lsu doctoral dissertations

Finding Dissertations and Theses: Steps

LSU Dissertations and Theses 

1. Search the LSU Librares Online   Catalog in Advanced Search and limit Material Type to Dissertation or Theses . Print copies up to 2002 can be found on the second floor of LSU Library under the call number 378.76 L930D Year Name (dissertations) or 378.76 L930 Year Name (theses) .

• LSU Libraries Online Catalog

2. Search the 

• LSU Scholarly Repository This link opens in a new window Online versions of various theses and dissertations from LSU graduate students. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to access them. Part of the LSU Digital Commons, our institutional repository which "collects, preserves, publishes, and makes openly accessible the research and scholarship contributed by LSU faculty, staff, students, and units."

3. Search 

• Dissertations & Theses @ Louisiana State University This link opens in a new window This database gives access to the dissertations and theses produced by students at your institution.

Dissertations and Theses from LSU and Other Institutions

1. Search 

• ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: Global This link opens in a new window Include LSU theses back to 1916 and dissertations back to 1935. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: Global (PQDTGlobal) is the world's most comprehensive collection of full-text dissertations and theses. As the official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress and as the database of record for graduate research, PQDTGlobal includes millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format.
• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I This link opens in a new window Contains citations to 1.2 million dissertations and masters theses. Coverage begins in 1861, with abstracts available since 1980, and thesis abstracts since 1988.

2. Search the following open access databases

• EBSCO Open Dissertations "OpenDissertations.org is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs that brings an innovative approach to increasing traffic and discoverability of ETD research. This new collaboration extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present."
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations Search the 4,958,320 electronic theses and dissertations contained in the NDLTD archive.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD) OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 4,444,117 theses and dissertations.
• PQDT Open PQDT Open provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge.

• Last Updated: Aug 1, 2024 2:02 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.lsu.edu/dt

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Thesis & Dissertation Preparation

Thesis & dissertation submission processes.

Before proceeding, please review the  Steps to Graduation , as the graduation process generally begins the semester before you intend to graduate. Before submitting a thesis or dissertation, students are required to complete his/her final examination and all revisions. We suggest that you schedule and hold your defense as early as possible in the semester of graduation. Early in your writing process, review the Thesis & Dissertation Handbook (see Quick Links Section below). It contains the complete formatting guidelines, includes information on preparing and uploading your document to the  LSU Scholarly Repository (formerly Digital Commons) site, and summarizes other important information related to graduation. You can also view the Formatting Your Theses & Dissertations workshop presentation slides located in the Quick Links section below.

The LSU Scholarly Repository (formerly Digital Commons) archives makes accessible research, publications, data, and other institutional records produced by LSU faculty, students, and units. As graduate students, you can choose to make your work openly accessible from the time an editor approves it or you can place an embargo on it (withhold your document from public circulation for a specified amount of time).>

Carefully choose your period of embargo based on your plans for publishing all or part of your document. >The Graduate School will not permit changes in the embargo period following document approval. Since you receive no warning when your period of embargo is about to end, make a permanent note of the final embargo date for yourself in case you wish to renew it. The options for embargoing your document are one, three, or seven years. You may elect to restrict your document to LSU email addresses only. See below—>Format Your Document, and Download Templates and Guide Sheets—to download the helpful >NEW templates and guide sheets.

>Note: The IRS requires publication as a condition of LSU’s tax-exempt status. To qualify for exemption, we must operate for the public good and publication must be timely. The IRS considers conference presentations, posters, internet publication, etc., as publication. View pdf for more detailed information.

Preparing and Submitting Your Thesis or Dissertation

When you are ready to prepare your manuscript for submission, complete the following steps in order.

1. iThenticate Expand accordion

Right before your defense, submit your completed document to iThenticate and report the results to your committee chair. iThenticate is a professional plagiarism detection and prevention technology used worldwide by scholarly publishers and research institutions to ensure the originality of written work before publication.

All LSU faculty, graduate students and research associates can access iThenticate at the following web address: ithenticate.lsu.edu .  Use your LSU Single Sign On (SSO) credentials to log in.  Please make sure you always use the above address to access iThenticate because you will be unable to sign in from their main (commercial) log-in screen.

Additionally, the LSU GROK Article iThenticate: LSU Overview explains how to use iThenticate.

2. Accessibility Expand accordion

LSU A&M is committed to ensuring that its websites are accessible to people with disabilities. As members of the LSU campus community, we have an accessibility responsibility, particularly those who prepare documents. Students documents must be remediated prior to uploading it to the web. Visit LSU's ADA & Accessibility website to learn more about accessibility and other resources to assist with the task of making your document accessible. 

Common Links

The Faculty Technology Center provides a Creating Accessible Documents Training. Visit training.lsu.edu to register for a training session.

Access the Digital Accessibility Resources webpage for basic accessibility checklists and guidelines.

3. Complete Final Revisions Expand accordion

Make committee revisions and secure final approval of your document from your committee and major professor. After the defense, inform the committee chair and your department’s graduate coordinator of your name as shown on the mainframe and the final title of your document. This information must be correct on the Thesis/Dissertation Approval form.

4. Submit Forms Expand accordion

Confirm that the following required forms for document approval have been submitted to the Graduate School: Application for Degree and, for doctoral students only, Survey of Earned Doctorates, Thesis/Dissertation Approval Form (must be sent by your department), and Declaration of Co-Authorship in Doctoral Dissertations.

