On April 9, 2025, Graduate Council approved the following update to the Authorship Contributions policy for manuscript-style chapters in theses and dissertations. This update allows graduate programs to further specify requirements for first authorship in student’s dissertation chapters in accordance with discipline-specific norms.
Previous policy:
The student must be either the sole author or the first co-author of each article submitted as a manuscript chapter.
The student must be able to defend the entirety of the research in their thesis or dissertation. If the academic program allows chapters that are a collaborative effort with co-researchers or co-authors, each co-authored chapter must include an Author Contributions section, regardless of whether that work is unpublished, submitted for publication, or already published. This section should include the specific contributions of each author, including the author of the thesis or dissertation, with credit given according to the norms of the discipline. In addition, the Author Contributions section must include a declarative statement that every co-author agreed that the work may be included in this thesis or dissertation. If the student was unable to secure the response of every co-author, a statement should be included to indicate that due diligence was used to allow all co-authors an opportunity to respond.
For more information, including an Authorship Contributions template, see the theses and dissertations style manual.
Revised policy:
The student must be either the sole author or the first co-author of each article submitted as a manuscript chapter. Programs may allow equal (co-first) authored manuscripts to be used as chapters in accordance with the program’s policies in their Graduate Handbook on co-authorship in dissertations.
The student must be able to defend the entirety of the research in their thesis or dissertation. If the academic program allows chapters that are a collaborative effort with co-researchers or co-authors, each co-authored chapter must include an Author Contributions section, regardless of whether that work is unpublished, submitted for publication, or already published. This section should include the specific contributions of each author, including the author of the thesis or dissertation, with credit given according to the norms of the discipline. In addition, the Author Contributions section must include a declarative statement that every co-author agreed that the work may be included in this thesis or dissertation. If the student was unable to secure the response of every co-author, a statement should be included to indicate that due diligence was used to allow all co-authors an opportunity to respond.
For more information, including an Authorship Contributions template, see the theses and dissertations style manual.
