Preparation of a Doctoral Thesis

The decision to initiate preparation of the doctoral thesis shall be made by the student and his/her supervisor in consultation with the Supervisory Committee. Members of the committee must indicate in writing that the thesis is of adequate substance to warrant that the student proceed to the final examination. As a general guideline, the Department of Cell Biology expects successful graduates to have published a minimum of 2 first-author manuscripts. For more information on preparing your thesis please refer to the Faculty of Graduate Studies website, “Preparing Your Thesis” link at http://www.gradstudies.ualberta.ca/degreesuperv/thesis.aspx. The student shall prepare the thesis according to the following guidelines:

Introduction
The thesis should start with a general introduction that provides the reader with up to date information on the problem(s) addressed in the thesis. The introduction should be thorough and scholarly.

Experimental Procedures
All methods used to carry out the work must be described in the thesis. The description of methods should be detailed enough to allow replication of the work. Experimental procedures can be grouped together in a single chapter at the beginning of the thesis or be included in individual sections in the chapter where they are first used.

Experimental Results
These sections are generally derived with minimal changes from published or submitted manuscripts as follows.

• If the material presented in a chapter has been submitted for publication or is already published, the student should give the complete reference for the paper. For multi-author manuscripts, the specific contributions of each author must be described.
  
  
• Modified abstracts may be sufficient as introductions to these chapters. If deemed necessary, a longer introduction derived from the manuscript can be included, but it should be updated to reflect significant advances published since submission of the manuscript.
  
  
• Results described as data not shown in a submitted/published manuscript must be presented in full in the thesis.
  
  
• Where applicable, half-tones must be provided. Xerox reproductions of half-tone results are not acceptable.
  

Discussion
In addition to the discussion included at the end of each experimental chapter, the student must provide a general discussion that integrates the results presented in the thesis and suggests avenues for future studies.

Bibliography
All references should be compiled together at the end of the thesis and use a uniform format similar to that of the J. Cell Biol. that includes all authors as well as the title of the manuscript..

The student may also wish to consult a booklet produced by the FGSR titled:
Thesis Handbook: A Manual of Regulations and Guidelines for Thesis Preparation that is available at: http://www.gradstudies.ualberta.ca/degreesuperv/thesis/~/media/Faculty%20of%20Graduate%20Studies/degreesuperv/thesis/thesisspecs.pdf. It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that the thesis conforms to the current regulations contained in this guide.