Anna University PhD thesis format

Who sets the format, and which version applies

Anna University is an affiliating university. Its scholars are working in the university departments in Chennai and also in hundreds of approved research centres. All of them follow one format only, and CFR checks every thesis against it before sending it to the examiners.

• The rules are in the regulations themselves. Annexure I has the synopsis guidelines. Annexures II to V have the thesis guidelines, along with specimen pages for the title, certificate, contents and symbols.
• There is an official template. In 2015 a circular introduced a Word template (AUCFR-thesistemplate.dotx) and also a LaTeX version. Both are on the CFR scholars page. In the circular itself scholars are “strictly instructed not to alter the format”, so start your chapters in the template from day one. Shifting a finished draft into it at the end eats many days.
• Circulars change the rules. Research Board meetings have put out circulars that changed the Bonafide Certificate wording (2014), fixed the rule on page counts (2022) and amended R2025 (October 2025). Keep checking the CFR announcements page, since it is part of the rulebook.

Order of pages

Section 3 of the thesis guidelines fixes the order of pages. R2025 added two items at the end which R2020 did not have. One is the full text of your published papers, and the other is the first page of the plagiarism report.

Cite this data: PhD Desk, “Anna University PhD thesis format”, last reviewed 1 November 2026, https://phddesk.in/guides/thesis-format-anna-university

Once the viva is over, the final version you upload will have two more pages. The first is one more certificate (Annexure VI). The second is a scanned copy of the minutes of the oral examination board. As per the regulations, both of these go between the title page and the Bonafide Certificate.

You will not find a curriculum vitae anywhere in this list. A CFR circular of 2013 says it “should not be included in the thesis”, and the current regulations have not added it back.

Page layout and typography

CFR checks the layout closely, and Anna University gives exact numbers for everything. The main figures from the R2025 guidelines are listed below.

• Paper: A4 (297 × 210 mm) white bond paper, 80 GSM or above if possible. Binding is done first and then the edges are trimmed to 290 × 205 mm.
• Margins: keep 30–35 mm at top, 25–30 mm at bottom, 35–40 mm on left and 20–25 mm on right side. Left side gets more space since the binding eats into that edge.
• Body text: use Times New Roman size 13 at one-and-a-half spacing. Scholars used to 12-point templates of other universities are many times getting this wrong.
• Single spacing is for long tables, long quotations, footnotes, multi-line captions and the references.
• Quotations running more than one line are indented 15 mm from both the margins.
• Page numbers come at the top right, 20 mm below the top edge, without any punctuation. Preliminary pages take lower-case roman numerals. The title page is counted as (i), but that number is not printed.
• Printing: everything is printed in black. From Chapter 1 onwards the thesis is printed on both sides.
• Hyphens and orphans: do not break the last word of a page with a hyphen. A sub-heading near the page bottom needs minimum two lines of text under it on that page.

Headings of preliminary and end pages

Headings like ABSTRACT, TABLE OF CONTENTS and REFERENCES are typed in capitals without punctuation. They are centred, 50 mm below the top of the page. Below such a heading you leave four spaces, and the text comes after that.

Length

The main text has to be 100 to 400 pages. Count from the first page of Chapter 1 and leave out the appendices and references. A circular in June 2022 settled this doubt. Main content by itself needs 100 pages minimum. Adding long appendices will not help you reach that number.

Chapters, headings and numbering

Every chapter starts in the same fixed way. The word CHAPTER and its number, without punctuation, are centred 50 mm from the top of the page. Two spaces below that comes the chapter title, centred and in capitals. The text begins four spaces below the title, and its first line is indented 20 mm.

Sections and sub-sections inside a chapter get decimal numbers. The example below is the one given in the guidelines.

• CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
• 1.1 OUTLINE OF THESIS (section heading in capitals)
• 1.1.1 Literature Review (sub-section in title case)
• 1.1.1.1 Synthetic aperture radars on satellites (sentence case)

Section and sub-section headings are aligned to the left. Leave two spaces below them before the text starts, and indent the first line 20 mm. Footnotes are allowed. The guidelines say “sparingly”, so keep them few, and they are typed in single spacing.

