Final checks before submitting a thesis or dissertation

The last week before a thesis or dissertation goes in is for checking, not writing: the finished file against the rules your university has already published, from what the word count includes to how the file is named. Those rules differ more than most students expect.

This checklist, published by EdCitation for our how to write a dissertation series, comes from seven universities' own submission pages and regulations, read on 26 September 2026: Manchester, Birmingham and the London School of Economics (LSE) in the UK, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and MIT in the US, the University of Toronto in Canada and the University of Melbourne in Australia.

EdCitation never writes any part of a dissertation. It checks one: Check your paper reads your handbook's rules into a checklist, free, and References from a file matches every citation to the list and looks every reference up in the publisher's record.

What should I check in the last week before submitting a thesis?

Eleven things, in this order, so that nothing fixed late breaks something checked early.

1. Read the regulations again. Paste the submission section into Check your paper and keep its checklist beside you.
2. The word count, as defined. Count what your rules count, and print the number where they ask.
3. The front matter, in the required order. Title page, declarations, abstract, contents and lists.
4. The format. Margins, font, spacing and page numbers against the template or policy.
5. References both ways. Every citation in the list, every entry cited, every entry real. References from a file does all three on the whole file.
6. Figures, tables and appendices. Numbered, captioned, listed with page numbers, and each one mentioned in the text.
7. Leftovers. Comments, tracked changes and template text, which Mechanics QA looks for in the file itself.
8. The AI and proofreading statements, worded as your university asks.
9. The similarity step, if your university requires one before submission.
10. The file. Converted to the format asked for, named by the pattern given, and opened once more after conversion.
11. The portal. Log in days early and read what it asks you to confirm.

How do universities' thesis submission requirements differ?

On nearly every item in that list. The sections after the table explain each column.

Does the thesis word count include footnotes, references and appendices?

References and appendices, at none of the universities read here; footnotes, it depends. The University of Manchester (2026) counts footnotes and endnotes inside its 80,000 words for a PhD, and its policy lists what stays outside: the abstract, contents, lists of tables and figures, any generative AI disclosure, the bibliography and the appendices. The University of Birmingham (n.d.) leaves footnotes and endnotes out, along with tables, diagrams, appendices and references. Melbourne (n.d.-b) sets 100,000 words for a PhD and 50,000 for a master's thesis, footnotes in, tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices out.

LSE's Economic History department (2025) takes a third line: its MSc dissertations exclude "footnote references" from the limit, and any comment added in a footnote is kept to a guideline of about 50 words a note. It also says there is "no margin" for going over the limit.

Where the number goes

Manchester wants the final count, footnotes included, at the bottom of the contents page; LSE wants it on the front cover.

What front matter does a thesis need, and in what order?

Whatever your university lists, in its order, because no two lists match.

Title page and declarations

Each university sets its own title page wording. UNC's Graduate School (n.d.-b) gives the exact sentence, the committee's names under "Approved by:", and no signatures; Toronto's School of Graduate Studies (n.d.-b) requires its own statement of the degree and department, with a copyright notice. LSE (2025) goes the other way: the departmental title page carries a candidate number, the programme, the year, the word count and the title only, because the marking is anonymous.

Declarations differ just as much. Manchester (2026) requires a declaration on whether any of the work has been submitted for another degree, and a copyright statement of four set notes, printed as written. Melbourne (n.d.-a) has the candidate confirm, in its submission system, that the thesis is their original work.

Abstract, acknowledgements, contents and lists

Abstracts are capped: 150 words for a UNC thesis or Toronto master's, 350 for a doctorate at either, up to 500 at MIT Libraries (2026), one page at Manchester. Acknowledgements are optional almost everywhere, and LSE asks for none, since they could reveal who wrote the dissertation. Lists of figures and tables, with page numbers, are required whenever a thesis has any, at MIT, UNC, Toronto and Manchester.

Page numbers split the universities cleanly. UNC and Toronto number the preliminary pages in small Roman numerals; Manchester forbids Roman numerals and starts one Arabic sequence at the title page, and wants any blank page to say "Blank page".

How do I check the formatting against the university template?

