University of Oregon LaTeX Thesis and Dissertation Macros

These LaTeX macros are designed to ease the production of a Doctoral Dissertation or Master's Thesis consistent with the requirements of the Graduate School of the University of Oregon, and with the requirements of good scholarly presentation.

Current Status

This version of these materials is quite old. I have no idea how often it has been validated by the Graduate School against anyone's thesis or dissertation. There may still be minor problems, though it is believed to be fairly solid.

I am currently an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, having defended my dissertation some years ago, and recently having received tenure. I am no longer actively maintaining this package. You should be aware that my heart is really no longer in it. ☺

I am interested in hearing from you if you attempt to use the style files (successfully or otherwise), and in any comments or corrections you might have. Indeed, I am seeking someone still at the University of Oregon to take over from me the job of maintaining these materials. Please let me know if you have the slightest interest in doing so: otherwise they will continue to be left to rot.

You can reach me via e-mail at <bart@cs.pdx.edu>.

Prerequisites

You will need a number of additional resources for success in using these materials, including

• A copy of the University of Oregon Style and Policy Manual For Theses and Dissertations, currently available online.
• Familiarity with LaTeX, and a copy of the LaTeX 2e manual. Another book you may find useful is The LaTeX Companion, available at most any bookstore.
• Access to a LaTeX 2e implementation. Earlier versions of LaTeX are no longer supported by this package, for a variety of good reasons.

History

This LaTeX macro package was originally written in the UO Computer and Information Sciences Department by Mark vandeWettering, and has been since extensively revised and maintained by a variety of the best and brightest of UO CIS students, and then again by me.

The basic philosophy of the package is that a number of macros are provided to fill in necessary information for the front matter. There are actually two sets of macros which are typically both used at the end of the process:

• uothesis.cls (described here) produces a formatted thesis.
• uotr.sty produces a formatted technical report, suitable for binding by the University of Oregon Publications Office.

Obtaining This Package

This package is currently available in four forms:

1. From Git at git://svcs.cs.pdx.edu/git/uothesis.git.
2. By browsing the repository.
3. As a possibly-stale gzip-ed tar archive.
4. As a possibly-staleZIP archive.

The package is quite sizable, as it contains my Master's Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation as examples of usage.

Usage

• Class options:

  dissertation

  Produces a doctoral dissertation.

  msthesis

  Produces a master's thesis.

  draftcopy

  Changes a number of things for drafts:

  • Marks headers of thesis as DRAFT OF <date>.
  • Suppresses front and back blank flyleaf pages.
  • Suppresses entire front matter.
  • Makes a special draft title page containing the abstract.
  • Sets the ifdraftcopy conditional. See below.

  committeedraft

  Like draftcopy except includes front matter and standard title page. I am told that it is a point of etiquette that your advisor should not see your acknowledgement or dedication before your defense: these are blank in this mode. This mode is useful for distributing your thesis to your committee.

  latedraft

  Like draftcopy except includes front matter and standard title page. This mode is useful in last-minute preparations for handing the thesis to the graduate school.

  copyright

  Includes a copyright page.

  numsections

  Numbers sections in the body and table of contents, but otherwise follows the style guidelines. The Graduate School is reported to accept this.

  gsmodern

  This is an experimental option to produce a somewhat more readable body style which the Graduate School might accept some day. As of today, do not use this if you want your thesis or dissertation accepted by the Graduate School.

• Conditionals available to the user:

  \ifthesis

  True iff the macro package was passed the msthesis or dissertation option. A warning will be issued if this is not true for the uothesis style.

  \iftechreport

  True in uotr, false in uothesis.

  \ifdraftcopy

  True iff the macro package was passed the draftmode or latedraft option.

  \iflatedraft

  True iff the macro package was passed the latedraft option.

• Macros providing information for cover material:

  \covertitle{}

  Title, all words capitalized, with line breaks for the title page. The title wants to be an inverted pyramid, and this generally requires human judgement.

  \abstracttitle{}

  Title, in book style capitalization, with no line breaks.

  \author{}

  Absolutely full name of author, for title page.

  \narrowauthor{}

  Can be same as author, or can be shortened if necessary to fit in acceptance page.

  \department{}

  Full name of department (e.g., ``Department of Computer and Information Science'').

  \narrowdepartment{}

  Same as department unless very long, in which case insert line break to fit in acceptance page.

  \advisor{}

  Your advisor's full name.

  \cochair{}

  Only for dissertations. Your co-advisor's full name. Using this implies that you have a co-chair on your committee, which is rare.

  \comittee{}

  Only for dissertations. The members of your committee, with line breaks between.

  \degree{}

  What your degree is called, (e.g., ``Master of Science'' or ``Doctor of Philosophy'').

  \degreemonth{}

  Your submission month. Should be December, March, June, or (probably) August.

  \degreeyear{}

  Your submission year. Can refer to it with \thedegreeyear, which is useful mainly for the CV.

  \abstract{}

  Your abstract.

  \dedication{}

  An optional dedication.

  \acknowledge{}

  Your acknowledgements.

• Macros providing information for uotr style only:

  \trauthor{}

  Your name as you would like it to appear on the TR.

  \tr{}

  The TR number.

  \trmonth{}

  The TR month. This will usually be different from the \degreemonth{}.

  \tryear{}

  The TR year.

  \trdept{}

  The department abbreviation used for TR labeling (e.g., CIS).

