headings. If you want to add extra pages for color figures etc. They need to be present (although Blank) in the manuscript. Use insert Page break twice to create a new blank page.

Alternatively, because TOC for thesis are usually short and simple, it is possible to format them by hand. If you choose this option, check the page number prior to the final printing.

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Figures and tables

Figures and tables are an important part of many thesis. Figures must have scales, axis and symbols defined either in the figure or in its legend. Figure captions (or legends) must appear on the same page and placed just below the figure whereas table cap-tions (or legends) must appear on the same page as the table but just above it. Figures and tables form two series of illustration ele-ments of the thesis that bear two independent sequential numbers. Both figure and table captions are single spaced and begin with the word Figure xx or Table xx in bold face where xx refers to the sequential number of the figure or table. A system of numbering based on chapter numbers is also acceptable (Figure 1.6 is the 6th figure of the first chapter of the thesis whereas Table 3.2 refers to the second table of the 3rd chapter). In the template, two styles (FigureLegend and TableLegend) were created to format these text elements. They will format the legend appropriately. i.e. TableLe-

Figure 4. When resizing images, use the corner markers (disks) of the image, not the side markers (squares). This insures a proportional resizing and no deformation of the content of the image.

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gend will be linked to the next paragraph (the table) and Figure legend will have a large space underneath to mark the difference between legend and the text of the next paragraph. The figure itself has its own paragraph style as well: Figure. It is linked to the next paragraph (FigureLegend).

It is sometimes necessary to resize a figure to fit the document in which it needs to be inserted. Before working on your final docu-ments, decides which figures will be included and how big they are going to be. They should never be wider than the width of the page between margins (everything on the figure or table included). In this template since the page is slightly more than 14 cm wide, no figures should be larger than this. It is of course possible to regroup several figures that illustrate similar ideas. In which case it is the group that should not exceed 14 cm in width. Because of the space necessary for the legend at the bottom of the figure, I do not recommend the creation of figures higher than 18 cm. If you decide the resize figures in Microsoft Word, do so by moving the corner makers of the selected figure, not the top or lateral markers (Fig.4) which would generate deformations of the figure. It is also possible to “crop” images using the crop tool.

If you use the combination Figure and FigureLegend styles, you will insure that both figure and its legend stay together on the same page with the appropriate space before and after the figure.

Referencing figures and tables

Typically in the text of the thesis, a reference to a figure in the body of the thesis is either:

“Figure xx” or “figure xx” if the word “figure” has a grammatical 1. function in the sentence: i.e. it is the subject of the sentence or a complement in the sentence. The capitalized word is only used at the beginning of the sentence.

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Table 3. Number of respondents who practiced underwater recreational activities and percentages of those who successfully identified species of corals on three photographs. Species SCUBA1 Snorkel

Not diver Diver Not diver Divern=28 n=226 n=99 n=155

Phyllogoria dilatata 54% 24% 37% 21%2

Mussismilia hispida 5% 34% 46% 28%Siderastrea stellata 46% 28% 41% 23%

1 SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breather Apparatus. 2 There were only 5 respondents in this category.

Figure 5. Typesetting format suggested for tables. It is composed of paragraph styles: TableLegend (at the top), TableContent (in the table) and TableFootnote (below the table) to insure correct spacing of the table be-tween other text paragraphs. Even if there are no actual footnotes, using a “empty” line of this style insures a correct spacing with the next paragraph.

(Fig. xx) if the figure name is used as an illustration of a state-2. ment either in the middle or at the end of a sentence.

In either case, insert an unbreakable space between the word “fig-ure” or “Fig.” and the sequential number to avoid breaking the two words at the end of a line.

The rules for referencing tables is identical but the word “table” is not abbreviated.

Examples

Indication of the relative abundance of these nests can be found on figure 5. (Note the unbreakable space between the word figure and the number 5 that insures the two words stay together).

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Nest density varied dramatically between different beaches (Fig. 5) or over time (Fig. 6).Table 15a summarizes the various concentrations of heavy metals identified in the different tissues of the benthic species sampled. Data in table 15a are in ppb of dry weight. Most species had concentrations of trace metal well below the legal limits (Table 5). Only one specimen showed mercury values higher than the legal limits (Table 5).

Presenting tables

Tables are difficult to typeset but modern word processors are rela-tively easy to “train” to give consistent formats. Figure 5 illustrates the styles used in the template for tables.