One rule at a time against your university's template or policy, after the text is final. Manchester (2026) asks for 1.5 or double spacing, a readable font such as 12 point Arial or Times New Roman, and recommends at least 40 mm at the binding edge. UNC (n.d.-a) wants 1-inch margins (1.25 inches on the left if you plan to bind), 10 to 12 point fonts, double spacing, left-justified text and no running headers. LSE (2025) asks for double spacing and prefers 12 point Calibri.

Check the contents against the headings in the text: UNC's checklist makes the match a condition of acceptance.

Leftovers in the file

Before converting, remove every comment, tracked change and placeholder. Mechanics QA, part of Pro, reads the file's own properties and reports comments, tracked changes, placeholders and template text left in it; it also checks formatting against the APA 7 student paper, citations against the list, and numbers that disagree between sections. A university template that departs from APA stays on your own checklist; leftover comments and tracked changes shows where they hide.

How do I check references, figures, tables and appendices?

Match citations and list both ways, then make sure every figure, table and appendix is numbered, listed and mentioned. The full procedure for the list is in managing dissertation references from proposal to submission; here is the check on a real file.

References both ways, in one run

We wrote a short test extract of a literature review with four references: one correct (Braun and Clarke on thematic analysis), one with the wrong year (Dunlosky and colleagues' review of learning techniques, dated 2015), one invented, and one real paper never cited in the text. The text also cited "Kiley, 2009", which was not in the list. We uploaded the whole file, in APA 7, to the check that powers References from a file. Its summary line read "4 in-text citations · 4 entries · 1 orphan citation · 1 uncited entry." Entry by entry:

All four planted problems were caught. One exception: UNC (n.d.-a) asks you to list every reference you consulted, a bibliography rather than a reference list, so there an uncited entry may be meant to stay.

Figures, tables and appendices

Every figure and table needs a number, a caption and a mention in the text. LSE (2025) is blunt: tables and figures that are not discussed "serve no purpose". UNC puts the appendices at the end, before the references, each with a number or letter and a title that also appears in the contents; Manchester keeps them inside the thesis's single sequence of page numbers.

What goes in the AI and proofreading declarations?

A plain account of which tools and which people helped, where your university asks for it. Toronto's School of Graduate Studies (2026) requires the supervisor's and committee's approval before any generative AI tool is used on a thesis, and the thesis must say which tools were used, how and why. Melbourne (n.d.-b) requires any editorial help, including AI, to be named with a short description in the preface. Manchester (2026) offers an optional AI declaration, with a sample that names the tool and what it was used for, and limits a paid proofreader to grammar and spelling.

Proofreading and editing a dissertation sets out what six universities let a proofreader do, and how to declare AI use has wording that works.

Does the university run a similarity report on a thesis?

Some do, and some ask you to run it; read what yours says. Melbourne (n.d.-a) requires a similarity report of the full thesis, generated with the text-matching service the university provides and uploaded at submission, and says the principal supervisor and the chair of examiners read it to judge whether the thesis is ready for examination. LSE (2025) says only that the department may submit work for checking. None of the Manchester, UNC, MIT or Toronto pages read for this guide mentions a report.

People read the report alongside the thesis, and no page we read names a safe percentage; checking a dissertation for plagiarism compares eight universities.

Checking before you hand it in

Check plagiarism marks each passage of your text that matches published or web text, with the source it matches. Check AI labels each passage AI-written, AI-assisted or human, with the score behind it. Both are Pro tools that run on credits (240 a month with Pro, 720 with Max, more from $10), show the cost before they run, use nothing if a check fails, and show their reports only to you. Neither is proof of anything, and your university's own tool may read the same text differently.

How should the thesis file be named, formatted and submitted?

Exactly as your university's pattern says. MIT Libraries (2026) requires PDF/A-1 and a file name built from surname, Kerberos name, degree, department, year and type. Toronto (n.d.-a) wants a PDF named surname, first name, initials, graduation year and month, degree and the word "thesis", joined by underscores. Melbourne wants one file with no commas or hashtags in its name; LSE wants no name anywhere, only the candidate number.

The portal

eProg at Manchester, Moodle at LSE, ProQuest ETD Administrator at UNC and Toronto, the Thesis Examination System at Melbourne. Open the converted PDF before uploading it and check the fonts, the page numbers and every figure; UNC (n.d.-c) points students to ProQuest's advice on embedding fonts.

What happens after I submit a thesis?

