Anna University PhD thesis format

Who sets the format, and which version applies

Anna University is an affiliating university, so its scholars are spread across the university departments in Chennai and hundreds of approved research centres. The format is the same for all of them, and CFR scrutinises every thesis against it before it goes to examiners.

• The rules are in the regulations themselves. The synopsis guidelines are Annexure I, and the thesis guidelines are Annexures II to V, which include specimen title, certificate, contents and symbols pages.
• There is an official template. A 2015 circular brought in a Word template (AUCFR-thesistemplate.dotx) and a LaTeX version, both on the CFR scholars page. Scholars are “strictly instructed not to alter the format”. It is much quicker to write inside the template than to reformat a finished draft.
• Circulars change the rules. Circulars from Research Board meetings have changed the Bonafide Certificate wording (2014), set the rule on page counts (2022) and amended R2025 (October 2025). Treat the CFR announcements page as part of the rulebook.

Order of pages

Section 3 of the thesis guidelines gives a fixed order. R2025 added two items at the end that R2020 did not have: the full text of your published papers and the first page of the plagiarism report.

After a successful viva, the final version you upload has two extra pages: a further certificate (Annexure VI) and a scanned copy of the minutes of the oral examination board. The regulations say both go between the title page and the Bonafide Certificate.

A curriculum vitae does not appear anywhere in the list. A 2013 CFR circular says it “should not be included in the thesis”, and the current regulations have not brought it back.

Page layout and typography

Anna University is unusually precise about layout, and CFR checks it. The key figures from the R2025 guidelines:

• Paper: A4 (297 × 210 mm) white bond paper, preferably at least 80 GSM. The bound thesis is trimmed to 290 × 205 mm.
• Margins: top 30–35 mm, bottom 25–30 mm, left 35–40 mm, right 20–25 mm. The wide left margin leaves room for binding.
• Body text: Times New Roman, size 13, at one-and-a-half line spacing. Scholars used to 12-point templates from other universities often get this wrong.
• Single spacing is used for long tables, long quotations, footnotes, multi-line captions and the references.
• Quotations longer than one line are indented 15 mm from both margins.
• Page numbers go at the top right, 20 mm from the top edge, with no punctuation. The preliminary pages use lower-case roman numerals. The title page counts as (i), but the number is not printed.
• Printing: black print, and from Chapter 1 onwards the thesis is printed on both sides.
• Hyphens and orphans: the last word on a page must not be split with a hyphen. A sub-heading near the bottom of a page needs at least two lines of text below it.

Headings of preliminary and end pages

Headings such as ABSTRACT, TABLE OF CONTENTS and REFERENCES are in capitals with no punctuation, centred 50 mm below the top of the page. The text starts four spaces below the heading.

Length

The main text must be 100 to 400 pages, counted from the first page of Chapter 1 and excluding the appendices and references. A June 2022 circular added that the main content must be at least 100 pages on its own. You cannot reach 100 pages with long appendices.

Chapters, headings and numbering

Each chapter opens in a fixed way. The word CHAPTER, with its number and no punctuation, is centred 50 mm from the top of the page. The chapter title is two spaces below it, centred in capitals. The text starts four spaces below the title, and the first line is indented 20 mm.

Within a chapter, sections use decimal numbering. The guidelines’ own example:

• CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
• 1.1 OUTLINE OF THESIS (section heading in capitals)
• 1.1.1 Literature Review (sub-section in title case)
• 1.1.1.1 Synthetic aperture radars on satellites (sentence case)

Section and sub-section headings are left-aligned. The text below them starts two spaces down, with the first line indented 20 mm. Footnotes are allowed but should be used “sparingly”, and they are single-spaced.

The regulations give the body text size (13) but do not set font sizes for chapter and section headings. Use the sizes built into the CFR template, and do not choose your own.

Tables, figures and equations

• Numbering is by chapter. For example, Table 2.1 or Figure 3.4. In the appendices it becomes, for example, Figure A 2.3.
• Caption position: table captions go above the table, and figure captions go below the figure. This is the most common thing scrutiny sends back.
• Tables that continue onto another page repeat the caption as “Table 2.1 (continued)”, centred.
• Placement: a table or figure of half a page or less can share a page with text, separated from it by triple spacing. Larger ones go on a page of their own, close to where they are first mentioned.
• Material from other sources is credited directly below it, for example “(Source: Jones et al. 2001)”, in Times New Roman 11.
• Equations are numbered by chapter, such as (4.8), and referred to in the text as “Equation (4.8)”.

References and citation style

Anna University prescribes an author–year system, close to Harvard. Numbered IEEE-style citations are not the CFR format, even in engineering. Scholars who have written all their papers in IEEE style often need to convert every citation in the thesis.

In the text

• One author: (Waldron 2008). Two authors: Conley & Galeson (1998). Three or more authors: Alishahi et al (2009).
• Several sources are cited in chronological order, for example (Midgley 1994; Smith 1994; Philip 2002).
• Works by the same author in the same year are marked 2005a, 2005b, and so on.
• The citation goes before the full stop.

In the reference list

The references start four spaces below the heading REFERENCES. They are single-spaced and in alphabetical order of first author. The guidelines give specimens for eleven source types, including journal articles, books, e-books, conference papers, websites, patents, unpublished theses and newspapers. A journal entry looks like this: Waldron, S 2008, ‘Generalized Welch bound equality sequences are tight frames’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 49, no. 9, pp. 2307-2309.

