Thesis format review where every page is measured and cited to your manual, and people make every decision
A cited, page-level format report in minutes, and one review round instead of three.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Thesis & Dissertation Format Review is thesis format review done with agents: it checks theses and dissertations against the graduate school's format manual, copyright permissions and embargo rules before a degree is conferred. Seven agents measure every page, check the front matter against the student record, read the license behind every reused figure, draft alternative text, test embargo requests against their evidence and re-check only what changed on a resubmission. Format reviewers decide every flag, a second person checks every acceptance, and the associate dean signs embargoes of two years or more.
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Thesis format review is the graduate school's last check before a degree is conferred. A format reviewer reads every page of a 300-page PDF against the format manual: margins, page numbers, fonts, line spacing, heading levels, the title page, the abstract and every page reference in the contents. Then come the checks beyond format: copyright permission for every reprinted or adapted figure, the embargo the student asked for, and the committee's signatures.
The reviewer annotates the PDF by hand and sends it back. When the student resubmits, nothing says which pages changed, so the reviewer reads all of it again: about three rounds per student, each waiting in a queue that fills in the weeks before the deposit deadline. Reviewers check that a permission letter exists, rarely whether it covers electronic distribution in the repository, and an embargo reason is a ticked box. Thesis & Dissertation Format Review gives the measuring and reading to seven agents, cites every flag to the manual's section and page, and keeps every decision with people.
Estimated split for one dissertation: before, about three rounds of review at the 5–7 business days per re-review that graduate schools publish; after, the 5-hour median first report and same-day re-check seen in the working solution, with one round of changes. The student's own revision time is not counted. Our arithmetic, kept modest.
Seven agents measure every page, read every license and test the embargo; a reviewer accepts and a second person checks.
ETD-27-0418: Lucía Ferrante-Odum's Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry at Halden State University, "Earth-Abundant Metal Catalysts for Selective C–H Activation". 312 pages, 38 figures, 9 of them reused from published work, a committee of four, and a spring deposit deadline of April 23, 2027. Here is what happens to it, screen by screen, in the working solution.
The ETD system sends the submission, and the Intake coordinator confirms all four committee signatures and the degree record. In 6 minutes the agents measure all 312 pages against Format Manual 2026–27, v4.1 and raise 23 flags. The page grid draws every page as a thumbnail with translucent one-inch rulers over it; a page that breaks a rule glows at the edge it breaks.
Grant clicks Margins in the column of rules, and every page dims except the three that cross a margin: page 87 at the right edge, page 142 at the bottom and page 205 at the left. He works the manual rule by rule, not page by page.
The page opens at full size with rulers labeled in inches. Figure 4.6 crosses the right margin by 0.31 inch: 0.69 inch measured against the 1.0 inch §2.1 requires, at confidence 0.99. Its caption says it was adapted from a 2021 journal article, with no license attached under §5.1. Grant keeps both flags; he could dismiss either with a reason or ask about the page.
Scale Figure 4.6 to 92% of its width, or move its legend below the plot.
The degree line reads "Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry"; the student information system records Doctor of Philosophy with the major on its own line. The abstract runs 412 words against a 350-word limit, and the agent marks the two sentences that repeat Chapter 7. The contents list Chapter 5 on page 131 when it begins on 133.
Seven of the nine items are cleared by a license, a permission letter, an open license, the public domain or the librarian's fair-use decision. Figure 1.3's license covers print only, and Figure 4.6 has none. The agent drafts the request to the publisher for Lucía to send.
The agent never decides fair use; that is the librarian's call.
Grant dismisses two flags with reason FR-03, because manual §4.3 lets a landscape page's number rotate with the page, and confirms 21. The agents drafted the report; Grant sends it. Lucía reads it at 11:02 AM: each item has its page, the manual section and a Word or LaTeX hint, and she asks how to keep Figure 4.6 inside the margin.
\includegraphics[width=6.27in]{fig4-6} puts the right margin at 1.23 in and keeps the smallest label at 8.3 pt.
