Avloryn LabsWhat is a thesis format?
A thesis format is the fixed structure and presentation an Indian university expects: a defined order of preliminary pages, set margins and spacing, consistent page numbering, a degree-appropriate chapter sequence, and a properly cited bibliography. Most Indian institutions follow the UGC and AICTE norms, with PhD theses additionally meeting Shodhganga (INFLIBNET) submission rules.
Getting the format right matters as much as the content — examiners and repositories reject theses for wrong margins, missing certificates, or page numbers that don't match the table of contents. This guide lays out every requirement, and shows how LivoDraft applies all of them automatically.
Thesis format at a glance
The standard UGC/Shodhganga page setup. Your university handbook overrides these where it differs — LivoDraft lets you change every value.
Preliminary pages — the correct order
Indian theses follow a fixed preliminary-page sequence. The abstract comes before the table of contents, and the list of tables precedes the list of figures — a common point students get wrong.
- Title pageunnumbered
- Supervisor's Certificatei
- Declarationii
- Acknowledgementsiii
- Abstractiv
- Table of Contentsv
- List of Tablesvi
- List of Figuresvii
- List of Abbreviationsviii
- DedicationOptional
- Chapter 1 — Introduction1
Common mistake: a blank page between the title page and certificate, or the abstract placed after the lists. LivoDraft fixes the page transitions and counts the certificate and declaration into the Roman numbering, so your table of contents always matches the real page numbers.
Page numbering rules
Indian theses use two numbering schemes in one document:
Preliminary pages → lowercase Roman
From the certificate onward, prelims are numbered i, ii, iii… The title page is counted but carries no printed number.
Main body → Arabic, restarting at 1
Chapter 1 restarts the count at 1 and continues through references and appendices. The two schemes must never overlap — a frequent cause of repository rejection.
Chapter structure by degree
The number and type of chapters scale with the degree. Below are the standard structures LivoDraft uses (each fully editable).
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Methodology
- Results & Discussion
- Conclusion
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Theoretical Framework
- Methodology
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Theoretical Framework
- Methodology
- Results
- Original Contribution
- Discussion
- Conclusion
Citations & references
Your department fixes the citation style; the rule that never changes is that every in-text citation must map to a real, complete reference. LivoDraft builds the bibliography from genuine, DOI-verified papers — never fabricated entries — in whichever of the six styles you choose:
Engineering departments usually require IEEE; medical and life-science theses use Vancouver; social sciences and management lean APA or Harvard. Read the full citation-styles guide to pick the right one.
Shodhganga (INFLIBNET) submission
Shodhganga is the national repository where Indian PhD theses are deposited under the UGC notification on electronic submission. Beyond the complete document, Shodhganga expects the thesis split into separate files — title, preliminary pages, each chapter, references and appendices — each following the UGC format above.
LivoDraft exports a Shodhganga-ready package for PhD theses — a clean chapter-by-chapter split alongside the full thesis, numbered in submission order, so you can upload to your university's INFLIBNET handle without manual cutting.
Get a perfectly formatted thesis — automatically
Tell LivoDraft your topic, degree and university. It drafts every chapter, applies the UGC/AICTE/Shodhganga format above, builds a real DOI-verified bibliography in your citation style, and hands you a print-ready Word file.
- ✓UGC / AICTE / Shodhganga formatting
- ✓Real DOI-verified references
- ✓Print-ready .docx