Directory macros/latex/contrib/utexasthesis

University of Texas at Austin graduate thesis LaTeX style

The Digital Submission Requirement page describes the requirements for Masters and Ph.D. thesis submissions. Most utexas.edu URLs are fragile; if that link is dead, try searching for utexas graduate thesis style.

Instructions

1. Download the utexasthesis.cls (right click and "Save As...") file into your working directory
2. Replace your initial \documentclass{...} call with \documentclass{utexasthesis}
3. Fill in the required personal information by calling the following commands in your preamble (i.e., somewhere before \begin{document}):
   • \title{The Title of Your Dissertation or Treatise}
   • \author{Full Official Name}
     • This should match the "Name of Doctoral Candidate" field on your official "Request For Final Oral Examination" form.
   • \graduationdate{May}{2017}
   • \supervisor{Supervisor Name}
   • \cosupervisor{Cosupervisor Name}
     • % \cosupervisor{} is optional, unless you use the masters option (described below), in which case it's required and \othercommitteemembers{} is ignored.
   • \othercommitteemembers{Member's Name, Member's Name, Member's Name}
4. Supply \maketitle and the other commands and environments in the proper order.
5. Use \maketableofcontents instead of \tableofcontents
6. Use \makebibliography{yourbib} instead of \bibliography{yourbib} (and be sure to specify a style with \bibliographystyle{...}).

Alternatively, you can use the basic.tex (right click and "Save As...") example as a starting point, replacing the placeholder text with your own information. View the pdflatex render of basic.tex on GitHub at basic.pdf, or download.

Customizations

The formatting guide doesn't specify a required font face. The utexasthesis class doesn't set one, which leaves "Computer Modern Roman" as the default font family.

You can use any font supported by your LaTeX distribution; e.g., to use the Palatino font, as in the formatting guideline's examples:

\usepackage{palatino}

Or to use Times, along with a teletype font (which is used in URLs) that's more compact than Courier:

\usepackage{times}
\renewcommand*\ttdefault{cmvtt}

Options

The utexasthesis class can be customized with several optional arguments, which are supplied in the \documentclass{} call, e.g., \documentclass[masters]{utexasthesis}.

• masters: switch format to Masters thesis, which has the following effects:
  • The document type is set to "Thesis" instead of "Dissertation".
  • The degree is set to "Master of Arts" (M.A.) instead of "Doctor of Philosophy" (Ph.D.).
  • The signatures page is styled differently.
• copyright: adds a copyright page at the beginning of your thesis.
• Line spacing (defaults to onehalfspacing if omitted):
  • singlespacing: Use single-spacing throughout the document, which is prohibited by the formatting guidelines.
  • onehalfspacing: Use 1.5-spacing throughout the document.
  • doublespacing: Use double-spacing throughout the document.
• Font sizes (defaults to 12pt if omitted):
  • 10pt: Use 10 point font, which is not recommended by the formatting guidelines.
  • 11pt: Use 11 point font, which is not recommended by the formatting guidelines.
  • 12pt: Use 12 point font.
• draft: renders a compact version of your thesis. The layout does not comply with the graduate school requirements, but may be useful to print out drafts for review.
  • This option applies the usual draft class options to the underlying report class.
  • The copyright page is omitted even if the copyright option is used.
  • The signatures page is omitted.
  • The main title page is omitted.
  • Chapters do not trigger a page break.

All of these can be used in combination, separated by commas. The few options that have overlapping effects will give priority to the last-listed argument(s) in the listings above. E.g., \documentclass[masters,12pt,draft,11pt]{utexasthesis} will render the Masters thesis format in 12 point font, even though 11pt comes after 12pt in the list of options.

Packages

The following packages are imported by utexasthesis:

• geometry (to set paper size, layout dimensions, and margins)
• fontenc
• setspace (configurable via singlespacing / onehalfspacing / doublespacing option)
• indentfirst (to indent every paragraph, even at the beginning of chapters and sections)
• natbib
• tocloft
• tocbibind
• url
• hyperref
• doi (to hyperlink DOIs in bibliography)

F.A.Q.

• Q: How do I number subsubsections? E.g., Chap.Sec.Subsec.Subsubsec

A: Set the secnumdepth and tocdepth counters:

  % number subsubsections
  \setcounter{secnumdepth}{3} % default: 2 (which only numbers up to subsections)
  % include subsubsections in table of contents
  \setcounter{tocdepth}{3} % default: 2
  

See How to show subsections and subsubsections in TOC? for details.

License

The utexasthesis document class and related materials are CC0-licensed. This is similar to the Unlicense and WTFPL. This means I (Christopher Brown), have waived all copyright rights to this work, to the extent allowed by law.