The short paragraph below the table called the table footnote (style = TabFootnote) has two formatting functions: it allows (1) the placement of the footnote, if necessary and (2) the inclusion of a larger space after the footnote. Comments about the table itself should appear in the legend of the table whereas comments about 1 or a few data in the table should appear in the footnote, following a small numerical marker in the table (1,2,3). If there are no foot-notes, do not delete the paragraph but leave it empty to guarantee an appropriate leading after the table.

To separate the table from the text, a larger space is placed before the table legend (24 points) and after the footnote. This provides a visual separation of the table from the text. Note also the relatively thick lines (called rules) before and after the table itself and the thin rule used to separate the header from the body of the table. Both are cues to guide the reader through the table. In scientific typogra-phy, vertical rules (or lines) are usually omitted. It is also customary and useful to differentiate the header of the table from the body by a different font face (bold for the header). When you format the table, it is easier to compare data vertically (particularly if the num-

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bers are formatted identically). It is also easier to format and read a table with 25 lines and 6 columns than a table with 6 lines and 25 columns.

Large tables (horizontally oriented) are possible but are more difficult to include in single documents because they require the creation of a separate section of the document in which the page is rotated by 90º (landscape). Large tables (several pages long and either horizontally or vertically oriented) should be added as appendices. Abbreviated versions of these large tables can be used in the text. This structure does not disturb the normal flow of the text while giving the reader the option to access the whole data set if necessary through the appendices.

Tables formats may differ from this suggested format as long as all tables in the document show an homogenous presentation. How-ever, the style presented here is used in a large variety of scientific publications (Science, Medicine, Engineering).

Table or figure ?

Students are often somewhat confused as to when to use a table to present information and when to use a figure. Tables are gener-ally used to present either non-numeric information (list of species, criteria, protocols…) or numeric values in which the numbers them-selves are important such as concentration of toxicants in relation to legal limits for instance. If it is the relative values of these num-bers across a series that is important, figures are probably more appropriate as they allow a rapid comparison of values. Similarly if the number of data to be presented is very large (4000 data points in a time series for instance), clearly figures are more indicated.

Generally, it is inappropriate to present the same data twice (once in table form and once in a figure), although some exceptions are

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possible. This form of redundancy should be used sparingly and with a clear purpose.

Font in figures and tables

The font used to present tables and text in figures should be very legible and is usually the same as that of the thesis. In the attached templates Helvetica was used for both the text of the thesis and all legends and text in graphics. Helvetica is an original font design that was often and not always successfully copied later by other founder or software companes: Swiss, Arial, Geneva, Verdana… Should a different font be chosen for the text and the tables, I would still recommend the use of font without serifs (little triangular ending of the vertical parts of each letter) as these are typically more legible.

Numbers and units

All units in SQU thesis or dissertations need to follow the interna-tional standard of units (m, kg, s, A). Units should be abbreviated if the numbers are written using numerals but written in full if the numbers are written in words. Traditional units may be used for comparative purposes (fathom, bushel, yard, gallon, faddan...) but should always be translated into international units. Note that the abbreviation for kilo is k (not K), mega is M (not m which is milli-) and Giga is G. Following standards, the Deanship of Postgraduate Studies recommends also the use of negative exponents in com-plex units (to avoid the complexity of typesetting fractions).

Examples

The average depth for setting nets in the Barka region was ten fathoms (approximately 18m)Nest density (km-1) varied dramatically between different beaches or over time.

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Bibliographic references

Bibliographic references are difficult to write because, in scientific documents, the formatting style is extremely formal: character case, styles, punctuations and spaces are all important. For most thesis a system of references based on in-text citation followed at the end of the thesis document by a bibliographic list is recom-mended. Alternative system (numbers and footnotes, or in-text citation and footnotes for instance) may be used in some fields of research as long as they remain consistent throughout the thesis and correspond to a well known usage in that field of research.

The Deanship of graduate studies recommends the APA style which refers to the reference system used by the American Psy-chological Association. This style is based on the Publication Manual of the APA, 5th ed. and the APA Style Guide to Electronic References (2007). Other styles are also appropriate such as the styles used for Elsevier publications or Springer publications, as long as they correspond to standards in the field of the thesis and are used consistently throughout the thesis. The key word is con-sistency.

Formatting 10s or 100s of references manually is an exercise of patience and accuracy and many scientists, including examiners, pay extreme attention to the quality of the bibliography presenta-tion. “Bibliography incomplete or poorly formatted” is a comment often attached to thesis by external reviewers and even seasoned scientists sometimes make mistakes when submitting manuscript for publications. The task of including all referenced material in a consistent way can be made much more bearable with the use of automatic bibliographic managers such as Endnote, Zotero, Papers or others. These software packages not only manage refer-ences but also help formatting them the way they are supposed to be formatted. Although these software will perpetuate mistakes

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in the original bibliographic database they work on, there is often only one place where the correction need to be made.

