ETD Template Video

Watch the video below that outlines how to use the Microsoft Word template for the standard option format. This video is intended as a supplement to the accessibility video found on the accessibility requirements page.

Video Transcript

Note: The names of different accessibility styles are italicized in the following script to increase clarity.

Introduction

[00:00]

This is a video about how to use the ETD template that is provided by The Graduate School on MSU's ETD website. Before we jump into the template, I want to mention that this video assumes that you are already familiar with the MSU Grad School formatting guidelines.

[00:17]

If you have not already done so, go to the ETD homepage at montana.edu/etd and use the left side navigation to select the standard option or manuscript option formatting web page. I will select the standard option formatting page for this video, but these instructions will be applicable to both options. Once you are on the formatting page, follow the instructions and read through the sample pages, make sure you fully grasp double versus triple spacing, and read through the accessibility guidelines before you continue with this video. Once you are familiar with the formatting guidelines, you can download the Microsoft Word template provided by The Graduate School.

Structure of Template

[01:07]

I will start by describing the overall structure of the template. First, you have the “front matter.” This is everything from the title page through to the abstract. These pages use Roman numerals where applicable. Next, you have the body of the ETD. This will encompass the body of the ETD with all of your chapters. This begins at Arabic numeral page one for the introduction through to your conclusion. The ETD ends with the “end matter” or “back matter.” This includes your references and then appendices if you have them. There are a few different formatting styles for references and appendices depending on what all you have to include, so make sure to pick what applies to your document and then delete the sections that do not.

Accessibility Styles for Headings

[02:01]

Now let's go over some of the accessibility styles that we have built into the template. We'll start with the chapter titles and subheadings within the body of the ETD. We have built-in styles for:

  • Chapter Title
  • First Level Heading
  • Second Level Heading
  • Third Level Heading

[02:20]

These are the title and subheading styles you will use in the body of the ETD. The correct formatting is built into the style. Let's show how this works. I have a sample chapter written in another document. I'm going to copy and paste this into the template, either selecting to keep text only or merge formatting, so that my previous documents formatting does not carry over. Then I can apply the appropriate accessibility style by highlighting the text and selecting the correct accessibility style from the Home tab. You can see that the chapter title becomes centered, with no additional space above it and a triple space below. I will need to change this to all caps.

[03:21]

You also have the option within your ETD to write an extra “CHAPTER [NUMBER]” line above the actual title of your chapter. If you do this, you only want to use the Chapter Title accessibility style on the actual title of your chapter. Then you can manually make the “CHAPTER [NUMBER]” formatted correctly by using the paragraph line spacing options. You want zero points of space before, 24 points of space after, and line spacing to be single. You also want it to be centered. Remember to pick one way of formatting your chapter titles and stick with this throughout your entire document.

[04:13]

We can do the same thing to apply accessibility styles for first-, second-, and third-level headings. Highlight your heading text and apply the appropriate style. If you have a subheading that is so long that the text needs to be wrapped, like we do for this second level heading, you will need to remove the underline from this top line. You can do this manually by highlighting only the top line and then removing the underline. You can highlight the third level heading and select the Third Level Heading accessibility style.

Chapter Titles and Subheadings in the Automatic Table of Contents

[05:08]

Now we'll see how these connect to the Automatic Table of Contents. This page contains an Automatic Table of Contents that is pre-programmed with the Grad School's formatting requirements and programmed to work with the template’s accessibility styles. Right click within the field and select “Update Filed” and “Update Entire Field.” You can see that the titles and subheadings that we just added now appear in this Table of Contents.

[05:40]

When your Table of Contents is so long that it continues onto a second page, or more than one page, you will need to add the “TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTINUED” title on the following pages. To do this, place your cursor at the end of the last page number on the first page, hit “Enter,” and type “Table of Contents Continued.” Manually format this to be centered, all caps, with zero points of space before, 24 points of space after, single line spacing to put the same title spacing formatting on this.

[06:35]

You will need to redo this each time you update the Automatic Table of Contents field when you are making revisions while formatting your document. You do not need to worry about redoing these titles every single time you update your Table of Contents, just make sure that you remember to do this before submitting a draft to the Submission Portal.

Accessibility Styles for Titles

[07:00]

Now let's talk about the different title accessibility styles we have for the front matter and back matter in the template. We have built in different accessibility styles for these sections in order to work best with the Automatic Table of Contents. We have the

  • Front Matter Title
  • End Matter Title
  • Appendix Title

You'll want to use the Front Matter Title style on all of the titles within the front matter. You'll use the End Matter Title style on your References Cited and on some of your Appendices titles.

