Subject/Research Guides: Dissertations & Theses/Capstones: Home

Dissertations and Theses

Welcome to the Dissertations & Theses/Capstones Guide

This guide provides information on locating, borrowing, and purchasing doctoral dissertations. It also addresses similar issues with regard to theses. Please note that doctoral dissertations are collected and archived more systematically than master's theses.

If you are unable to locate dissertations (or theses) using these instructions, ask a WilmU librarian for assistance at librarycontact@wilmu.edu.

Frequently asked questions:

What is a dissertation?: A dissertation is a book-length thesis or treatise prepared as a requirement for the award of a doctoral degree (Ed.D., D.B.A., D.N.P., Ph.D.)

What is a thesis?: A thesis is book-length essay or treatise prepared as a requirement for the award of a master's degree.

Why use a dissertation (thesis) for research?: Dissertations can be especially useful for locating recent research that may not yet be published in book or article format. Revised dissertations are often published later as books or scholarly articles; to find these, try searching for other works written by the same author.

Dissertation, Thesis and Capstone Databases

Dissertations & Theses @Wilmington University This link opens in a new window Dissertations & Theses @Wilmington University provides full-text of all dissertations written by Wilmington University graduates, which can be downloaded in PDF format.
Open Dissertations (formerly American Doctoral Dissertations) This link opens in a new window The EBSCOhost User Interface has been upgraded to an all new user experience! Use this guide to get acquainted with the new interface.OpenDissertations is an open-access database built to assist researchers in locating both historic and contemporary dissertations and theses. It is a free database with records for more than 800,000 electronic theses and dissertations from around the world. Created with the generous support of the H.W. Wilson Foundation and the Congregational Library & Archives in Boston, it incorporates EBSCO’s previously released American Doctoral Dissertations, and features additional dissertation metadata contributed by select colleges and universities from around the world. Providing researchers with citations to graduate research across a span of time, from the early 20th century to the present, this database will continue to grow through regular updates and new partnerships with graduate degree-granting institutions.
Dissertations & Theses: Global This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global is the world's most comprehensive curated collection of dissertations and theses offering 5 million citations and 2.5 million full-text works from thousands of universities all over the world.
PQDT Open This link opens in a new window
PQDT Open provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge.
You can quickly and easily locate dissertations and theses relevant to your discipline, and view the complete text in PDF format.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.
Wilmington University Institutional Repository - Dissertation Collection This link opens in a new window
Browse through Wilmington University's most recently digitized dissertations.

Wilmington University Capstone/Thesis Projects
Browse the most recently added Capstone and Thesis Projects from Wilmington University. This database is freely accessible.
Google Books

International & Other Dissertations

British Library EThOS - Search and order theses online

TEL : thèses en ligne
http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/

Theses Canada Portal
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/theses/Pages/obtain-thesis-dissertation.aspx 
Theses Canada provides access to bibliographic citations for all the theses in the National Library of Canada Theses Collection.  Access to full-text theses is available for all items published between January 1, 1998 to August 31, 2002.