Using LATEX to prepare an Informatics thesis
Mary Ellen Foster
14 October 2002
1 Introduction
This document describes how you can use the infthesis class to prepare a thesis within the School
of Informatics. Using infthesis, you can prepare a thesis that meets the University of Edinburgh’s
specific requirements for MPhil and PhD theses (Appendix B); if you are not producing an MPhil or
PhD thesis, you can also alter other aspects of the formatting.
The remainder of this document describes how a thesis can be prepared using this class. Section 2
describes the options, commands, and environments provided by infthesis; Section 3 provides an
outline of how the body of the thesis should be written; Appendix A contains a sample file using this
class; and Appendix B contains a copy of the university postgraduate thesis regulations as of October
2002.
2 Class documentation
2.1 Using the class
To use the infthesis class, you should use the following as the first line of your document:
\documentclass[
Appendix A contains a sample document using this class.
The remainder of this section outlines the options, environments, and commands that are provided
by infthesis.
2.2 Class options
The following list presents all of the options that can be given to the class.
2.2.1 Degree options
The following options determine the degree title that is given on the title page. At most one degree
type should be specified; the default is phd.
phd Create a PhD thesis title page when the \maketitle command is used.
mphil Create an title page for an MPhil.
mscres Create a title page for an MSc by Research.
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2 CLASS DOCUMENTATION 2.2 Class options
msc Create an MSc title page.
bsc Create an undergraduate project report. The \course and \project commands should be used
to specify the exact nature of the report.
If the thesis is for a research degree (PhD, MPhil, MSc by Research), an institute should also be
specified (see Section 2.2.2); for a taught MSc, a particular degree may be specified (Section 2.2.3);
and for an undergraduate project report, the course and project type should be specified using the
\course and \project commands (Section 2.4).
2.2.2 Institute options (research degrees)
The following options specify the institute in which the thesis was written. These options only have
an effect on the research degrees (PhD, MPhil, and MSc by Research); the following sections describe
how to specify a taught degree.
aiai Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute
icsa Institute of Computing Systems Architecture
ianc Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation
iccs Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems
ipab Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour
irr Institute for Representation and Reasoning
lfcs Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science
2.2.3 Degree options (taught MSc degrees)
The following options specify the degree in which the thesis was written. These should be used for
MSc theses for taught courses only; they will have no effect on the title page of theses for research
degrees (which should use the above institute options instead), and for the fourth-year report the
\course and \project commands described in Section 2.4 should be used instead to specify nature
of the report.
cogsci MSc in Cognitive Science and Natural Language
cs MSc in Computer Science
ai MSc in Artificial Intelligence
If you are producing a thesis for the MSc in Informatics, you should not specify a degree option at all.
2.2.4 Cover page options
The following options control the format of the cover page that is produced.
deptreport This option changes the layout of the title page so that the title and author are visible
when bound with one of the Computer Science departmental covers. This option may not work
at the moment—MEF, October 14, 2002
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2 CLASS DOCUMENTATION 2.2 Class options
logo Puts a University of Edinburgh logo onto the title page between the author name and the degree
title.
frontabs Puts the abstract of the thesis onto the front page. If this option is not selected, the abstract
will instead be put by itself onto the first page of the thesis.
If deptreport is specified, then the other cover page options will be ignored; if frontabs is specified,
then the logo option will be ignored. Note that the frontabs option is not appropriate for use on
theses that are to meet the requirements of the Graduate School (Appendix B); a warning will be
produced if this option is specified for such a thesis.
2.2.5 Header style options
The following options control the font and style of the chapter and section headers, running headers
and footers, and figure and table captions of the document.
centrechapter (or centerchapter) All chapter headings are centred on the page. This is the de-
fault.
leftchapter All chapter headings are left-aligned on the page.
rightchapter All chapter headings are right-aligned on the page.
sansheadings If this option is specified, then all section and chapter headings, running headers and
footers, and table and figure captions will be typeset in a sans-serif font (as they are in this
document). The official University thesis guidelines specify that this style should be used, and
it is therefore the default.
normalheadings All headings and captions will be in the same font as the rest of the thesis.
2.2.6 Font options
By default, the infthesis class uses the pslatex, which changes the body font to Times Roman,
the sans-serif font to Helvetica, and the typewriter font to Courier. The following options control this
font selection.
timesfonts Use the pslatex package to change the fonts to Times, Helvetica and Courier (as in the
current document). This is the default.
notimes Do not change the fonts; use the standard LATEX “computer modern” fonts instead. You can
still use other packages to change the fonts yourself if you wish.