Because bibliography are searched by the reader, it is essential to facilitate the identification of each reference. Do do so, there are two visual cues: (1) a negative indent of the first line and (2) a small but yet distinct space between successive references.

You will find below two examples of correct bibliographic styles rec-ommended by the Deanship of Graduate Studies. Whatever style you choose to adopt, whether following these examples or not, the most important is to remain CONSISTENT.

Always use either “&” or “and” or “, ”to link the last author to • the others in the author list.

Use spaces always at the same places in the list of names.•

Use italic for every book title (or for no title).•

Use bold for every volume (or never).•

Use either parenthesis (1958) around the date of publication • or only a period after the last author name and after the date.

Use Editors/Eds. or Editor/Ed. to identify the editors or editor • of edited books.

Etc.•

APA (American Psychological Association 6th Edi-tion)

The APA reference system was established by the American Psy-chological Association to standardize references in their publica-tion. It has now reached a much larger audience and many refer-ence systems are more or less closely based on this standard.

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Citation

The citation is the part of the reference that is in the text of the document. The in-text citations may have no grammatical function; they are then listed at the end of the sentence between parenthe-sis. The author may also choose to use the citation as a gram-matical element of the sentence (subject or complement), in which case, the authors of the papers become part of the sentence and the year of publication is set between parenthesis. The citation in the APA style consists of either of three format:

a- one author and the year of publication (Simpson, 2005)

b- two authors and the year of publication (Simpson & Taylor, 2004) but Simpson and Taylor (2004) wrote that...

c- more than two authors and the year of publication (Simpson et al. 2003).

Bibliographic list

In the APA style (6th edition) the author list ends with “, &” before the last author and the year of publication is placed between pa-renthesis. Pay particular attention to the “,” that separates names of authors as well as family name and initials and to the “.”period after the year of publication. Since initials are abbreviations of names, they should be followed by a period and periods, comas, colons and semi-colons should always be followed by a space. The APA styles follows the grammatical rules for capitalizations in titles and book titles. This means that only the first letter of the first word of the title should be capitalized unless it is a scientific name, a city, a country, a river, etc... despite the original format of the cited documents. The documents in the bibliographic list are listed in alphabetical order of the first authors, then by decreasing dates.

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Book

The basic pattern for a reference to a book is:

Author, Initials. (year of publication). Title of the book (Edition). Place of Publication: Publisher.

Note that the author list ends with “&” before the last author. The edition is only cited if it is not the first edition. A colon separates the place of publication (city, country) from the publisher.

Grimsditch, G. D. & Salm, R. V. (2006). Coral reef resilience and resistance to bleaching. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.

Moore, M. H., Estrich, S., McGillis, D., & Spelman, W. (1984). Dangerous offenders: the elusive target of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Book section

The basic pattern for a reference to a book chapter is:

Author of chapter, Initials. (year of publication). Title of chapter. In Initials. Name of Editor/s (Ed.), Title of book (pp. start and end page numbers of chapter). Place of publication: Publisher.

Please note that the initials follow the name of the authors (except for the first author) but precede that of the editors. The name of a single editor is followed by (Ed.), if there are multiple editors it becomes (Eds.)

Kolasa, J. & Waltho, N. (1998). A hierarchical view of habitat and its relationship to species abundance. In D. L. Petersen & V. T. Parker (Eds.), Ecological scale (pp. 55-76). New York: Columbia Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1991). Genesis of the higher mental functions. In P. Light, S. Sheldon, & M. Woodhead (Eds.), Learning to think (pp. 32–41). London: Routledge.

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Journal Article

The basic pattern for a reference to article published in a scientific journal is:

Author, Initials. (year when article was published). Title of article. Title of Journal, Volume number – if there is one (Issue number), start and end page numbers of article. DOI

Note that both the Journal title and volume number are set in italic and that the page numbers are separated from the volume(issue) group by a coma and not a colon!. The DOI is a unique identifier of content objects in the digital environment. It

Green, J. L. & Plotkin, J. B. (2007). A statistical theory of sam-pling species abundance. Ecology Letters, 10, 1037-1045. DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01094.x

Adams, N.L., Shick, J.M. & Dunlap, W.C., (2001). Selective accu-mulation of mycosporine-like amino acids in ovaries of the green sea urchin Strogylocentrotus droebachiensis is not affected by ultraviolet radiation. Marine Biology. 138, 281-294.

