A thesis rarely has just one set of requirements.

Your university may establish general graduate requirements. Your graduate school may specify formatting and submission rules. Your department or academic program may have additional expectations. Research involving participants may require ethics approval. Your advisor or committee may also establish milestones for your particular project.

The challenge is that these requirements are often found in different places.

A student may receive information through:

• university policies,
• graduate school websites,
• department handbooks,
• program guides,
• research or ethics offices,
• advisor instructions,
• committee meetings,
• and emails or announcements.

Managing a thesis therefore involves more than knowing what research you want to conduct.

You also need to know:

What am I required to do, who requires it, and when does it need to happen?

Step 1: Identify every source of requirements

Start by identifying the organizations and people that can establish requirements for your project.

A typical hierarchy might look like:

University

↓

Graduate School

↓

College or School

↓

Department

↓

Academic Program

↓

Advisor or Thesis Committee

Your project may also involve another branch:

Research / Ethics Office

These levels do not necessarily replace one another.

A departmental requirement may exist in addition to a graduate school requirement.

For example, the graduate school might require a final thesis submission, while your department requires a proposal defense before research begins.

You may need to satisfy both.

Step 2: Separate universal requirements from program-specific requirements

Some requirements apply broadly to graduate students.

Others apply only to particular programs.

For example, a university might require:

Final thesis submission

Approved thesis formatting

Committee approval

while one department might additionally require:

Research proposal

Proposal defense

Literature review milestone

and another might require:

Research proposal

Ethics approval

Data management plan

Laboratory documentation

Oral defense

This is why copying another student's thesis checklist can be risky.

Even students at the same university may have different requirements.

Step 3: Record where each requirement came from

Do not track only the requirement itself.

Track its source.

Instead of writing:

Literature review due November 1

record:

Literature Review

Required by: English Department

Due: November 1

For another requirement:

Final Thesis Submission

Required by: Graduate School

Due: April 1

This becomes particularly useful if instructions conflict or you need clarification later.

You know where the requirement originated and whom you may need to contact.

Build a requirement record

For each important requirement, capture at least:

Field Example

Requirement Research Proposal

Source Department

Applies to MA Thesis Students

Due date October 15

Status In Progress

Documentation Department Thesis Guide

Notes Advisor approval required before submission

You may also need to record links, forms, submission instructions, approval steps, or related documents.

The goal is to create a reliable record rather than relying on memory.

Step 4: Distinguish requirements from milestones

Not everything you track has the same purpose.

A requirement is something your institution, program, or advisor expects you to complete.

A milestone is a planning point that helps you reach that requirement.

Suppose your department requires:

Research proposal due October 15

Your milestones might include:

September 10 — finalize research question

September 20 — complete preliminary literature review

October 1 — complete proposal draft

October 7 — advisor review

October 15 — submit proposal

Only the final date may be the official requirement.

The earlier dates help you reach it.

Keeping the distinction clear prevents your planning system from becoming a collection of deadlines without context.

Step 5: Identify dependencies

Some thesis requirements cannot happen until another requirement has been completed.

For example:

Research Question

↓

Research Proposal

↓

Ethics Approval

↓

Participant Recruitment

↓

Data Collection

If your research requires ethics approval, beginning participant research before receiving the required approval could create a serious problem.

Other dependencies may be administrative.

For example:

Committee Formation

↓

Proposal Approval

↓

Thesis Registration

↓

Final Defense

Understanding these relationships helps you see that some deadlines are more consequential than others.

A delay early in the sequence may affect several later requirements.

Step 6: Pay attention to requirements from outside your department

Students often focus on their academic department because that is where most of their day-to-day communication happens.

But important requirements may originate elsewhere.

Depending on the project and institution, these could include:

Graduate School

Formatting, submission, graduation, committee, or defense requirements.

Research Ethics Office / IRB

Human-participant research and related approvals.

Library or Repository

Electronic thesis submission or archival requirements.

International Programs

Requirements that may affect some students' academic status or timelines.

Funding Organizations

Reporting or research conditions associated with grants or scholarships.