[07:42]

If you have just one appendix, you'll have the End Matter Title style on your actual appendix’s title and then you'll have this line for appendix underlined manually formatted just the same way that we manually formatted the “CHAPTER [NUMBER]” in our body.

[08:04]

If you have multiple appendices, the formatting is a little bit different. The appendices separator page will have the End Matter Title style and then the individual “APPENDIX [LETTER]” separator pages. Your “APPENDIX A” title itself will have the Appendix Title style and then this “APPENDIX [LETTER]” that is underlined will be manually formatted. This ensures that everything feeds correctly into the Automatic Table of Contents which we'll show in just a second.

[08:47]

The end matter of the template is built with these styles already. Ideally, you'll just delete the pages that are not applicable to you and then fill out what is. If you accidentally delete everything, you can refer back to this video to see how to rebuild them correctly.

End Matter in the Automatic Table of Contents

[09:05]

So, let's go back up to the Automatic Table of Contents. We can see that the End Matter Title style feeds in so that the line is not numbered, like we had our chapters numbered, and it's fully left justified. The Appendix Titles are not numbered, and they're left justified, but they're indented a little bit. That is how we have the formatting set up. Sometimes the Table of Contents will add space in between the Appendix Titles right here, so if you see that, you can just remove that space between them.

Accessibility Styles for Long Quotes and Captions

[09:49]

Now let's go over the remaining accessibility styles. We have

  • Long Quote
  • Figure’s Caption Above
  • Figure’s Caption Below
  • Table’s Caption Above
  • Table’s Caption Below

[10:04]

The Long Quote accessibility style formats quotes that are four or more lines long. Again, highlight the text, apply the style, and you can see that it formats the quote itself as indented and single spaced. There is just a regular double space above, double space below.

[10:27]

For the caption accessibility styles, we do have two styles each for figures and tables. So, you will need to pick one of these for your tables and one of these for your figures and stick with the same one throughout your entire document. So, for example, I am going to use Figure’s Caption Below in this example. If I were doing captions for many figures, all of them would have the caption below the figure. Apply the style just like any other style: highlight, apply the style. You can see that it made our caption single spaced, with a triple space below.

[11:08]

Now we still need to add the triple space above our figure separating it from paragraph text. You may need to figure out the best way to do this for your own document, but the example way I will do it in this video for my document is to place my cursor at the end of my last paragraph, hit “Enter,” and then modify the spacing of this new paragraph. You can see that this is a quadruple space right now when we only want it to be a triple space, so I am going to leave my cursor on the blank line of the new paragraph, I don't have anything highlighted, and now I am going to change the line spacing options and line spacing to single. So, now we have a resulting triple space.

[12:02]

When you're adding the accessibility styles to table captions and then changing the spacing on the other side of the table, you will just follow these exact same steps.

Automatic List of Figures and Automatic List of Tables

[12:14]

Now let's see how these captions work with our Automatic List of Figures. These two fields, the List of Figures and List of Tables, are similarly pre-programmed like our Automatic Table of Contents was programmed. So, we will just right click and “Update Entire Field.” You can see that our caption is now included in the List of Figures just like the Automatic Table of Contents.

If your List of Figures goes on to two or more pages, make sure that you add the “LIST OF FIGURES CONTINUED” titles on subsequent pages.

[12:55]

Additionally, there is a little bit of a bug in the numbering for the List of Tables and Figures in the template, but it is really easy to fix. We can see that the numbering no longer starts at one (although it should), so we will:

  • Highlight this number,
  • Right click on it,
  • Select the down carat arrow for “Numbering” on the wider dialog box,
  • “Set the numbering value,”
  • We will keep “Start a new list” selected,
  • But set the “Value” to “1,”
  • And hit “Okay.”

Now our numbering starts back at “1.”. Again, you do not need to do this every single time you update this field, but double check that you change this back to “1.” before you submit a draft to the Submission Portal.

[13:47]

If you feel uncomfortable using the Automatic Table of Contents, the List of Tables, or the List of Figures, you are welcome to delete the automatic version(s) and create your own manual version(s).

Conclusion

[14:00]

This concludes the video going over how to use the provided ETD template. I hope you found this video helpful. If you have any questions about formatting guidelines, remember to review the Sample Pages that we talked about at the beginning of this video, or feel free to contact us at [email protected]. If you have technical questions, the Formatting Advisor does not provide technical assistance, but we would suggest looking through our “How Do I…?” webpages for step-by-step guides on many of our commonly asked questions, and you can use search engines such as Google or ChatGPT. Thank you for watching this video and good luck with your formatting!