Updated: July 22, 2025

Style and Format

1. Use one font for your whole essay
Times New Roman (Windows) are recommended.

2. An abstract in English of not fewer than two hundred and not more five hundreds words shall be a part of each Thesis or Independent Study Report.

3. For the Text Body, use Double Space, font size 12 point or 11 point (if laser printer used).

4. You can use single space for "quotation paragraph and footnotes."

5. For the Headings, one can use bold, and bigger font size can be used (16, 14).

6. It is recommended to use style format (Do not format manually), such as Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Body Text, Quote, Title.
Heading 1 (font size 16)
Heading 2 (font size 14, Bold)
Heading 3 (font size 14)
Heading 4 (font size 12, Bold)
Body Text (font size 12)

7. Page numbering should be placed in the center bottom of the page.
The Roman numerals (lower case, italic) should be used Front matters/Preliminaries which include Abstract, Acknowledgements, Table of Contents, Abbreviations.

No page numbering for Title page and Declaration.

8. No footer or header should be used for the Thesis and Independent Study Report.

9. Page size is A4, all margins (top, down, left and right) should be set as 1 inch. Left margin can be 1.25 for the purpose of binding.

10. For Romanized Pali and Sanskrit letters, the following Unicode fonts are recommended.
New Time Roman (version 5, from Windows Vista supports all Pali Diacritic Letters) is recommended for MS Windows 7, 8, 9

Thesis and Independent Study Report Printing and Binding Guide.

11. The College permits the student to submit their Theses and Independent Study Reports in temporary binding for examination purposes. Each copy of the Thesis or Independent Study Report with its Declaration preceding the title page, shall be bound in three volumes using soft covers.

12. The final copy of the Thesis shall be bound in three volumes, with its Declaration preceding the title page, with the title, name of author, degree, and date to be lettered in gilt on the front cover and spine in accordance with the standard layout approved by the College.

Hard cover for:
MA Thesis ____(red)_______ colour
Ph.D. Dissertation _____(black)___________colour

13. The final copy of the Independent Study Report shall be bound in three volumes, with its Declaration preceding the title page, with the title, name of author, degree, and date to be written on the front cover in accordance with the standard layout approved by the College.

Hard cover (with glossy paper 200 g/m² only) for:
Independent Study ______(Green) ______colour

13. One CD Rom containing the soft copy of the completed Thesis as a single PDF file is attached when the final Thesis or independent study Report is submitted.

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is recommended.

The Chicago Manual of Style is the standard citation style for many Arts & Humanities fields, including History, Religion, Philosophy, and Art. CMS allows for footnotes and in-text citations.

General Formatting Guidelines

• Double-spaced (except for block quotes, bibliography, footnotes and figure captions), 1” margins

• Typically uses 12 pt. Times New Roman font

• Block quotes (no quotation marks, indented, always on new line) should be used for:

  • Prose quotations of five or more lines, or more than 100 words

  • Two or more lines of poetry

• Sub-headers ore optional but may be employed in longer papers

Sources Referenced in the Text

• Book and periodical titles are italicized

• Article and chapter titles are within quotation marks

• Most words in a title should be capitalized (ex. History of Modern Art, not History of modern art)

Footnotes

• One of the distinguishing features of Chicago is its use of footnotes for both citations and extra-textual notes (often this includes definitions, contextual information, references to additional sources, etc. – essentially any important but corollary or peripheral information that might detract from the flow of your paper).

• All direct quotes, paraphrases, and summaries of primary and secondary sources should receive a footnote citation.

• Footnotes are left-oriented, single-spaced, and usually in a smaller font (10-11 pt.)

• Most professors prefer footnotes to endnotes!

Bibliography

• All sources referenced in the paper should be included in the bibliography, even if you have included full footnote citations.

• Bibliographic entries are single-spaced; all lines after the first should be indented.

• Entries are arranged alphabetically by author last name.

• If there is no author, sort alphabetically using the title (excluding The, A, An, etc.)

Books for Buddhist monks (Bibliography)

There is no need to make a family name for Buddhist monks. The only exception: Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka use villages as family name.

Bhikkhu Nyanatiloka. Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines. Third revised edition. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1987.

Bhikkhu Bodhi. The Mahānidāna Sutta and Its Commentaries. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1995.

⸻. Introduction to The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: a Translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2012.

Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoki, and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Trans. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995.

Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli. Trans. The Path of Purification. Colombo: A Semage, 1964.

The Madhyama Agama (Middle-length Discourses) Volume IV. Trans. and eds. Bhikkhu Anālayo and Roderick S. Bucknell. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. Moraga: BDK America, Inc. 2024. 

Pa-Auk Sayadaw. “To Escape from the Round of Rebirths: Based on Mindfulness of Breathing.” in Mindfulness: Traditions and Compassionate Applications. Ayutthaya: MCU 2017. pp. 179-202. Proceedings for The 3rd IABU Conference, on 6th - 8th May 2017, at MCU, Ayutthaya, Thailand.

Books for Buddhist monks (footnotes)

1. Bhikkhu Nyanatiloka, “dukkha,” Buddhist Dictionary.
2. Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Mahānidāna Sutta, 123.
3. Bhikkhu Bodhi, introduction to The numerical discourses of the Buddha, ix.
4. See, "Ānāpāna sutta". Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoki, and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Trans. The Middle Length Discourses, M118.
5. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, trans. The Path of Purification (Colombo: A Semage, 1964), 21-34.
6. Pa-Auk Sayadaw. “To Escape from the Round of Rebirths,” 179-180.

Note: In general, footnotes appear first time, we use full information as above 5, second time we use short form footnotes. We can use short footnotes only if the information is too long, such as 6.

The principle: information must be clear to the readers.

More on CMS.