Lucía resubmits with the publisher's license for Figure 4.6, an electronic license for Figure 1.3 and her approval of the 14 alternative texts the Accessibility agent drafted. The agent reads license 5218840391207 and answers each question: reuse in a dissertation, print, electronic including the repository, and adaptation are all permitted.
The agent fingerprints all 312 pages: 9 changed and 303 are identical. It re-measures the 9 changed pages against every rule and finds nothing. Open flags fall from 23 to 0, and Grant reads nine pages, not 312.
Grant accepts with reason AC-01, every format requirement met. Renata Solberg, the ETD program manager, checks his acceptance at 9:30 AM. Acceptance alone deposits nothing, and the person who accepts can never be the person who checks.
The Embargo agent ran five tests against §7.2, including that the public abstract does not give away the protected ligands, and found invention disclosure HSU-INV-2026-117 and a provisional application filed February 3, 2027. Dr. Desrosiers signs. The dissertation is deposited with the full text held until May 15, 2029, and the format requirement is cleared for the May 15 conferral, 11 days before the deadline.
One dissertation, seen by the five people who carry it through the format review: what their day looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven agents measure every page, read every license and test the embargo; a reviewer accepts and a second person checks.
Picks up each submission from the ETD system, reads the committee signatures from e-signature and the degree from the student information system, runs the other agents in order and keeps the deadline clock.
Measures every page: the four margins, the page-number position, the font family and size, the line spacing, and each heading's level and style, each breach cited to the manual's section and page.
Checks the title page against the student record, counts the abstract's words, and checks every page reference in the contents and the lists of tables and figures.
Finds every "reprinted from" and "adapted from" caption, matches it to a license or a permission letter, reads what the license allows, and drafts the request when one is missing.
Checks alternative text on every figure and the heading tags in the PDF, and drafts alternative text for every figure without it.
Compares the request with its reason and the evidence on file, checks that the public abstract does not give away what the embargo protects, and sets the release date in the repository.
Fingerprints every page of every round. On a resubmission it re-checks only the pages that changed and the attachments, and proves the rest identical.
Accepts with a reason; a second person checks. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Reviewers ask the assistant about any submission or tell it what to look at; students ask about their own report. Every answer cites the manual's section and page.
Why is page 87 flagged?
Two reasons. Figure 4.6 crosses the right margin by 0.31 in: the margin measures 0.69 in against the 1.0 in the manual requires (§2.1, p. 6). And its caption says "Adapted from Varga, Lindholm and Osei (2021)" with no license attached (§5.1, p. 18). In round 2 Lucía scaled the figure to 92% and uploaded the publisher's license; both are cleared.
Which reused figures still need a license?
None now. In round 1, two of the nine reused items fell short: Figure 4.6 had no license, and the license for Figure 1.3 covered print only. Lucía uploaded both on April 11, and each was read for its scope: thesis use, print and electronic. Two other items are the librarian's fair-use decisions, recorded by Theo Brannigan.
Can a two-year patent embargo be approved here?
Yes, by the associate dean: an embargo of two years or more needs her signature, up to a five-year maximum (§7.2, p. 24). The evidence matches the reason, invention disclosure HSU-INV-2026-117 and a provisional application filed February 3, 2027, and the public abstract does not name the protected ligands. Release would be May 15, 2029.
Which submissions are at risk of the April 23 deadline?