• Macros provided in the uotr style only:

  \confstatus{}

  May be ``submitted to'' or ``accepted by'' if the TR is in process for some conference.

  \subconf{}

  The conference for which the TR is pending. A stupid name.

  \confplace{}

  The location of the conference for which the TR is pending.

  \confdate{}

  The date of the conference for which the TR is pending.

• Macros providing information for the ``fill-in-the-blanks'' CV.

  \birthplace{}

  Optional place of birth.

  \birthday{}

  Optional date of birth, in full format.

  \schools{}

  School names, separated by line breaks.

  \degrees{}

  Degree, year, school. Multiple degrees separated by line breaks.

  \interests{}

  Your interests, separated by line breaks.

  \experience{}

  Some job experience, separated by paragraph breaks. Follow the format in the style guide carefully.

  \awards{}

  Some awards you've received, separated by line breaks.

• Other global definitions:

  \begin{normalspace}\end{normalspace}

  Environment for enforcing single spacing in the thesis, but also leaving singlespace in the tech report.

  \thedegreeyear

  Whatever you enter via the \degreeyear macro is available here. I used it with \degrees{} because my degree year kept changing.

  \qedsymbol

  If you set this command to some symbol, it will be printed flush right at the end of every theorem-like environment. This is recommended, since it is difficult in the graduate school format to distinguish the end of a theorem and the beginning of normal text.

  \qedbox

  A reasonable thing to set \qedsymbol to.

  \begin{quote*}\end{quote*}

  Like the standard quote environment, but double-spaced. Useful in constructing other environments.

  \begin{itemize*}\end{itemize*}

  Expands to enumerate in uothesis, and to itemize in uotr. Because the Graduate School strongly prefers itemize not be used, use this to avoid loss of semantic content.

  \pages{}{}

  Reference the page range from the first to the second label. Will print ``this page'', ``p. #'', or ``pp. #--#'' as appropriate.

  \pagesref{}{}{}{}{}

  Reference the page range from the first to the second label. Will print the third, fourth, or fifth argument before the range as appropriate.

Notes

These notes are in no particular order, and represent the accumulated wisdom of CIS graduates. Check them over carefully before, during, and after you write.

• Be careful about inadvertently including your own versions of things, including doublespace.sty, which is used by the package, and old versions of these macros you might have lying around. Do not mess with LaTeX formatting stuff (e.g., \parskip): these things are set the way they are in order to produce a document acceptable to the Graduate School. As a general rule, if the formatting looks wrong, it is because it is required to look that way.
• Make sure not to set any of the draft modes in the document options when printing the final copy. In particular, you should see a blank `flyleaf' page front and back. Make sure to have these when you turn in your thesis.
• Remember 20 pound 25 percent rag content paper for the submitted copy. Put the good paper in the photocopier rather than the printer to avoid accidents.
• Do not use boldface: the microfiche (!) does not reproduce well enough to distinguish it from non-bold. Use italics (preferred) or underlining instead in text. Use \em for emphasis. Use \mathcal, accents, etc. in formulae.
• The Grad School strongly discourages using itemize environments. (I do not know why.) If you want itemization in your technical report, use itemize*, which will enumerate in the thesis and itemize in the TR. You will get a warning the first time you use itemize in the thesis.
• In the official style, the formatting of subsection and lower headings makes them difficult to read.
• In the official style, headings are not numbered, so you will need to use page numbers to refer to other parts of your thesis. The uothesis style provides a macro for this, as it is nontrivial to get right. \pages{a}{b} expands to
  • this page if both labels a and b are on the current page.
  • p. #a if both labels a and b are on the same page, but not the current page.
  • pp. #a--#b if labels a and b are on different pages.
  If you don't like this particular expansion, you can roll your own with the 5-argument \pagesref macro: see uothesis.cls for details.
• The formatting of long department, degree, and user names is not very well tested. Check the front matter carefully for compliance.
• Max one page of CV in the normal case, please. This vitae is designed to give the reader of your manuscript some slight insight into your life and career at the time of writing it, not to get you a job. The formatting for page wraps in the CV is currently broken. If you have to use a second page (e.g., for a long bibliography) break the page yourself with \clearpage.
• In the List of Figures and List of Tables:
  • Captions must be in book title capitalization.
  • Multiline captions are discouraged.
  Use the optional argument to \caption as needed to handle these two cases. Note that table captions go above the table, and figure captions below the figure. You must place them this way in the LaTeX source to achieve this.
• Figures and tables must be introduced in the text on or before the page on which they appear. If you put the text before the figure in the LaTeX source, LaTeX will handle this for you.
• In the official style, you may tell the grad school you are using Mary Claire Van Leunen's A Handbook For Scholars for your bibliography style, and then use plain.
• Christian Frank's Thesis Hints
  • Chapter titles need to have every word capitalized. Note that this is unlike everything else in the document, which needs to be in book title capitalization (including the thesis title !).
  • Bibliography needs to have a period at the end of every entry. (BibTeX should take care of this for you.)
  • Do not use contractions.
  • Quote with double quotes, not single quotes (excepting inner quotes).
  • Do not use any odd fonts or characters.
  • No big figures: the biggest paper is 11x17 for foldouts.

Known Defects

The normalspace handling is a kludge.

One-line dedications are currently not started far enough down the page.

Many of the informational macros do not default, and thus require entry even when an obvious default is available.

Last Modified: 2008/09/09