What makes a good dissertation?

username219321

hey guys,
For a math or engineering degree, does your dissertation have to be upped up using latex?
If not do you get extra marks for using latex?

In Maths it's very important to know LaTeX, not because of "extra marks" or anything but because it's almost universally used to the point where it's a huge hindrance not to - for instance, it's common for people to communicate in a kind of "pidgin-tex" via email (by this I mean typing LaTeX code for what they want to say into a plain text email rather than sending fully fledged code or a PDF; not the program with that name). Also, if you work on a group project with people it's almost certain they'll want to use LaTeX.

Another point as well is that if you want to publish, an article not done in LaTeX is likely to be taken less seriously (e.g. see the first point of http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304).

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 21

Nathanielle

15

Original post by matt2k8

Another point as well is that if you want to publish, an article not done in LaTeX is likely to be taken less seriously ...

The journals I know, give you so detailed lists of requirement, how you have to write your article including the accepted formats, that every article looks the same and you really don't have any freedom, to think about how you want to write the article, except the content. Every article in the journal will have the same layout, so into my experience it won't play a role at all, concerning the likelyhood of getting published and afterwards getting taken seriously.

(edited 9 years ago)

What's the advantage of LaTeX over the standard Word equation editor? I had never heard of LaTeX until I joined TSR. It seems to be popular on forums for displaying equations correctly, but also seems to be more complicated than just using the inbuilt equation editor. (Or copying them directly from MathCAD like I did.)

Reply 23

username219321

14

Original post by Nathanielle

The journals I know, give you so detailed lists of requirement, how you have to write your article including the accepted formats, that every article looks the same and you really don't have any freedom, to think about how you want to write the article, except the content. Every article in the journal will have the same layout, so into my experience it won't play a role at all, concerning the likelyhood of getting published and afterwards getting taken seriously.

Ah yes of course, I just checked and for maths journals it's actually the case that most of them give a LaTeX template you have to use.

Reply 24

Nathanielle

15

Original post by Smack

What's the advantage of LaTeX over the standard Word equation editor? I had never heard of LaTeX until I joined TSR. It seems to be popular on forums for displaying equations correctly, but also seems to be more complicated than just using the inbuilt equation editor. (Or copying them directly from MathCAD like I did.)

Some years ago you had to use LaTeX, as Word would have just gone wild after some pages. That is why LaTeX became so popular. Word is getting better and better, but some years ago it was just annoying. Although I still like the advantage to just type the formula instead of all that klicking around, personally I don't see that much difference now. (Except inserting images...)

Reply 25

username219321

14

Original post by Smack

What's the advantage of LaTeX over the standard Word equation editor? I had never heard of LaTeX until I joined TSR. It seems to be popular on forums for displaying equations correctly, but also seems to be more complicated than just using the inbuilt equation editor. (Or copying them directly from MathCAD like I did.)

The main things are that once you get used to the commands (and set up good macros for commonly used ones) it's quicker than any equation editors for inputting maths (and there is equation editors that will output in tex if needs be) and that it does all the formatting for you (very well at that).

Reply 26

Mathmatician

OP

7

Thanks everyone

(edited 9 years ago)

What makes a good dissertation?

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