For the body text the regulations gives size 13. For chapter and section headings they do not give any font size. Take the sizes already set in the CFR template and don’t pick your own.

Tables, figures and equations

• Numbering is by chapter. So you get Table 2.1 or Figure 3.4. Inside the appendices it changes to a form like Figure A 2.3.
• Caption position: the table caption goes above the table, and the figure caption goes below the figure. Scrutiny sends this point back more than anything else.
• Tables that continue onto another page carry the caption again on the next page as “Table 2.1 (continued)”, centred.
• Placement: a table or figure of half page or less can come on the same page as the text. Just leave triple spacing between the two. Anything bigger gets a page of its own, close to the place where you first mention it.
• Material from other sources needs a credit line just below it in Times New Roman 11, like “(Source: Jones et al. 2001)”.
• Equations also get chapter-wise numbers such as (4.8). In the text you refer to them as “Equation (4.8)”.

References and citation style

Anna University follows an author–year system which is close to Harvard. Even in engineering, numbered IEEE-style citations are not the CFR format. Scholars who wrote all their papers in IEEE style mostly have to convert every citation in the thesis.

In the text

• One author: (Waldron 2008). Two authors: Conley & Galeson (1998). Three or more authors: Alishahi et al (2009).
• When you cite several sources together, put them in chronological order, like (Midgley 1994; Smith 1994; Philip 2002).
• If the same author has two works in the same year, mark them as 2005a, 2005b and so on.
• Put the citation before the full stop.

In the reference list

Start the references four spaces below the heading REFERENCES. Keep them single-spaced and in alphabetical order of first author. The guidelines have specimens for eleven types of source, such as journal articles, books, e-books, conference papers, websites, patents, unpublished theses and newspapers. For a journal paper, the entry is written in this way. Waldron, S 2008, ‘Generalized Welch bound equality sequences are tight frames’, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 49, no. 9, pp. 2307-2309.

Your own publications

Your own papers are listed separately under List of Publications/Patents, with the journal’s impact factor if it has one. They should not come in References. CFR looks at this list closely, because these papers are counted for the publication requirement.

Bonafide Certificate and plagiarism report

The heading of the certificate page is “ANNA UNIVERSITY, CHENNAI 600 025, BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE”. Type it in double spacing, in Times New Roman 13, using the wording of Annexure III. Basically you are declaring a few things. The research was done in your department and institution. The work is original and is not part of any other thesis. You have understood the plagiarism policy of the university, and the thesis and the publications are your own work. You sign the certificate, and your supervisor or supervisors countersign it.

• Write your supervisor’s academic designation only. Administrative posts like Head or Dean are not written. The word “SUPERVISOR” has to be in capitals.
• Suppose your guide has moved to an institution that is not recognised. Then “Former” has to come before the designation.

Similarity

As per CFR’s plagiarism policy, the similarity check is done on Urkund (now called Ouriginal) using your supervisor’s login. The report is submitted only after you reach Level 0, which is similarity up to 10%. The count leaves out references, the table of contents, acknowledgements, standard equations and your own claimed publications. If your score is higher, the regulations are strict about it. Between 10–40% you have to submit a revised thesis within six months. For 40–60% you are debarred for one year, and above 60% the registration is cancelled. The page with the similarity index gets bound into the thesis. For the UGC levels behind these numbers, and for how to read a report, see our guide to plagiarism limits.

Synopsis, submission and copies

Before the synopsis

• After joining, you need at least one full-length article published in a journal from CFR’s list. You should be the first author, or the second author if your supervisor is first. At least one paper must have four authors or fewer. A granted utility patent can be counted in its place. Short communications and letters are not counted.
• You have to give two open seminars. One comes before confirmation of registration and the other comes before the synopsis.

