Below are some very important guidelines to pay attention to while writing your doctoral thesis. Make yourself familiar with them to avoid future inconvenience and frustration.
Please read and adhere to the document final thesis admission checklist when
compiling your thesis and submit the completed form together with the other requisite documents when uploading your thesis.
Before writing up, chat to your supervisor as he or she can provide you with some useful suggestions on best practices. Furthermore, it might be a good idea to have a look at some recent doctoral theses (use templates from 2015 and onwards)..
Remember your obligation to report your thesis progress at least once a year (please see forms below).
File type
Your thesis must be submitted as PDF/A file. Therefore, please read the guidelines for PDF/A conversion before you begin your writing.
The template file for the conversion to PDF/A must be in one of these formats:
- Microsoft Word
- PowerPoint
- WordPerfect
- PostScript
- HTML
- RTF
- OpenOffice (ODT)
- Hangul (HWP)
- Google Docs (submitted via the Google Drive submission option),
- plain text files
Some points on content
The thesis must include one English and one German abstract (about one A4 page each) as well as a table of contents.
Optimally, theses should end with your curriculum vitae that additionally contains a list of publications.
Pay special attention to the cover page, which must include:
- The MedUni Wien logo in the upper right hand side corner, thereafter centered
- Title of the doctoral thesis (avoid abbreviations)
- Doctoral Thesis at the Medical University of Vienna for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy/Doctor of Medical Science (choose the correct degree)
- Submitted by: your name
- Under the supervision of: the name of your supervisor (including the institute/center/department)
- Place and date of submission
Some suggestions for formatting the thesis:
- Font type: Arial
- Font size: 11 pt
- Line spacing: 1.5 lines
- Margin: 2-3 cm
- Pages should be printed only on one side
Your name must appear on the spine of the bound thesis
First author publication
In the PhD Program UN094, it is required to publish at least one first-author, peer-reviewed, original research paper, which must be accepted for publication before your defense. To avoid a situation whereby a single published paper might be inappropriately used to generate more than one degree (double dipping), it should be made clear to equal first authors who are both doctoral students that in the case whereby no additional research papers have been published separately, only one will be able to use the shared publication for their thesis.
Publication-based doctoral thesis
In addition to a monograph, a doctoral thesis may also be compiled using (one or more) published papers (recommended). Please note that the work has to be submitted formally as a doctoral thesis, including a cover page, German and English abstracts, an introduction, a discussion, and references. Additional sections apply. As a rule of thumb, the introduction and discussion chapters should comprise about 50% of the total length of the doctoral thesis.
You should concentrate on the main theme, ideally related to your first-author publication, whereby possible additional themes may be addressed as further outcomes/projects. Moreover, the contribution to the research work presented in the thesis of the candidate as well as other collaborators/co-authors should be declared so as to prevent any future misunderstandings about who did what.
Please see "thesis outline" below.
Plagiarism Check
A plagiarism check takes place after the submission of the completed doctoral thesis and before the thesis is sent out to the reviewers. Please read the information on plagiarism. Avoid any form of plagiarism and self-plagiarism and be aware of the serious consequences that result from this form of misconduct. You can find further information about this subject in the download section below.