Your own publications

Your own papers are listed separately under List of Publications/Patents, with the journal’s impact factor where it has one. Do not put them in References. They count towards the publication requirement, so CFR checks them closely.

Bonafide Certificate and plagiarism report

The certificate page is headed “ANNA UNIVERSITY, CHENNAI 600 025, BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE”. It is typed in double spacing in Times New Roman 13, and it uses the wording in Annexure III. In short, you state that the research was carried out in your department and institution, that it is original and not part of any other thesis, and that you understand the university’s plagiarism policy and the thesis and publications are your own work. You sign it, and your supervisor or supervisors countersign.

• Give your supervisor’s academic designation only, not administrative roles such as Head or Dean. The word “SUPERVISOR” must be in capitals.
• If your supervisor has moved to an institution that is not recognised, put “Former” before their designation.

Similarity

CFR’s plagiarism policy has the similarity check run on Urkund (now called Ouriginal) through your supervisor’s login. You submit the report after reaching Level 0, which is similarity up to 10%. References, the table of contents, acknowledgements, standard equations and your own claimed publications are excluded from the count. Under the regulations, 10–40% means you must submit a revised thesis within six months, 40–60% means you are debarred for a year, and above 60% means your registration is cancelled. The page showing the similarity index is bound into the thesis. Our guide to plagiarism limits explains the UGC levels these are based on and how to read a report.

Synopsis, submission and copies

Before the synopsis

• You must have at least one full-length article published after joining, in a journal on CFR’s list. You must be the first author, or the second if your supervisor is first. At least one paper must have no more than four authors. A granted utility patent can count instead. Short communications and letters do not count.
• You must present two open seminars: one before confirmation of registration and one before the synopsis.

The synopsis

The synopsis is no more than 15 pages, including the list of publications. It has a cover and title page, the text under numbered headings, and up to 15 references in alphabetical order. It can include one or two tables or figures. The binding is black calico cloth with a flexible white art-paper cover. You present it at a Doctoral Committee meeting, which must be held in person, and you must bring the completed first draft of the thesis. The Committee then sends the approved synopsis to CFR with a panel of eight possible examiners, four in India and four abroad. If you need help getting the synopsis to this standard, see our proposal and synopsis support.

The thesis

• Upload a PDF and submit the hard copy within 90 days of the Committee approving the synopsis. The Director can extend this to a maximum of six months, with a late fee.
• Along with it, submit separate abstracts of about 400 words in English and Tamil, the checklist proforma, a No Dues Certificate and the Urkund report.
• After scrutiny, submit three copies of the corrected thesis. Bind them with side pinning or stitching and adhesive binding, in a white 300 GSM art-card wrapper, gloss laminated on the outside and printed in black. There is no coloured cloth cover.
• Upload a soft copy of the thesis and both abstracts through the CFR scholar login.

The viva

The thesis goes to two examiners, one in India and one abroad. The viva is an open defence, announced at least three weeks ahead, with at least ten people present besides the board. After the viva, you upload the corrected thesis, including the extra certificate and the board’s minutes. Anna University theses appear on INFLIBNET’s Shodhganga repository, but the CFR documents we reviewed describe only the upload through the CFR portal, not a separate Shodhganga step. Ask CFR how your final copy is deposited.

Pre-submission checklist

Go through this before you print. It covers what CFR’s own scrutiny checklist asks for, plus the format points most often sent back.

• Built on the official CFR template (Word .dotx or LaTeX), with its styles left as they are.
• Paper is A4. Margins are top 30–35 mm, bottom 25–30 mm, left 35–40 mm, right 20–25 mm.
• Body text is Times New Roman 13 at 1.5 spacing. Tables, long quotations, footnotes, multi-line captions and references are single-spaced.
• Page numbers are at the top right with no punctuation. Preliminary pages use roman numerals, and the title page number is not printed.
• Chapters 1 onwards are printed on both sides.
• The main text is 100–400 pages, counted from Chapter 1 and excluding appendices and references.
• The abstract is no longer than four pages. Separate abstracts of about 400 words are ready in English and Tamil.
• The Bonafide Certificate uses the current Annexure III wording. Supervisors are shown by academic designation only, and “SUPERVISOR” is in capitals.
• Your own papers are in List of Publications/Patents, not in References. The full papers (up to five) are attached as required by R2025.
• The plagiarism report’s first page is bound in, and the similarity is 10% or less after the permitted exclusions.
• The thesis title is exactly the same as the approved synopsis title.
• Language and grammar have been checked, and the checklist proforma and No Dues Certificate are signed.
• You are within 90 days of the Doctoral Committee approving your synopsis, or you have an approved extension.

Common mistakes

• Using 12-point text. The body text is 13-point Times New Roman.
• Using numbered IEEE citations because your papers used them. The thesis uses author–year citations and an alphabetical reference list.
• Listing your own papers in References instead of in List of Publications/Patents.
• Putting a CV at the end. It has not been allowed since 2013.
• Putting table captions below tables. Captions go above tables and below figures.
• Changing the title slightly between the synopsis and the thesis. The checklist requires them to match word for word.
• Not preparing the Tamil abstract. Scholars from outside Tamil Nadu often remember it only in the last week.
• Adding appendices to reach 100 pages. Appendices and references do not count towards the minimum.

Most of these are mechanical, but finding them across 200 pages is slow. If you want a check against the CFR specification before scrutiny, our thesis editing and proofreading service includes a format pass. The content and argument stay yours.