The synopsis

The synopsis can be no more than 15 pages, and this includes the list of publications. It has a cover and a title page, then the text under numbered headings, and at most 15 references in alphabetical order. One or two tables or figures are allowed. It is bound in black calico cloth with a flexible white art-paper cover. You present it in a Doctoral Committee meeting, and that meeting must happen in person. Bring completed first draft of the thesis with you. After that the Committee forwards the approved synopsis to CFR along with a panel of eight possible examiners, four from India and four from abroad. For help with this, see our proposal and synopsis support.

The thesis

• Upload the PDF and hand over the hard copy within 90 days of the Committee approving the synopsis. The Director can extend this up to six months at most, with a late fee.
• With the thesis, you also submit separate abstracts of about 400 words in English and Tamil. The checklist proforma, a No Dues Certificate and the Urkund report go along with them.
• After scrutiny, three copies of the corrected thesis go to the university. The binding is side pinning or stitching, plus adhesive binding. The wrapper is white 300 GSM art card, gloss laminated on the outside and printed in black. No coloured cloth cover is used.
• Through the CFR scholar login, upload a soft copy of the thesis and both the abstracts.

The viva

Two examiners read the thesis, one from India and one from abroad. The viva is an open defence. It is announced at least three weeks before, and apart from the board at least ten people should be present. After the viva you upload the corrected thesis, with the extra certificate and the minutes of the board. Anna University theses do appear on INFLIBNET’s Shodhganga repository. But the CFR documents we went through mention only the upload on the CFR portal, not a separate Shodhganga step. Better to discuss about it with CFR and find out how your final copy gets deposited.

Pre-submission checklist

Check these points once before you go for printing. The list follows what CFR’s own scrutiny checklist asks, and also the format points that mostly get sent back.

• You have used the official CFR template (Word .dotx or LaTeX) and not changed any of its styles.
• Paper size is A4, with margins of top 30–35 mm, bottom 25–30 mm, left 35–40 mm and right 20–25 mm.
• Body text is in Times New Roman 13 with 1.5 spacing. Single spacing is used only for tables, long quotations, footnotes, multi-line captions and references.
• Page numbers sit at the top right without punctuation. Preliminary pages have roman numerals, and no number is printed on the title page.
• From Chapter 1 onwards, the pages are printed on both sides.
• Main text comes to 100–400 pages counted from Chapter 1, and appendices and references are not part of that count.
• The abstract inside the thesis is within four pages. Separate abstracts of about 400 words are kept ready in English and Tamil.
• The Bonafide Certificate has the current Annexure III wording. For your guide only the academic designation is shown there, and “SUPERVISOR” comes in capital letters.
• Your own papers are under List of Publications/Patents and not under References. The full papers (up to five) are attached as R2025 asks.
• The first page of the plagiarism report is bound in, and similarity is 10% or less after the permitted exclusions.
• The thesis title is exactly the same as the title in the approved synopsis.
• Language and grammar are checked, and the checklist proforma and No Dues Certificate are signed.
• You are submitting within 90 days of the Doctoral Committee approving your synopsis, or you have got an approved extension.

Common mistakes

• Using 12-point text. Body text has to be in 13-point Times New Roman.
• Using numbered IEEE citations because your papers had them. In the thesis you need author–year citations with an alphabetical reference list.
• Listing your own papers in References when they belong in List of Publications/Patents.
• Putting a CV at the end. This is not allowed from 2013 onwards.
• Putting table captions below tables. For tables the caption goes on top, and for figures it goes below.
• Changing the title slightly from synopsis to thesis. As per the checklist, both must match word for word.
• Not preparing the Tamil abstract. Many times scholars from outside Tamil Nadu remember it only in the final week.
• Adding appendices just to reach 100 pages. The minimum is counted without the appendices and references.

Most of these mistakes are mechanical. Still, hunting for them in a 200-page thesis eats many hours. For a check against the CFR rules before scrutiny, a format pass is part of our thesis editing and proofreading service. The content and the argument remain yours only.