Seven. The oldest two: Nnamdi Okeke-Larsen is format-clean but one committee signature has been missing since April 2, and Rafael Quintanilla's co-author statement for Chapter 2 has been missing since April 5. Grant is carrying 48 open submissions, the most on the team; moving 12 to Joel Fairbanks evens the load.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Who decides, how fast, how long an embargo may run and how sure an agent must be are the graduate school's settings, each change versioned on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Who checks an acceptance before deposit | Renata Solberg, ETD program manager | Or any senior format reviewer; a person never checks their own acceptance, always on |
| First report to the student within | 1 business day | 1 to 5 business days, counted from submission |
| Escalate a submission not accepted | 5 business days before the deposit deadline | 3 · 5 · 10 business days before |
| Escalate a missing committee signature after | 3 days | 3 · 5 · 7 days, to the department chair with the program manager copied |
| The associate dean signs embargoes of | 2 years or more | 1, 2 or 3 years or more; longest embargo 5, 3 or 2 years, and a renewal is a new request |
| Who may open unpublished work | The student, the committee, the graduate school's reviewers | Or the student and the reviewers only; every view written to the audit trail, always on |
| Keep review records for | 5 years after conferral | 5 years · 7 years · permanently; other students redacted on export |
| A person looks at the page below confidence | 0.85 | In steps of 0.05 up to 0.99; agent versions pinned to the manual edition |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
Sources: NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates, about 57,000 US research doctorates a year · published graduate school ETD review times: 2.4–2.5 average reviews per student and 4.7 business days in fall, 10.0 in spring per review including the wait, North Dakota State University Graduate School (ndsu.edu); 5–10 business days for a first review and 5–7 for each re-review, University of South Florida Graduate Studies (usf.edu) · "target" = design goal, measured in the live solution · "demo" = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · "typical" = published figures · "estimated" = our arithmetic. Halden State University, its format manual, and the people, dissertations, journals, licenses and disclosures named on this page are fictional: characters and sample data in the working solution.
Thesis & Dissertation Format Review is thesis format review done with agents: it checks theses and dissertations against the graduate school's format manual, copyright permissions and embargo rules before a degree is conferred. Seven agents measure every page, check the front matter against the student record, read the license behind every reused figure, draft alternative text, test embargo requests against their evidence and re-check only what changed on a resubmission. Format reviewers decide every flag, a second person checks every acceptance, and the associate dean signs embargoes of two years or more.
In the working solution: the four margins, page-number position, fonts and sizes, line spacing and heading levels on every page; the title page against the student information system; the abstract's length; every page reference in the contents and lists; copyright permission for every reprinted or adapted item; alternative text and heading tags; the embargo request; and the committee's signatures. Every flag cites the manual's section and page.
Graduate schools publish 5–10 business days for a first review and 5–7 for each re-review, and one reports an average of 2.4–2.5 reviews per student. In the working solution, the agents measured a 312-page dissertation in 6 minutes, the median first report this spring was 5 hours, and a resubmission was re-checked in 3 minutes. The design goal is one round of changes instead of three, measured in the live solution.
Yes. The Permissions agent finds every "reprinted from" and "adapted from" caption, matches it to a license or letter, and reads what it allows: thesis use, print, electronic including the repository, and adaptation. When a license is missing it drafts the request for the student to send. It never decides fair use; that goes to the scholarly communications librarian.
That is the graduate school's setting. In the working solution, a student may request up to one year with the advisor's endorsement, the associate dean signs two years or more, and no embargo exceeds five years. The Embargo agent tests the reason against the evidence on file and checks the public abstract, but never grants, shortens or declines an embargo.
Yes. The Accessibility agent checks alternative text on every figure and the heading tags in the PDF, and drafts alternative text for each figure without it. Nothing is written into the PDF until the student approves each text. In the demo, it drafted 14 for a dissertation with 38 figures.
Yes. Agents measure, read and draft; they never accept, sign, send a report or deposit. A reviewer confirms or dismisses every flag with a reason code, the ETD program manager checks every acceptance before deposit, and a person never checks their own acceptance.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents: your format manual by edition, your embargo policy, and your ETD system, student information system and repository. It goes live once every quality gate has passed.
Two blind votes on every record, a person on each conflict, every number tied to its page.
1-min demoArchival Transcription & Finding AidsBacklogs described in weeks, not years, with every line approved by an archivist.
1-min demoResearch Integrity ScreeningDuplicated figures fixed before submission, not retracted after publication.
1-min demoWe'll run Thesis & Dissertation Format Review on a sample of your own submissions and your format manual.