Engineering Theses

• Make sure you have carefully cited your sources. 
• Proper attribution is required—it is part of academic integrity and good scholarship.
• ProQuest partners with Turnitin.com to identify plagiarized work.
• Your work will be indexed on Google and Google Scholar and un-cited text or ideas can be easily found. 
• If you have any questions about when or how to cite or tools to help, ask us. 

• When you apply for a job, will the name you use match the name you used for your thesis? 
• If you go on to an academic or professional career, will you continue to publish under the same name you used for your thesis? 
• Use your legal or preferred name or initials that will enable future researchers or potential employers to identify your work. 

• Your abstract should contain a concise description of the scope, purpose, results, and content of your work. 
• Abstract is the first thing a potential reader looks at to determine whether your thesis is worth their time to read. 
• Abstracts and keywords are used by search engines and databases to index your thesis, so they are critical in helping people find your work. 

• Images are often published without attribution, so it can be especially difficult to locate their copyright holders. 
• You can use a reverse image search engine to find out where an image came from, where it is being used, and whether higher resolution or modified versions of the image exist.
• TinEye Reverse Image Search
• Google Reverse Image Search
• If you have any questions about when or how to cite or tools to help, ask us. 

• If you plan to use images or other materials that are not yours, you need to seek permission from the copyright owner. 
• Unless something is clearly in the public domain or uses a license that allows reuse (e.g., Creative Commons license) assume copyright, even if you don’t see the ©️ symbol.
•  Sample Permission Letter: “Request to use in publication” available from ProQuest
• Copyright permission is not the same as attribution—you still need to cite the material properly. 

Students must be aware of the existence of copyright laws and are personally responsible for full compliance with the laws governing copyright. They must obtain copyright permission statements for any materials they intend to quote at length or reproduce in their manuscripts beyond the limits of fair use, including music, poems, short stories, tests, magazine or newspaper articles, photographs, and computer software.

1. If in doubt as to "fair use," consult The Copyright Handbook, by Stephen Fishman, or Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook by Lloyd Jassin and Steven Schechter, copies of which are in the Thomas G. Carpenter Library.  See the sample forms section for a form which a student may adapt to request permission from copyright owners.
2. If permission from the copyright holder is necessary to reproduce materials which a student wishes to include in the thesis/dissertation, the student should be very specific in the request, including the author/editor of the material, title, edition, publisher, date of publication, exact material to be used (inclusive page numbers, etc.), number of copies, how the material will be distributed, statement as to whether the material will be sold, type of reprint, and how the material will be used.
3. The library will not accept any documents which fail to comply with copyright law.

If you are using images, maps, or other illustrative material in your paper, there are several factors to keep in mind to ensure they are used in a manner consistent with the doctrine of fair use.  It is better to use images at a resolution adequate for your purposes, but not of such rich quality that they may encroach on any potential market for the original works.  Make sure that the images used are subject to a scholarly analysis, criticism or comment in your paper.  Do not use more of the work than necessary.  Attempt to gain permissions for any images you’ve used that are under copyright.  Gaining permissions may prove difficult.  Retain all documentation related to your efforts and submit such documentation to the Graduate School with your thesis or dissertation.