It depends on the degree and the country. At Manchester a PhD is submitted first and examined afterwards, and the policy (University of Manchester, 2026) forbids any change to the thesis until the result is official, and takes the final copy only after the examiners' corrections are approved. Melbourne now includes a viva, an oral examination, for doctoral candidates who began from 2025.

In the US the order is reversed. UNC (n.d.-c) takes the thesis after the defence and after the committee has approved the final edits; the Graduate School then reviews the format, generally within ten business days, and expects any revisions back, usually within 72 hours. After acceptance, no changes are allowed. At Toronto, a thesis appears online about five to six weeks after convocation. LSE's handbook for its taught master's dissertation describes marking and a late-submission penalty, and mentions no viva.

How EdCitation fits the final checks

EdCitation is the best tool for this week's checking, because every verdict comes from the publisher's record rather than a guess, and it never writes a word. In the run above it caught all four planted problems in one pass and said "not found" only for the invented reference; a record it cannot reach is reported as "could not check", never "not found".

For the handbook, Check your paper is free. Given the submission and formatting section of LSE's Economic History handbook, it returned five rules, each with its source sentence: the departmental title page, double line spacing, the 250-word abstract, and 12 point Calibri as a font and a size. It set 20 sentences aside as rules it does not check, among them the 1 September deadline, submitting through Moodle, the candidate number, "Please do not include acknowledgements" and the three word limits that depend on your course, so the limit for yours is one you check yourself. Read each rule against its sentence: LSE says it prefers Calibri, and the checklist lists it as a rule.

A year at once saves 25%; pricing has the plans. None of these tools can promise a mark or a pass.

Quick questions

Does a dissertation word count include footnotes?

At Manchester and Melbourne, yes; at Birmingham, no; LSE's Economic History department excludes footnote references and keeps comment in a footnote to about 50 words. Read your own regulations.

Can I check my thesis references against the list before submitting?

Yes. References from a file matches every in-text citation to the list and every entry back to the text, and looks each reference up in the publisher's record; three checks a month are free with an account.

What file format should a thesis be submitted in?

A PDF at Manchester, UNC, MIT and Toronto; MIT asks for PDF/A-1, and MIT and Toronto set exact file name patterns. Use the format and name your own handbook gives.

Can EdCitation check my thesis against the university's rules?

Check your paper reads the rules into a checklist, free, each shown with the sentence it came from. Judging the thesis against them is Theoretics QA, part of Max, which quotes the thesis and never rewrites it.

References

• London School of Economics and Political Science Department of Economic History. (2025). MSc dissertation handbook 2025/26. https://www.lse.ac.uk/asset-library/Economic-History/MSc-Handbooks/MSc-Dissertation-Handbook-2025-26-updated.pdf
• MIT Libraries. (2026). Specifications for thesis preparation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://libraries.mit.edu/distinctive-collections/thesis-specs/
• University of Birmingham. (n.d.). What is excluded from the word count? Student Hub. https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student/student-hub/solution.aspx?nodeId=314
• University of Manchester. (2026). Presentation of theses policy. https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=7420
• University of Melbourne. (n.d.-a). Submitting your thesis. Graduate Research Hub. https://gradresearch.unimelb.edu.au/examination/submitting-your-thesis
• University of Melbourne. (n.d.-b). Writing and preparing your thesis. Graduate Research Hub. https://gradresearch.unimelb.edu.au/preparing-my-thesis/writing-my-thesis
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School. (n.d.-a). Formatting guidelines. Thesis and Dissertation Guide. https://gradweb.unc.edu/content/academics/thesis-diss/guide/format.html
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School. (n.d.-b). Order and components. Thesis and Dissertation Guide. https://gradweb.unc.edu/content/academics/thesis-diss/guide/ordercomponents.html
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School. (n.d.-c). Submission. Thesis and Dissertation Guide. https://gradweb.unc.edu/content/academics/thesis-diss/guide/submission.html
• University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies. (n.d.-a). Electronic thesis submission. https://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/current-students/program-completion/formatting/electronic-thesis-submission/
• University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies. (n.d.-b). Thesis formatting and submission. https://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/current-students/program-completion/formatting/
• University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies. (2026). Guidance on the appropriate use of generative artificial intelligence for graduate academic milestones. https://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/about/guidance-on-the-use-of-generative-artificial-intelligence/