Thesis formatting check against your guidelines

How a thesis formatting check works at Polish universities

Polish departments publish their own formatting guidelines, usually titled “wytyczne” or “zasady redakcji pracy dyplomowej”, and they differ even between faculties of the same university. One wants 2.5 cm margins and Times New Roman 12 pt, another a wider binding margin and footnotes in 10 pt. A formatting check compares your file with your department’s document, not with a generic standard.

We work through the thesis in a fixed order: page setup, heading styles and numbering, the table of contents, captions above or below tables and figures as the guidelines say, footnotes or in-text citations, the bibliography, and finally the title page and declarations (oświadczenia). Formatting is applied through Word styles, so it stays consistent if you edit the text again later.

The best moment for the check is after your promotor has accepted the content and before the file goes into APD. At many universities the uploaded version is the one checked in JSA and archived, so later changes may mean repeating the procedure. Check your faculty’s rules on this.

Some points need your decision rather than ours, such as a list of abbreviations the guidelines describe only vaguely, or an appendix your promotor may not want. We return those as questions. If your references need more than consistent formatting, for example missing years or citations without a matching entry, the bibliography service covers that in more depth.