Your department may help explain these requirements, but it may not be the authority that establishes them.

Example: Two students at the same university

Consider two graduate students.

Student A — English

The program requires:

• thesis proposal,
• literature review,
• original research or scholarly analysis,
• final thesis,
• oral defense.

Student B — Biology

The program requires:

• research proposal,
• research ethics approval when applicable,
• methodology and data plan,
• data analysis,
• final thesis,
• oral defense.

Both students are completing theses.

Both may also follow the same university-wide submission requirements.

But their paths are not identical.

This is why a thesis requirements system needs to reflect your project, your program, and your institution.

Step 7: Give every requirement a status

A long list becomes much easier to manage when each requirement has a clear status.

A simple system might use:

Not Started

In Progress

Waiting

Completed

You may also want a status for:

Needs Clarification

That last category can be especially valuable.

If you discover conflicting information about a deadline or formatting rule, do not guess.

Mark it for clarification and ask the appropriate department, advisor, or institutional office.

Step 8: Track changes

Requirements can change during a long research project.

A department may publish a new handbook.

Your committee may request an additional step.

A deadline may move.

Your research method may change in a way that introduces an ethics or data requirement.

When something important changes, update your requirements record.

For major requirements, it can also be useful to retain the source document or note when you confirmed the information.

Do not wait until final submission

Requirements should guide the thesis from the beginning.

Formatting is an obvious example.

If your institution requires particular front matter, section organization, figures and tables, citations, appendices, or submission components, knowing those expectations early can prevent extensive corrections later.

The same principle applies to research procedures.

If surveys, interviews, participant data, or other research activities require approval, you need to know that before conducting the research, not while preparing the final thesis.

Create one source of truth for your project

Once you have collected your requirements, avoid maintaining several competing checklists.

You do not want:

one list in your email,

another in a notebook,

a deadline in your calendar,

department requirements in a PDF,

and advisor instructions somewhere else.

The original documents should remain available for verification, but your working project should have one central place where you can see what applies to you.

A useful overview might show:

Requirement → Source → Due Date → Status → Next Action

That makes requirements part of the research workflow rather than something you remember only when a deadline approaches.

Review your requirements at important transition points

You do not necessarily need to check every requirement every day.

Instead, review them when the project moves into a new phase.

Useful checkpoints include:

Beginning the project

Finalizing the research question

Preparing the proposal

Before collecting data

Beginning the first draft

Preparing for defense

Preparing final submission

At each checkpoint, ask:

What requirements apply to the phase I am entering?

This keeps the administrative side of the thesis connected to the actual research process.

When requirements conflict

You may occasionally find instructions that appear inconsistent.

For example, a department handbook may describe one formatting rule while a newer graduate school guide describes another.

Do not simply choose whichever rule seems easier.

Check:

1. whether both documents are current,
2. whether they apply to the same program or degree,
3. whether one requirement is more specific,
4. and which office has authority over the requirement.

When necessary, ask your advisor, department, graduate school, or appropriate institutional office for clarification.

Record the answer with your requirement so you do not have to solve the same problem again later.

How ThesisHub supports thesis requirements

ThesisHub allows research requirements to remain part of the project rather than existing as a separate checklist that becomes disconnected from the research.

You can use your project requirements to keep track of what your institution or program expects while also working through your Research Journey, structure, research notes, surveys and interviews, figures and tables, writing, and eventual publication.

That means a requirement such as:

Complete research ethics approval

can remain visible alongside the research activities it affects.

A requirement such as:

Prepare List of Figures

can remain connected to a project where figures are already being organized.

And a requirement such as:

Final DOCX submission

can be considered throughout the project rather than only at the end.

ThesisHub does not determine your university's requirements.

Your institution remains the authority.

The goal is to give you one place to organize the requirements that apply to your thesis.

Continue Your Research in ThesisHub

Use ThesisHub's Research Requirements and Research Journey to record important requirements, track progress, and keep institutional expectations visible as your project develops.

Always verify requirements with your university, graduate school, department, advisor, or appropriate research office when necessary.

Know what's required. Know what's next. Keep it connected to your research.