Managing Embedded Media and Appendices for Institutional Submission

Appendices and embedded media hold a specific and frequently misunderstood place in the dissertation submission process. Many authors treat them as supplements to the main document, material attached at the end, and assume that looser formatting standards apply. The standards are identical. Every page of the dissertation, including every page of every appendix and every frame of every embedded media file, is subject to the same margin, pagination, and formatting requirements as the body chapters.

Institutional reviewers and ProQuest apply those requirements throughout, and a submission rejected for appendix formatting delays the degree for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the research.

Appendix formatting. Each appendix begins on a new page with a heading that identifies it — "Appendix A," "Appendix B" — in the same heading style used for the body chapters. If the appendix has a title, the title appears on the same page as the heading, either on the same line or on the following line, according to the institutional template. Page numbering continues unbroken from the body of the dissertation through all appendices. Three errors recur: restarting pagination at the appendices, switching to a different numbering format, and inserting appendix pages without page numbers. Each must be corrected before the document is accepted.

Tables and figures within appendices. Tables and figures that appear in the appendices follow the same formatting rules as tables and figures in the body chapters — the same caption placement, the same numbering conventions, the same requirements for notes and source attribution. The numbering convention for appendix tables and figures is typically A1, A2 for Appendix A; B1, B2 for Appendix B — distinct from the sequential numbering used in the body chapters. This convention must be consistent. It must also be reflected accurately in the List of Tables and List of Figures in the front matter.

Landscape pages. When an appendix contains a table or figure that requires landscape orientation, the page is formatted accordingly, but the page number remains in the same position it would occupy on a portrait page. In practice that puts the number on the short edge of the page, rotated so that it reads correctly when the page is turned. Authors who place these page numbers in the standard header or footer position for a portrait document end up with them at the top or bottom of the rotated page, which is incorrect. The error is small. Institutional reviewers catch it consistently all the same.

Embedded media files. ProQuest accepts supplemental files — audio, video, datasets, and other media — as separate uploads accompanying the main PDF. At the point where the media is referenced, the main PDF should contain one of two things: an embedded still image representing the media file, with a caption identifying it, or a text placeholder that describes the media and indicates that it is available as a supplemental file. Authors who embed video or audio directly into the PDF frequently produce a file that exceeds ProQuest's size limits or does not render correctly in the ProQuest viewer. Upload the media as supplemental files.

IRB documentation in appendices. Dissertations involving human subjects research typically include IRB approval documentation as an appendix. The IRB approval letter should be reproduced as received, without reformatting. Margins are the usual difficulty, since IRB letters use institutional letterhead that often extends to the edge of the page. When the original document fails the dissertation's margin requirements, the author should consult with the institutional reviewer about the accepted convention for handling this specific type of document before submission.