Conference proceedings

Hart, S. R., Cohen, A. L. & Ramsay, M. A. (1997). Microscale analysis of Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca in Porites. Paper presented at the 8th International Coral Reef Symposium, Panama.

Thesis

Nester, L. R. (2006). Effects of off-road vehicles on the nesting activity of loggerhead sea turtles in North Carolina. Unpublished, Master of Science, Graduate School of the University of Florida, University of Florida.

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Electronic publication with DOI

Brownlie, D. (2007). Toward effective poster presentations: An an-notated bibliography. European Journal of Marketing, 41(11/12), 1245-1283. doi:10.1108/03090560710821161.

Electronic publication without DOI

Kenneth, I. A. (2000). A Buddhist response to the nature of human rights. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 8. Retrieved from http://www.cac.psu.edu/jbe/twocont.html

Web page(s)

Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderland, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5). General format. Re-trieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Marine Ecology Progress Series (Springer)

This is a very modern style in which most punctuation marks are omitted. The only faces modification (italic or bold) are those driven by normal scientific typographical rules: species in italic and vectors in bold for instance. It was established in the mid-90s to simplify somewhat the scientific reference system.

Book

Grimsditch GD, Salm RV (2006) Coral reef resilience and resis-tance to bleaching, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. 52 pp

Book section

Kolasa J, Waltho N (1998) A hierarchical view of habitat and its relationship to species abundance. In: Petersen DL, Parker VT (eds) Ecological scales. Columbia Press, New York, p 55-76

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Journal Article

Green JL, Plotkin JB (2007) A statistical theory for sampling spe-cies abundance. Ecology Letters 10:1037-1045

Conference proceedings

Hart SR, Cohen AL, Ramsay MA (1997) Microscale analysis of Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca in Porites. 8th International Coral Reef Sympo-sium, Panama: 1707-1712

Thesis

Nester LR (2006) Effects of off-road vehicles on the nesting activity of loggerhead sea turtles in North Carolina. Master of Science, Graduate School of the University of Florida, University of Florida.

Electronic publication with DOI

Brownlie D (2007) Toward effective poster presentations: An an-notated bibliography. European Journal of Marketing 41: 1245-1283. doi:10.1108/03090560710821161

Electronic publication without DOI

Kenneth IA (2000) A Buddhist response to the nature of human rights. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 8. Retrieved from http://www.cac.psu.edu/jbe/twocont.html

Web page(s)

Angeli E, Wagner J, Lawrick E, Moore K, Anderson M, Soderland L Brizee A (2010, May 5). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

If there are no date of publication easily identifiable for these electronic documents, you can use (n.d.) for no dates in the place holder for dates.

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Further information on these styles can be found at:

http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htm

for the APA style and

http://www.int-res.com/journals/meps/guidelines-for-meps-authors/

for Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Searches on Google (try: APA style reference for instance) will also provide a long list of tutorials, guidelines and suggestions to pres-ent consistent, complete and correct bibliographies.

There are several software specially designed to facilitate the man-agement and the formating of scientific documents and thesis. We can recommend among others:

Endnote (endnote.com): supported by SQU and available for Post-graduate student through a University License.

Zotero (www.zotero.org): a free system of reference management available either as a standalone program or as browser application.

Papers (http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/): inexpensive system that functions both on PCs, Macs and on apple ipad.

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Appendix 1

How do “styles” work?

Styles are canned, predefined, paragraph formats. In these custom made formats, the user can, once and for all, define the font (Hel-vetica, Arial, Times…) , the font size (expressed in Points = 1/72 of an inch), the weight (bold, demi-bold, regular…) whether the character is in italic or not. Italic does not mean slanted: very often, the italic characters differ in shape from the Roman characters (Ro-man = straight).

The style also includes information on the space between lines (called leading in reference to lead —the metal— bars that were used in typography to separate lines of characters). Typically in a text, leading should be slightly more than the font size for easy reading. If the leading was less, the high characters (l,f, t…) and the low characters (p, q, j) may collide between the lines. For the-sis text, in which we expect some annotations to be made by the author, the reviewers or the examiners, the leading is increased to approximately 1.5 times the character size. Here we used 18 pts for most paragraphs (with a 12-point character size) .

