Thesis Template

General

I wrote, formatted, and edited my thesis using TeXworks, a free, open-source TeX editing software. (You can download it and all necessary associated files using that link.) The formatting used in these documents was accepted by the Graduate School in August, 2014, but you should probably check if there are any changes in the requirements.

Overview of Files

I've uploaded a .zip file with all of the .tex files you need to compile my thesis. (There are also separate folders with the references and figures.)

The main file is the file called "thesis.tex". This is the main file that calls all of the other files; it's the only one you ever have to "run". It calls all of the other .tex files, and it automatically generates a PDF every time you run it. (To "run" or typeset the document in TeXworks, use CTRL+T or click on the green circle with the arrow in the top left of the screen.) For all the other .tex files, you just make changes in them, and then save. Then you run thesis.tex, and the changes will be reflected in the new PDF.

thesis.tex

The first big chunk of thesis.tex is all formatting stuff. You really don't have to change any of it, unless you want to add fancy new packages to get more features in the document. (I don't know how to do this.) One thing you can do is use the "Margin Check". If you comment out line 15 (\documentclass[12pt]{withesis}) using a %, and then uncomment line 18 (\documentclass[12pt,margincheck]{withesis}), then it will generate a PDF that has black boxes in the right margin anywhere where your document goes outside of the accepted margins.

The real important part starts at line 112 (\begin{document}).

I don't know what the \bibliographystyle thing is. I just left it how it was from Tyler's thesis.

The next parts are where the other chapters are called. The command

\include{CHAPTERNAME}

calls the file called CHAPTERNAME.tex. (You may have to save the chapter .tex files in the same folder as thesis.tex.) You'll have to change these \include commands to call your chapters.

For the references, \bibliography{REFERENCES} calls the file REFERENCES.bib that should contain your references. (Here it is References/library because my .bib file is called "library", and it is in the folder "References".)

For keeping track of references, both for the thesis and in general, I recommend Mendeley, a free reference manager. It stores PDFs, is searchable (it searches within PDFs), and it creates (and automatically updates!) a .bib file that creates handles the references in the thesis.

For appendices, it is the same as chapters, except you use the \include command between the commands \begin{appendices} and \end{appendices}.

myprelude.tex

The first chapter you'll want is call myprelude.tex. (You can change this file name or any other file name, as long as you change both the file name and the code that calls it.) The prelude is where you enter the title page info, the dedication, the acknowledgements, and the abstracts. It also generates the table of contents and the lists of tables and figures.

There are lots of things you can change in this file. I'll only mention the ones that I changed.

In the "TITLE PAGE" section, you enter the title, your name, and the date. You may want to play around with the spacing by adding vertical spaces if your title is multiple lines. (See below for vertical space command.)

You can edit the department (\department) if you're not in Physics, and you can enter your dedication and acknowledgements in those sections.

The CONTENTS, TABLES, FIGURES section doesn't have to be edited. It automatically generates a table of contents and a list of figures.

Enter your advisor name and title (\advisorname and \advisortitle), and then enter your abstract. For the abstract, you can either have a separate .tex file called abstract, which is called by \include abstract. (If you'd rather, you can comment out that line, and then uncomment the section below. You then type in your entire abstract in between the lines \begin{abstract} and \end{abstract}.)

=Chapter .tex files

general chapter

talk about basic commands \cite{} \label{} \ref{} \begin{equation, eqnarray} \vspace ! between letters \textit{ \text{

spelling

talk about style, class files

other zip files - for alternative formats