An ETD is an electronic document that explains the research of a graduate student. The ETD is similar to its paper predecessor. It has figures, tables, footnotes, and references. It has a title page with the authors' name, the official name of the university, the degree sought, and the names of the committee members. It documents the author's years of academic commitment. It describes why the work was done, how the research relates to previous work as recorded in the literature, the research methods used, the results, the interpretation and discussion of the results, and a summary with conclusions.

The ETD is different, however. It provides a technologically advanced medium for expressing your ideas. By providing electronic resources, everyone benefits:

• more access to research *
• research is available on campus
• research is accessible worldwide
• less expense to authors and libraries
• no paper costs
• no physical shelf space
• lower cataloging costs
• better presentation of research (not available in paper format)
• addition of multimedia files
• more dynamic presentation of data
• hyperlinks
• programs and code
• other format support

You prepare your ETD using nearly any word processor or document preparation system. The electronic format allows our graduate students to fully use current and future technology as tools to express their research.

* At your choice, your work may be viewed freely by anyone on the World Wide Web, restricted to only the VT campus or a mixed restriction (where parts of your dissertation may not be seen by the World Wide Web or VT campus.) More info on this topic.