Dissertation with Introduction Before Chapters

Along with my day job I also try to help out my fellow PhD students by providing them with a template that helps them automagically format their dissertations, proposals, and research papers at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

In this particular post I am responding to a recent question in which a user asked if it was possible to include a formal introduction that was not counted as a chapter in the table of contents. In the video above I show you just how to do that. It’s really pretty simple.

For access to all information about the template see the central Dissertation Template post.

A Little More Detail

If you want to include a formal introduction in your dissertation then you run into a problem with your table of contents. What happens is, you enter “Introduction” in place of “Chapter 1” in the body of your dissertation, at the top of the introduction. Then on the next line you enter the title of the Introduction. No problems there.

The problem arises with the table of contents. When you refresh the TOC, the introduction shows up as if it were chapter 1 instead of a formal introduction. It’s not a real problem, but it can be tricky to fix. Still, it’s easy if you follow the instructions in the video. All you have to do is add a few simple steps when you set up your table of contents.