Author: Victor Calderon (victor.calderon@vanderbilt.edu)
Description: An easy, reasonably standardized, but flexible template for creating Ph.D. theses from the Vanderbilt University
This documentation is part of the repository Vanderbilt Ph.D. Thesis - Cookiecutter
Table of Contents
Steps to take to write your dissertation¶
The dissertation can be found at: Vanderbilt Astro PhD Template
This template is easy to use, and you only need to answer some questions.
Requirements to use cookiecutter
templates¶
The minimum rquirements for creating cookiecutter
templates are:
Python 2.7 or 3.5
Cookiecutter Python package >= 1.4.0: This can be installed with
pip
orconda
depending on how you manage your Python packages.
You can install it by typing this on the terminal
pip install cookiecutter
or via Anaconda:
conda config --add channels conda-forge
conda install cookiecutter
Now you can use cookiecutter
to create new templates for projects and papers!
Downloading Vanderbilt PhD Thesis¶
After having done the steps in _install_requirements, you can start creating the skeleton for the thesis.
You first need to run:
cd /path/to/where/main/thesis/will/be/
pip install cookiecutter
cookiecutter https://github.com/VandyAstroML/Vanderbilt_Astro_PhD_Template
This will install the necessary packages and directories for the PhD Thesis. It will also prompt you to anwer a few questions, and based on what you answer, it will create fill in the template for you.
Note
Make sure you cd
into the correct path. Otherwise, you will
be downloading the repository to the wrong directory.
cookiecutter
Prompts¶
Next, it will prompt you for some answers. The different prompts are:
Question |
Description |
---|---|
|
Title of the thesis. Should not have ‘_’ symbols in it. Examples:
|
|
Author’s first name. Examples:
|
|
Author’s last name. Examples:
|
|
Name of the directory/repository, in which the theis will be saved. This name is selected by default, but it can be changed. This field should not contain spaces Examples:
|
|
Option for adding signatures to the thesis. Options:
|
|
Name of the department. Default: Physics and Astronomy. Should not contain ‘_’ (underscores) symbols. Examples:
|
|
Date of the Dissertation presentation.
Format: Examples:
|
|
First and last name of the committee member 1. Should not have ‘_’ symbols in it. Examples:
|
|
First and last name of the committee member 2. Should not have ‘_’ symbols in it. Examples:
|
|
First and last name of the committee member 3. Should not have ‘_’ symbols in it. Examples:
|
|
First and last name of the committee member 4. Should not have ‘_’ symbols in it. Examples:
|
|
First and last name of the committee member 5. Should not have ‘_’ symbols in it. Examples:
|
|
Author’s Github username. This will be use to link to the paper to the Github repository. Examples:
|
|
Name of the project on Github Examples:
|
|
|
|
Option for whether or not you will be uploading it to www.overleaf.com Options:
|
Writing the Thesis¶
Once you’ve downloaded the repository and answered all of the questions, you can start writing your thesis.
My advice would be to follow these steps to guarantee that you’re doing it correctly:
Create a new repository on Github. This will be the repository for your newly created local repository.
git init
your local repository.Follow the instructions to upload the files of your dissertation to Github.
Write your dissertation.
After having downloaded and answered the questions, the repository should look like this:
Calderon_Victor_Vanderbilt_Astro_PhD_Thesis/
├── Bibliography
│ └── bibliography.bib
├── Chapters
│ ├── acknowledgments.tex
│ ├── appendix_A.tex
│ ├── chapter_1.tex
│ ├── chapter_2.tex
│ ├── chapter_3.tex
│ ├── chapter_4.tex
│ ├── dedication.tex
│ ├── future_work.tex
│ ├── introduction.tex
│ └── titlepage.tex
├── Extras
│ ├── commands.tex
│ ├── headings_settings.tex
│ └── packages.tex
├── Figures
│ ├── project_1
│ ├── project_2
│ └── project_3
├── Makefile
├── README.md
├── Thesis
│ └── thesis.tex
└── requirements.txt
8 directories, 18 files
This is the file structure after creating the new repository.
The main file of the repository is: Thesis/thesis.tex
.
This is the file that will get compiled by LaTeX, and will produce a PDF
version.
The only files that you will need to edit (aside from thesis.tex
)
are located in the Chapters
directory. These are the ones
that you need to edit.
Using the Template¶
Now that one has answered the questions from _vandy_phd_fields,
you just need to fill in the documents in the Chapters
directory
according to your thesis’ needs.
The structure of the finalized thesis can be found in the Project Structure section.
Uploading your Thesis to Overleaf¶
Once you have completed setting up your Thesis, and are ready to start the writing process, you can upload your paper to Overleaf.
Overleaf, as explained on their website, is:
Overleaf is a free service that lets you create, edit and share your scientific ideas easily online using LaTeX, a comprehensive and powerful tool for scientific writing.
—Overleaf Team
For a more in-depth tutorial on how to use Overleaf, you can visit Overleaf Tutorial and watch the attached video.
Steps to follow to upload your Thesis to Overleaf¶
In order to upload your project to Overleaf, you need to follow the following steps:
Compress the output of
cookiecutter
template to azip
file.Create an account on Overleaf. Go to Overleaf Sign-up
Create a new, empty “New Project”
Click on “Upload Project”
Drag and drop or click on Select a .zip file
Connect your Mendeley account. Open one if you don’t have one. This will link your bibliography with Overleaf. See more here
For a brief video on how to do this, see the following video:
And now you have a new, working PhD. Thesis.
You can start writing now!
Compiling your Thesis¶
This repository includes a Makefile
. This file serves as the file
that will make the cleaning, compiling, and opening the pdf of the
thesis.tex
file.
To show all of the options of the Makefile, write:
make show-help
This will show you a list of options:
./Calderon_Victor_Vanderbilt_Astro_PhD_Thesis: make show-help
Available rules:
all Perform all tasks
clean Clean all unnecessary latex-related files
open_pdf List all unnecessary files
thesis.tex Compiles Main Thesis file
To compile your thesis, you will need to run the following commands:
make all
or
make thesis.tex
This will create all of the necessary files for compiling your thesis.
To open the PDF version of the thesis, run:
make open_pdf
and a PDF version of the thesis.tex
file will pop up.
Note
In order to properly use the Makefile and compile thesis.tex
,
you will need latexmk
installed. If you’re on a MAC, you want
to check out the Latexmk documentation,
and make sure to have MacTex installed
on your computer.
An example of the resulting PDF can be found in:
Project based on the modified version of the Vanderbilt University Thesis Template