ALL COMPUTER SCIENCE GRADUATE STUDENTS COMPLETING A THESIS MUST ADHERE TO THESE GUIDELINES.

NSU's policies dealing with standards of content, graduation requirements, minimum and maximum loads, make up of incomplete grades, and so forth are outlined in the Graduate Studies Office Website and the University's academic catalogue.

A thesis is legally classified as a publication. Thus, authors should take care to avoid violating the United States copyright laws. Standard styles and reference credit should be given for quoted or paraphrased text within the narrative. Authors should receive permissions from the copyright holder for figures and tables taken from copyrighted sources. Evidence of written permission must be included in the thesis.

The Computer Science Department requires thesis authors to arrange and pay for three hard copies of the thesis to be distributed to the following:

• Computer Science Department
• NSU Graduate Studies Office
• Lyman Beecher Brooks Library

The thesis must be bound at

Longs-Roullet Bindery
2800 Monticello Avenue
Norolk, VA 23504
Office:(757) 623-4244
Fax:(757) 627-1404

The cost per single binding is $17.50 (subject to change). Since binding takes two to three weeks to complete, the author must present the original receipt from Longs-Roullet for proof of binding to the Graduate Director before the Department can approve graduation. The Graduate Director is responsible for distributing the copies to the Graduate Studies Office and the Registrar.

The original bound thesis (with original signatures on the title page) will be kept in the Department.

The entire thesis must be written in Times New Roman font size 12. The manuscript may be double-spaced or one and a half spaced. Mixing of spacing in the text is not appropriate. Single spacing is used only for long, blocked, and inserted quotations; footnotes; endnotes; and itemized or tabular material. Any quotations of six or fewer typed lines should use the same spacing as the narrative text.

Font size reduction may be made in footnotes, tables, superscripts, subscripts, figures and appendix material only. Mathematical and other symbols must be large enough to be readable and logical.

All thesis materials must be on one-sided, white, acid-free, 100% cotton fiber paper. The paper must be used for all pages except for special photographic paper or fold-out pages. However, all figures or tables on those pages must conform to the margins.

The left-hand margin must be 1.5"; the other three margins are 1". All typing must be within the 9" x 6" area except for the page number which must be placed in the upper right corner.

Every page in the thesis except the Title and Approval Page (TAP) must be numbered. The preliminary pages are numbered with lower-case Roman numerals. The TAP is numbered (i) but should not be shown. The second numbed page is the Abstract, which is numbered (ii).

Digitized photographs are acceptable if they are good reproductions. Do not include color within the thesis at all unless color reproduction is necessary to the content of the thesis. In any case permission should be sought from the Graduate Director.

Separate tables and figures from the text body by using the equivalent of a triple-space. Tables and figures should also have titles appearing immediately under or above the table. It is preferable to place figures on the top or bottom of the page, not in the middle between the text.

Bold type should be used for new chapters and sections only. New chapters should be bold, capitalized and centered. New chapters should begin on a new page and separated by at least a double-space from the text below. You may choose to make the font size of a chapter heading slightly larger (14). Example

NEW CHAPTER

Second headings should be bold, left-justified and separated from the paragraph above and below it. Example

New Section

Preliminary Pages

*Title and Approval page (page (i), page number doesn't appear)
  Copyright Page (optional)
*Abstract
  Dedication and Acknowledgments
*Table of Contents
  List of Tables (if two or more tables in text)
  List of Figures (if two or more tables in text)

Text (with Arabic numeral page numbers)

*Introduction (as first chapter or section)
*Main body of text divided into various chapters or sections
*Summary of Conclusion (as last chapter or section)

References and Supplemental Sections

*Reference section
  Bibliography
  Appendix material

Sections marked with an asterisk (*) must be included in the thesis.

Title and Approval Page

Spacing must match the sample page that is included with this document. No bold font except in the title. No page number should be on the Title and Approval page.

The title must be centered in capital letters. Do not place a period at the end of the title.

The thesis statement should be as it is in the sample page using single spacing. The student's name should be the same as in the official records at Norfolk State University and typed in all capital letters.

The submittal statement must use single spacing with Norfolk State University on a line by itself. Double-space between the submittal statement and the degree. Put the degree in capital letters.

Type out the month and year without a comma.

Type COMPUTER SCIENCE in all capital letters.

The approval statement must include the director and the other members of the student's thesis committee. Do not include titles (Dr., Ph.D., Prof.). Signature lines and names must be placed on the right side as in the sample page.

Copyright Page

If the student chooses to reserve the copyright of his/her thesis, a copyright page needs to be added following the Title and Approval page. The format is to put

Copyright by
Author name
Year

centered at the bottom of the page. In addition, the student must pay some fees to the US Copyright Office. Check http://www.loc.gov/copyright/ for further information.

If the Copyright Page appears, this should be the second page and numbered (ii). All the following pages should increase in numbering correspondingly.

Abstract

This is page (ii). Bold type should not be used on this page except for the word (ABSTRACT). The Abstract contains a statement of the problem, procedure or methods, results, and conclusions. All explanatory matter and opinion should be omitted.

The title of the abstract appears in upper case letters with a period at the end of the title. Place Dr. before the thesis director's name (if the director does not have an earned doctorate, use the title Prof.)

Begin the text one triple space below the preliminary lines, with a paragraph indentation. Text may be no more than 350 words.

See the sample below for further formatting information.

Dedication and Acknowledgement Page

A dedication and acknowledgement page may be used if desired. This should be no longer than one page in the same format as the text. It will be numbered (iii).

Lists of Tables and Figures

Such listings may be included if there is more than one table or one figure and should be in the same format as the text.

The Text

Most of the information is explained above. Some items to note: use only single columns. Don't use footnotes if they fall below the margins. Use only complete sentences except in tables and figures. Right-justification is not necessary; it can force a separation of words on lines with long sequences of letters.

References

The title of the required page for references should be capitalized and in bold as REFERENCES. Reference standards should be used in all cases including Internet references where the exact data read should be noted. All references must be cited in the text. This is not a bibliography. References may be cited in the text using numbers like [24] or by author, year, or chronological ordering as in [Williams], [Williams98], and [Williams98a].

Bibliography

A bibliography may be required by the thesis or project director. Such a bibliography normally includes all the references and an extensive compilation of the literature related to the area of study. Normally, but not always, a bibliography includes annotations about the content of the works.

Appendices

Appendices normally include supporting materials (proofs, program code, and so forth) that are of significance.