Astro-ThesisTeXHopefully this document will make life easier for everyone...
Why shouldn't I just use Word or some other word processor? This is a valid question. LaTeX is not a word processing program but a typesetting program. Your document is written in plain text with tags much like HTML. This can be done in any word processing program (Emacs, vi, Simpletext, MSWord, clay tablets) on any platform. It is then compiled into a Postscript or PDF file which can be read and printed out by pretty much everyone. The output looks the same for everyone regardless of which fonts they have installed, or what operating system they're using. Word documents and the like are only legible by some of the population and will look different on different machines. More importantly, most of the astronomical community (including all the journals) use LaTeX and some require submissions in this format. You'll be writing all your papers in it; so you might as well get used to it. LaTeX is extremely geeky with more degrees of freedom than you can possibly imagine. Best of all, there are lots of astronomer-specific add-ons one can use to make your life easier.
Learning LaTeX: As always, the best way to learn is by example. Norman Matloff has created a nice page of introductory notes with simple examples and links to lots of resources. There's another nice primer and lexicon maintained by David Wilkins.
Familiar with LaTeX? Great! How about AASTeX? AASTeX is just a package of routines to optimize LaTeX for the astronomical community. There are loads of handy symbols, formatting options, bibliography tools, and other handy goodness. Moving on...
There are various tags accepted by the thesis class pertaining to what kind of degree you're getting (PhD, MA, MS, etc) and the type of document (Dissertation, Essay, etc). It's also convenient in a large document such as a thesis to split things up into multiple files corresponding to individual chapters and insert them appropriately with \input{file} or \include{file}.
Next you need the line \begin{document} which matches an \end{document} at the end. All your text, figures, tables and so forth will go between these two lines.
Similarly, if you want to dedicate all your collossal thesis-writing efforts to some significant person, pet, diety, event or natural phenomenon, include a \begin{dedication} \end{dedication} tag. The dedication will appear, unlabeled on a blank page, immediately before the first chapter and after all the tables of contents and figure lists. Both dedications and acknowledgements are optional and their use varies by personal preference.
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography}
\begin{thebibliography}{}
\setlength{\itemsep}{-2mm}
\bibitem[{Smith} {et al.}(1972)]{Smith72}
{Smith}, J., {Ardeberg}, A., {Brunet}, J.~P., {Maurice}, E., \& {Pr{\'e}vot}, L.\ 1972, \aaps, 6, 249
\end{thebibliography}
The first line above adds the Bibliography to the table of contents. The mechanics of citations and referencing is covered in more detail later in the Natbib tutorial.Everyone likes appendices! It's where you get to dump your code, your massive quantities of data or huge tables. Readers skip them and it transforms your meager, skinny work into a two-volume bug killer. In the code, simply put in the tag \appendix when you want the appendices to start. From then on, use \chapter{Loads o' Data} as normal. The first chapter after the \appendix tag will now be called "Appendix A: Loads o' Data" instead of just "Chapter 7: Loads o' Data" and all the figure numbers, equations, and tables will be "Figure A.1" instead of "Figure 7.1", etc. Subsequent chapters called after this will be labeled B, C, D....
Finally, many people include a vita where they give a brief autobiography. The vita page is the last page of the thesis and is a brief biographical sketch. This "life" or "vita" should record the date and location of your birth and the salient facts of academic training and experience in teaching and research. This may seem egotistical, but it's probably easier and more fun to write than any other part of your thesis so why not? As usual, there is a \begin{vita} \end{vita} tag. It should go at the end of your document, however, just before the \end{document} tag.
See Randy Telfer's FAQ for information on how to get these to appear in your table of contents. When in doubt, read the actual thesis.cls file; it's not nearly as bad as you might think!
Here are some useful packages:
...
Smith, G. S., Bang, R. T., Slosh, F. F., & Dingle, Q. 1986, ApJ, 299, 444
That's All, Folks!
User Feedback: Bugs, Corrections, Other Weirdness...
This is definitely a work in progress. Contributions from users have made the whole package and process easier.Other random tricks
Limitted Tutorial
Natbib
The Natbib package allows the use of the highly flexible \citep (paranthetical citiation) and \citet (textual citation) commands in LaTeX. In a document, you would cite something as follows:
Important points with this package are that dates in the square brackets in the \bibitem command must be enclosed in parentheses and there must not be a space between the date and the characters immediately before it (see example above). If you have everything formatted correctly, the above text would compile into:This theory was first advanced by \citet{Smith86} but was later
disproven by several other research groups \citep{Jones90,Brown92}.
...
\begin{thebibliography}{}
\bibitem[Smith et~al.(1986)]{Smith86}
Smith, G. S., Bang, R. T., Slosh, F. F., \& Dingle, Q. 1986, \apj, 299, 444
\bibitem[Jones(1990)]{Jones90}
Jones, X. Y. 1990, \baas, 188, 45
\bibitem[Brown \& Wakka(1992)]{Brown92}
Brown, T., \& Wakka, W. 1992, \apjl, 234, 45L
\end{thebibliography}
This theory was first advanced by Smith et al. (1986) but was later disproven by several other research groups (Jones 1990; Brown & Wakka, 1992).
Jones, X. Y. 1990, BAAS, 188, 45
Brown, T., & Wakka, W. 1992, ApJL, 234, 45L
Deluxe Tables
These tables are a feature absent in LaTeX2e but added by AASTeX. They're very spiffy and can handle multi-page tables, footnoting, multi-column headers, cutin headers, and much more with great ease. Here are examples simple and more interesting deluxe tables:
Putting it all together
That's pretty much it. Here's my thesis!
And here is the output (minus the several hundred pages of boring text and figures) that the above produces.
\documentclass[10pt]{thesis}
\usepackage{epsfig, natbib, deluxetable}
\usepackage{aastex_hack}
\usepackage{mydefs} % <---- personalized shortcuts
\begin{document}
\title{Interstellar Matter Kinematics in the Magellanic Clouds}
\author{Charles Weston Danforth}
\doctorphilosophy
\dissertation
\copyrightnotice
\degreemonth{April}\degreeyear{2003}
\maketitle
\begin{frontmatter}
\begin{abstract}
Abstract here!
\end{abstract}
\begin{acknowledgement}
Thanks to everyone for everything
\end{acknowledgement}
\tableofcontents
\listoffigures
\listoftables
\begin{dedication}
In loving memory of Whiskers the Gerbil...
\end{dedication}
\end{frontmatter}
\cleardoublepage
%\include{intro}
\include{fuseatlas}
\include{echelleatlas}
\include{chapter3}
\include{s119}
\include{n66}
%\include{conclusions}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography}
\include{bibliography}
\appendix
\include{appendix1}
\include{appendix2}
\include{vita}
\end{document}
Please send comments, corrections and suggestions to Charles Danforth | http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~danforth
Last modified: Fri Jan 24 16:28:05 EST 2003