Computer Science Department

LaTeX Thesis Guide

This tar file (use shift-click to download) contains a collection of template files that can be used with LaTeX to produce a PhD dissertation that conforms pretty closely to the W&M document, "A Guide for Writers of Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations".

The LaTeX Thesis Guide is intended to assist computer science students in conforming with the College requirements for printing Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. It is accurate as of September 2002. Any changes to the document "A Guide for Writers of Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations," made after this date, may not be incorporated into this guide. It is the student's responsibility to make sure their final draft conforms with the Graduate House guide.

Please note that the 11pt font found in the LaTeX Guide does match the 12pt requirement in the Graduate House guide. If, however, you change the LaTeX font, you must be sure that the 12pt size is used.

The department is indebted to Rance Necaise amd Bob Matthews. Rance contributed the files from which these files were derived; Rance received his PhD from the department in August, 1998. Bob updated the files; Bob graduated in December, 2004.

The files used by LaTeX to produce a thesis.dvi file are:

File Explanation
./thesis.tex the top-level LaTeX file
./acknowledge.tex the acknowledgments
./abstract.tex the abstract of the thesis
./firstchapter.tex the first chapter of the thesis
./secondchapter.tex the second chapter of the thesis
./vita.tex the student's vita
./thesis.bib the file that BiBTeX uses to create thesis.bbl (see Lamport's LaTeX book)
./sty/wmthesis.cls defines the wmthesis class
./sty/wmtables.cls defines the wmtables class (not actually used by thesis.tex)
./sty/wmbib.bst the BiBTeX style file used to create the bibliography (see Lamport's LaTeX book)

The included sample files (*.tex) should be easily modifiable by individual students to meet their needs. The sample files are intended to be humorous and we trust that no one will take offense.

To make all of these files available to LaTeX, you will have to add the following lines to your ".cshrc" file:

set STYDIR=the_fully_qualified_pathname_of_the_sty_subdirectory
setenv TEXINPUTS :$STYDIR
setenv TEXFORMAT :$STYDIR
setenv BSTINPUTS :$STYDIR

With the setenv commands above in effect, the command "latex thesis" works with the above files to produce a "thesis.dvi" file.

Please let me know if you have any problems in using these file templates.

Bill Bynum, bynum@cs.wm.edu
December 4, 1998 (modified October 20, 2004)