The styles defines how each line of text finishes (flushed left, or fully justified) and more importantly the spacing between adja-cent paragraphs or between headings and paragraphs. They also include information on page setting: i.e. whether a heading can sit on itself on a page or not (keep with next option), or if a paragraph can be cut in half by a page break (keep lines together option). For instance all headings have both these options set to insure the paragraphs that follow a headings actually follows the heading. It is also possible to define the color of the text, the positions and types of tabulations, the numbering (as in numbered or bulleted lists) and many other aspects of the typography of the document. There is

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also attention paid to the principle of proximity that says that the space before a heading should appear visually larger than that after because the heading introduces the following paragraph.

The advantage of this “style” system as it allows the user to be systematically consistent without having to reformat every single paragraph of the document. Once a paragraph is set in a particular style, to change the aspects of ALL the occurrences of that style in the document, you only need to modify that particular style. For in-stance if you want to change the font size of Heading 2, you modify the style Heading 2 in terms of font size and automatically, all titles formatted in Heading 2 will be modified, without affecting Heading 1 styles or paragraphs presentation.

Styles also contains a notion of inheritance: a style may inherit properties from another. For instance, here all styles inherit the font from the style “Paragraph”. Since Paragraph is in Helvetica, the whole document is formatted in Helvetica. Should you prefer to change the font of Paragraph to Times New Roman, Arial or Bask-erville, automatically the whole document will adopt the new font.

Any user can create as many styles as he/she needs. Some com-plex documents can have 100s of styles. To format a paragraph according to a predefined style, you need to assign the style to the paragraph. This can be done through the “Style” palette window. To get to that window you need to click the Home “ribbon”, and click on the Show Styles button.

Figure A1. The small button “Show Style” opens up the Style window in which you can manage, modify and apply styles to the text.

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This Style window is the toolbox to manage, edit and assign styles to different paragraphs.

Clicking on any of the Styles (Figure, H2, H3, H4, etc.) will im-mediately format the paragraph. To edit a style (you can do it but, think before doing), you select the Style and point the cursor on the little arrow menu that appears. You can then modify any or all the parameters for that Style.

Please learn more about using styles in your word processor. Dif-ferent version may have slightly different look and feel but nearly all formatting options and style management were already present in Microsoft Word 2003.

To learn more (Among many other sources: google up “using styles” Microsoft word tutorial…)

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/format-your-docu-1. ment-with-styles-RZ001103924.aspx

http://www.word-tips.com/microsoft-word-styles.html2.

http://addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm3.

Figure A2. This is the main Style window. This is where all the management of the styles of a given document takes place. To assign a style, place the cursor in the paragraph to be styled, then click on the required style in the Styles window. For instance, to make a chapter title: put the cursor in the future title paragraph, then click Head-ing 1.

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Other word processors (Open Office, Pages, Mellel, etc. ) and page setting software (Quark, InDesign...) all offer similar “style” systems. Although the specific buttons and menus will differ, the principle remains the same: a paragraph always carry a style. The user can define which style is applied to each paragraph and can define the look of each style.

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Appendix 2Table 1. List of user defined styles used for the introductory pages of an SQU thesis (ThesisIntro.docx).

Style name Description and useTitle To be used for the Main title of the thesis on

both the Cover Page and the Title Page.Author Used for the Name of the author of the

thesis (i.e. the student) on both the Cover Page and the Title Page.

ThesisDescriptor Used on both the Cover Page and the Title Page to set the “A thesis submitted….” as well as the actual title of the degree.

Degree Used to typeset the degree conferred with the thesis.

In Used to format the little “in” between the title of the degree and the actual degree.

Institution Used for the whole series of paragraph at the bottom of both the Cover Page and the Title Page.

Department Used for the name of the Department at the bottom of both the Cover Page and the Title Page.

CommitteeTitle Used for both the title of the thesis and the name of the student on the Thesis Commit-tee Page.

Committee Used to format “Thesis Committee” and “Thesis Examining Committee” heading on these two pages.

CommitteeSigna-ture

Used to format both signature and Date on each of the “member” of the thesis and examining committees.

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CommitteeMember Used to format the name, title and function of each of the committee members.

Dedication Used to format the Dedication if anyParagraph Used for the text of the Acknowledgements, AbstractTitle Used to format the title of the thesis on the

English Abstract page.AbstractAuthor Used to format the name of the author (the

student) on the on the English Abstract page.

AbstractHeading Used for the word “Abstract” on the Ab-stract Page.