2.2.7 One- or two-sided options
The following standard report class options for one-sided and two-sided printing can be used.
oneside The thesis will be produced for one-sided printing. This is the default.
twoside The thesis will be produced for two-sided printing.
openright In two-sided printing, every chapter will start on an odd (right-hand) page, with blank
pages inserted if necessary. This is the default.
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2 CLASS DOCUMENTATION 2.2 Class options
openany In two-sided printing, chapters can start on either an odd or an even page.
Note that the PhD thesis regulations allow a one-sided or two-sided thesis, but if the thesis is two-sided
then the openright behaviour must also be used (openright will automatically be used if twoside
is specified).
2.2.8 Line-spacing options
The following options control the spacing of lines in the document.
singlespacing Makes the thesis single-spaced.
fullspacing Makes the thesis one-and-a-half-spaced. This is the default setting.
doublespacing Makes the thesis double-spaced.
Note also the commands in Section 2.4 that can be used to temporarily change spacing within the
document. MPhil and PhD thesis regulations require that the spacing is at least 1.5 in the body text.
2.2.9 Frontmatter options
The following options control the appearance and content of the “frontmatter” (abstract, table of
contents, etc.) of the thesis.
listsintoc If this option is specified, then the List of Figures and List of Tables will appear in the
Table of Contents.
nolistsintoc The List of Figures and List of Tables will not appear in the Table of Contents. This
is the default.
romanprepages With this option, the frontmatter will be numbered with lower-case Roman numerals
(i, ii, …), and the first chapter will start on page 1. This is the default.
plainprepages With this option, the pagenumbering starts with 1 for the first page of the frontmatter
and continues throughout the thesis.
2.2.10 Other options
The following other options are also available.
draft The draft option will produce a single-spaced, double-sided thesis with smaller fonts and mar-
gins, to reduce the paper used. In addition, all of the standard LATEX behaviour of the draft
option is implemented; in particular, any images will be replaced by a box and a filename.
parskip Alters the formatting so that paragraphs are separated by vertical space and there is no
indentation at the start of each paragraph.
abbrevs Exports a number of commands for common abbreviations, such as “e.g.” or “N.B.”. These
commands are listed in Section 2.4.1.
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2 CLASS DOCUMENTATION 2.3 Environments
2.3 Environments
This section describes the various environments that are defined or redefined by the infthesis class.
All other standard LATEX environments are also available. To use an environment foo, you would
enter:
\begin{foo}
… text here …
\end{foo}
acknowledgements Normally, an Acknowledgements section follows the abstract. This environment
creates a page with the appropriate header.
declaration University regulations require that you include a Declaration section to state that the
thesis is your own work. This will normally follow the Acknowledgements section. Note that
the command \standarddeclaration will produce a default Declaration page.
quotation The University regulations state that quotations should be single spaced; the quotation
and quote environments have therefore been redefined to enforce this.
2.4 Commands
This section describes the commands that are provided or redefined by the infthesis class. Other
standard LATEX commands are also available; for a list of these, please see the local documentation.
\maketitle This command has been redefined to produce a title page containing the thesis title,
author name, and degree, formatted suitably. The precise contents and layout of the title page
are controlled by the deptreport, logo, and frontabs options (see above); users can also use
the following commands to specify the contents of the page.
\title{…} The title of the thesis
\author{…} The author of the thesis
\submityear{…} The year of presentation. If omitted, the current year will be used.
\graduationdate{…} The date (Month Year) of graduation (optional).
\course{…} The course (e.g., Artificial Intelligence and Psychology). Used for undergrad-
uate reports only.
\project{…} The project type (e.g., Fourth Year Project Report, Undergraduate Disserta-
tion). Used for undergraduate reports only. Please check with your school to see which is
the appropriate title; the default is Fourth Year Project Report.
\abstract{…} The abstract of the thesis, which will be placed on the title page if the
frontabs option is specified or on the first page after the title page if it is not.
\bibliography{…} The bibliography environment has been redefined so that an entry for the
bibliography will always appear in the table of contents, as is required by the thesis regulations.
As well, commands have been added to make sure that the page headers within the bibliography
are correct.
\footnote{…} This command has been redefined so that footnotes are always single-spaced,
whatever the spacing of the rest of the document (as per thesis regulations).
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3 TIPS
\dedication{…} You can use this command to insert a short dedication page at the front of your
thesis. This will usually come between the title pages (abstract, acknowledgements, etc.) and
the table of contents.
\thesiscaption You can use this command in place of the LATEX \caption and \label commands.
It is used as follows:
\thesiscaption[