5. Format Your Document, and Download Templates and Guide Sheets Expand accordion

The Graduate School has provided four Microsoft Word templates in the required LSU format for your thesis or dissertation (see buttons below). Each features slight differences to serve students in Humanities, Sciences, or Studio Fine Arts. For students who need it, we also include a LaTeX template. Choose the template that will best suit the norms of your field. Each one can be edited to accommodate your specific document.

The Humanities, Sciences, and Studio Fine Arts templates are each accompanied by a Guide Sheet (see below) that will supplement the information supplied on the templates themselves. You may wish to print out the guide sheet and keep it nearby as you work through the blending of the template and your document. Guides are divided into the specific sections in your theses and dissertations.

The Thesis & Dissertation Handbook, which contains the complete formatting guidelines, is available on this website in the Quick Links section and is recommended reading for all. Even if you choose to use a template, the handbook contains valuable information that will answer most of your questions.

Downloadable Templates

Handbook & Guide Sheets

THESIS & DISSERTATIONHANDBOOK

Studio Fine Arts Guide Sheet

Humanities Guide Sheet

Science Guide Sheet

6. Create a LSU Scholarly Repository Account Expand accordion

Visit the LSU Scholarly Repository (formerly Digital Commons) homepage

Go to the My Account link in the top purple banner

Follow the link within "Don't have an account? Sign up " on the login screen Additional Details for Creating an Account:

Do not create more than one LSU Scholarly Repository account and do not create a new submission to upload document revisions.

Note that your “lsu.edu" email address expires one year after graduation. Please use a long-term email address (ex: Yahoo/iCloud/Gmail) when creating your LSU Scholarly Repository account.

Use your full name as shown in your university records. The name you use must match the one that is on your approval sheets and on the LSU database.  

Choose "Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College" as your Institutional Affiliation.

7. Complete LSU Scholarly Repository Submission Form Expand accordion

Select the appropriate submission link below to complete the LSU Scholarly Repository submission form.

submit your thesis

submit your dissertation

submit your major paper

Following the approval of your document, you will need to decide whether you would like to release it to the public immediately or, if you plan to publish all or part of it, restrict access to it for a period of one, three, or seven years. You may also elect to restrict access to LSU email addresses only.

The previously used Request for Restricted Access to Thesis/Dissertation form will no longer be accepted by the editor. This step is only completed through your LSU Scholarly Repository account.

Upon your document restriction's expiration, your document will automatically become publicly available for download in the LSU Scholarly Repository. If you would like to request an extension on a current restriction, please send a request to [email protected] that includes the LSU Scholarly Repository URL of your document. Please be aware that extensions are awarded in seven-year increments, and that documents cannot remain restricted for longer than 21 years from the time of their submission.

8. Submit your Document Expand accordion

Do not upload the document until it is in LSU formatting style. Otherwise, the editor will return it to you.

Attach your document and click ‘Submit’.

A confirmation page will appear and shortly after you will receive a confirmation email.

9. Additional Corrections Expand accordion

You will be notified via email by the reviewer if additional corrections are needed. In response, you must never upload a new document. Instead, you must re-upload the original submitted document containing only the requested changes.

A substantial number of formatting corrections may affect the editor’s ability to meet the final deadline for approving all documents. This may delay your anticipated graduation date.

10. Submitting Revisions Expand accordion

All document revisions must be submitted by logging into your LSU Scholarly Repository account

Instructions on how to submit revisions and reset your password can be found on the Submission Aid .

11. Final Steps Expand accordion

For all students graduating during the current semester, the process is complete after receipt of the emailed approval notice.

If you decide to register for Degree Only for the upcoming semester, you must have completed and submitted your thesis or dissertation by the degree-only deadline but preferably two weeks before the deadline. Submitting the document in advance gives editors a sufficient amount of time to review the document, and the student enough time to make any required revisions. Editors must have the final document approved, and registration must be completed by 4:30 p.m. on the deadline noted in the Graduate School Calendar .

Requesting Theses & Dissertations

Former LSU graduate students can request a complimentary PDF copy of their own thesis or dissertation (if not already available electronically through ProQuest or the LSU Scholarly Repository).

To place a request:

Search for the title or author of the thesis/dissertation in the LSU Library catalog .

Click on the appropriate title from the search results, then select the “Request Item” link from the bottom of the catalog record.

Requestors will be prompted to create an account.

Those no longer actively affiliated with LSU will choose “Guest,” then “First Time User” to proceed.

When the order form appears, select the “Switch to Duplication Order” button at the top of the screen.

Fill out the required fields, including the following fields under Order Information.

You will receive an email notification from LSU Special Collections when the PDF file has been scanned and uploaded to your account. Requests are typically filled within 3-5 business days.

Requestors looking for an LSU thesis or dissertation other than their own can follow these instructions, but will be charged a $25 fee. Those associated with a library system that uses Interlibrary Loan (ILL) can also choose to submit a request through their own institution’s ILL department.

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LSU Scholarly Repository

Browse research and scholarship follow, research unit, center, or department, graduate school, featured publications, e-textbooks, special collections and university archives, lsu faculty published books.

The LSU Scholarly Repository collects, preserves, publishes, and makes openly accessible the research and scholarship contributed by LSU faculty, staff, students, and units. Research and scholarly archived materials can include articles, monographs, books, theses & dissertations, audio-visual presentations, working papers, technical reports, conference proceedings, special collections, data, and publicly funded research.

Questions or concerns regarding the LSU Scholarly Repository should be directed to the Institutional Repository Librarian via e-mail at [email protected] .

Graduate Students: For further information regarding how to submit your thesis or dissertation, please click the following link: Thesis & Dissertation Preparation

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