Abstract Used for the text of the abstract.ArabicAbTitle Used for the Title in the Arabic abstractArabicAbAuthor Used for the author in the Arabic AbstractArabicAbHeading Used for a possible heading in the Arabic

AbstractArabicAbstract Used for the text of the abstract in ArabicEpigraph Used to format the epigraph (if any).IntroHeading Used to format the page title for List of

Figures and List of Tables pages and also the List of Abbreviations and the Glossary as well as the Acknowledgements.

ListFigTable Used to format each entry in the table that makes up the lists in the List of Figures, the List of Tables and the Abbreviations and Symbols pages.

ListFigPgNb Used to format the page number in the List of Figures and the List of Tables pages.

AbbreviationEntry Used to format each of the entries (left side) of the List of Symbols and Abbrevia-tions page

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GlossaryDefinition Used to format the definition of each of the entries of the List of Symbols and Abbre-viation and Glossary Pages.

GlossaryEntry Used to format the entries of the Glossary. Table 2. List of user defined styles used for the body of a thesis at SQU. Additional styles can be created for specific cases but should be based on the Paragraph style to ensure homogeneity.

Style name Description and useChapter_Nb To be used at the beginning of all chapters.

It automatically begins on a new page. The style includes automatically the creation of a new page with appropriate spacing.

ChapterTitle Defines the highest level of heading. This will be indexed in the Table of content (TOC) as level 1.

H1---H3 Defines the secondary headings. These are also indexed in the TOC but as level 2, 3, and 4. The spaces are automatically added between headings and paragraphs before and after. All these headings are “linked” to the two lines of the next para-graphs to avoid orphan headings.

H4 The last predefined heading. It is not in-dexed by default.

Paragraph This is the style used for all paragraph in the text. It has a small space before and after, indicating clearly the separation be-tween adjacent paragraphs.

EndParagraph A style used to format the little graphic indicating the end of a Chapter.

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Figure Is a paragraph style to be used to format figures. It will put some space before the figure and make sure the figure stays on the page.

FigLegend Create a figure legend or caption. It will be slightly spaced from the figure and have a much larger space after to clearly indicates the separation between figure and text.

TableContents Used inside tables. The font size is the same as in the text but the line spacing is reduced. This table is formatted using TableContents.

TableLegend The style used for the caption of the table. As it is above the table, it has a larger space before and a small space after.

TableFootnote To be used after a table whether you need footnotes or not. It will add some space after the table to indicate the separation from the text.

Biblio Paragraph style to be used with the bibli-ography (references). It will automatically create a hanging indent of the reference and add some space before and after each reference.

BulletedList The Bulleted List is a form of paragraph for list of items without particular order. There is some space between item, but is less than that between paragraphs.

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NbList Numbered list is similar to bulletedList but use a sequential number instead of a bullet. Each list needs to be restarted at 1 manually (Format > Bullets and number-ing…> in the dialog choose restart at 1.

Citation This style formats the text as a long cita-tion. It is set up in Italic with a small indent on both left and right sides.

TOC 1 – TOC 4 Defines the format of the Table of content. Modifying these will modify the look of the table of content.

TOCHeader Defines the format of the first line of the Table of Content.

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Appendix 3

British vs American EnglishAmerican and British English have developed some differences over the years. Although both grammars and usages are correct, nevertheless for the sake of homogeneity, it is better form to stick to either American or British English usage.

There are some grammatical differences: for instance with regards to collective words such as musical band names, the word commit-tee, or Government. These words tend to be grammatically plural in British English whereas they are singular in American English.

Example

The Clash are a well known rock band (British English) The Clash is a well known rock band (American English).The team takes its seat (American English)The team take their seat (British English)The committee decides to implement its decision (American Eng-lish)The committee decide to implement their decision (British EnglishBritish and American English also differ in the transitivity of some verbs.

Example

Someone might appeal a decision in American English but would appeal against the decision in British EnglishOne would also catch up someone else in British English but would only catch up with someone else in American English.One would write to someone in British English, but write someone in American English.You may also talk to someone in Britain but with someone or to someone in the United States.

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Some past participles also differ between the two forms of English.Example

Sawn is the accepted past participle of saw in British English whereas sawed is the preferred form in American English.Proved is strongly preferred over proven in British English whereas both are equally accepted in American English. Finally, there are numerous differences in the spelling of common words:

British English American EnglishDefence (of the thesis) DefenseFulfilment FulfillmentBehaviour BehaviorColour ColorAcknowledgements AcknowledgmentsEnrolment EnrollmentAnalogue AnalogAgeing AgingDraught Draft (as in scientific drawing)Programme ProgramCounselling CounselingModelling Modeling