Gather together all the parts of the dissertation that precede the main text. Place them in the following order: title page, copyright page, abstract, acknowledgments page, table of contents and lists of tables, figures and/or illustrations. Don't number the title or copyright pages. Beginning with "ii" on the abstract page, continue numbering with small roman numerals for the rest of the introductory material.
Organize the main body of the dissertation. In scientific disciplines, a dissertation will often be built around five chapters comprised of the introduction, literature review, methodology, results and discussion. In the humanities, the format is somewhat less rigid. Start numbering pages at "1" on the first page of the main body. Compare page numbers here with those in the table of contents to be sure that they are a perfect match.
Add supplementary material to the end of the dissertation. These materials include the list of all references used in the dissertation and appendices of supporting material that could not be included in the main body. Continue numbering where the main body left off. Make sure that references are formatted in the appropriate style for your academic discipline.
Browse the fully assembled dissertation one last time, checking for missing parts and parts that are out of order. Also check that the page numbering is correct for all sections.