Copyright and Permissions in Your ETD

All permissions statements should be saved in an appendix in your thesis/dissertation.  These can include:

• Email responses from a licensing/permissions contact at a publisher or organization
• RightsLink permission statements (linked as order 'details' in your order confirmation during the RightsLink process)
• Author Rights statements
• Creative Commons statements and licenses
• Fair Use worksheets (if you have determined that your use of the content is likely a fair use)

All material created by someone/something else that you use within your Thesis/Dissertation should be clearly indicated to your reader.   If you are using your own previously published article as a chapter in your Thesis/Dissertation, you should include a note to the reader on the first page of the chapter.  The Office of Graduate Studies has an example of this:

Figure Notes

Figure notes usually appear directly under a figure.  For example (APA style):

Journal article:

Figure #.  Your figure title.  From “Title of the article,” by W. Jones and R. Smith, 2007, Journal Title, 21, p. 122.  Copyright 2007 by Copyright Holder. Reprinted with permission.

Book:

Figure #.  Your figure title.  From Title of Book (p. 103), by A.N. Author and C.O. Author, 1994, Place of Publication: Publisher. Copyright 1994 by the Name of Copyright Holder.  Reprinted with permission.

Journal article:

Figure #.  Your figure title.  From “Title of the article,” by W. Jones and R. Smith, 2007, Journal Title, 21, p. 122. CC-BY-NC. Used with permission.

When using figures or content from public domain materials, you will not need to obtain permissions but you would still include a note to provide transparency to your reader.  For help determining if material is in the public domain check the guide or contact your copyright librarian.

Your note should clearly indicate the original source and the copyright status. For example:

Musical Composition in the Public Domain:

Figure #.  Your figure title.  Author/Composer (year). Title  [Type of score]. Publisher.  Public Domain.

Figure note guidance from various citation styles regarding how to indicate images created with generative AI tools is still evolving.  If using a generative AI tool to create images, it is best to be clear to your reader about the source of those images.  For example:

AI generated images:

Figure #.  Your figure title.  Image AI generated by author using [tool].

Notes to Reader

If you are using one or more articles or papers that were previously published as portions of a new work, then you should precede them with a note to the reader that includes the full published citation, copyright status, and that the article is reprinted with permissions.  For example (APA style):

This chapter was previously published as  “Title of the article,” by W. Jones and R. Smith, 2007, Journal Title, 21, p. 122.  Copyright 2007 by Copyright Holder. Reprinted with permission.