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ETD Preparation and Submission: Guidelines for Graduate Students

This guide will give you information on, and walk you through, all aspects of the ETD (electronic theses and dissertations) process.

Permissions

Getting Permissions

  1. You must get permission or provide Fair Use Checklists in order to include some content in your dissertation. Works created by others such as survey instruments, large excerpts of creative work such as poems or photographs, or content which requires a license to use may require you to seek permission. Standard academic quotation does not require permission documentation or a Fair Use Checklist.
  2. You must cite the tables, figures, images, and data that you did not create yourself.
  3. You must cite your sources.

If you do not do these things, you may be committing copyright infringement and/or plagiarism. An easy way to acquire reprint permissions is through the Copyright Clearance Center.

Fair Use

In some cases your use may qualify as a fair use under the guidelines in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Code. Duquesne provides a fair use checklist you can use to document your fair use analysis.

  • If your use meets the fair use criteria, fill out the checklist  and retain it for your records.
  • If your use does not meet the fair use criteria, get permission before using the copyrighted material. Include copies of all permissions with your ETD filing.

How Get Permissions

This guide will give you a crash course in acquiring reprint permissions, and have many useful links.

If you need further help, or have further questions, please contact the Scholarly Communication Librarian.