GSAS provides requirements and formatting guidelines for PhD dissertations. Currently, PiN does not impose additional requirements beyond GSAS standards, though there is general consensus that dissertations should contain necessary components and follow formal formatting.
Word#
Harvard offers suggested formatting through LaTeX, but LaTeX can be challenging to learn and use. To address this, I’ve created a Word document that replicates Harvard’s recommended dissertation formatting. While there is no single “required” format, this template has been shared with several students who found it helpful, and it has been approved by multiple committees.
Note that this example only has 1 Results Chapter as I only worked on 1 project during my PhD. If you worked on multiple projects/papers, you would want to include the same number of Chapters such that each project/paper gets its own Chapter. Tying it together with a General Introduction before and General Discussion after.
You’re welcome to download and use this formatting template, and please feel free to share it within PiN.
Latex#
Alternatively, you can use Overleaf or a local Tex installation to use the Harvard provided LaTeX formatting document. There are a number of issues with it however, so it might be easier to start with a complete example. Below is the pdf output and the requisite files. Essentially you just drag these files into Overleaf (it will complain about missing figures, but you can use placeholders). Please do not share widely without asking Stephen.