Thesis Rant

Turbulent Bill

graduate wrote: »

I did a thesis in Word and it was fine. Unless you have a lot of scientific stuff then Word/Endnote is the way to go. If you can do a PhD then you can certainly figure out Word, but it never ceases to suprise me that people are willing to spend years doing a PhD but not to spend an hour setting up appropriate styles in Word and getting used to the hyperlinks etc.

The issue with Word is that, even when it's used to the letter, there are numerous horror stories where the software just didn't work as expected, the thesis training course above being one of them. It's certainly possible to write a Word thesis, just that there's a much higher probability of problems occuring.

My thesis was in engineering, lots of complicated formulae etc., so LaTeX was a natural choice - I had used it once beforehand so the learning curve wasn't too steep. Even for simpler theses, though, it's worth at least trying to use it initially, just for piece of mind. If you don't like it or can't use it, you can always copy and paste to Word.

Turbulent Bill

Nari85 wrote: »

Just got my thesis back from the binders. The worst possible thing i could do was read it, 5 mistakes in the first chapter. Depressed off my head now

Draft or final version? My final version, even after countless revisions and readings, still contains some small mistakes. I've never seen a perfect one, so don't worry about it.

Red Alert

I think that despite the improvements recently, Word is still not up to very large documents, even if the splitting features are used.

graduate

I think Word can handle a thesis. But it is often good to store images and diagrams in separate files and just link these rather than embedding them in the document. People often just paste in huge bitmaps, making the document enormous.

Dr Strange

I submitted my thesis about three weeks ago. All done in words with a large amount of images, diagrams etc...Also formulae. For these I used the Microsoft Equation function. No problems at all, and even the pagination worked out fine. The only problem was that I had to print it myself because I wanted all the images on quality photographic paper and because these were interspersed with the text no printing/binding service would go near it. The result of the final bound thesis with images on photographic paper is fantastic though and well worth it.

dudara

For any thesis that is semi-complicated, I'd recommend going straight to LaTeX of some form. It can handle all your images, cross-references, etc and produce a document that can be printed anywhere.

It's less likely to fall over and you have the added benefit of being able to use it in conjunction with a programme like BiblioTeX.

Word is fine for everyday use - but there's no way that I'd trust an important document to Word.

graduate

It's less likely to fall over and you have the added benefit of being able to use it in conjunction with a programme like BiblioTeX.

Endnote is your friend for the reference management end of things.

civis_liberalis

Endnote isn't exactly perfect. You should read up on it's idiosyncrasies and be mindful of them.

Still though, I wouldn't not recommend it either.

El Siglo

Could somebody explain this LaTeX thing to me in a bit more detail and where can I procure such a programme, I hate word at the best of times and I hate it more now with vista!

djpbarry

El Siglo wrote: »

Could somebody explain this LaTeX thing to me in a bit more detail and where can I procure such a programme, I hate word at the best of times and I hate it more now with vista!

The Wikibook is a decent starting point:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Introduction#What_is_LaTeX

Should get you up and running pretty quickly. Give yourself a few hours to familiarise yourself with the language - it's pretty straightforward to pick up, especially if you've any programming experience at all.

The major advantage that Latex has over the alternatives is, in a word, consistency. All of your fonts will be exactly the same throughout your document. All of your tables will be exactly the same (if that's what you want). The sizing and positioning of tables, figures, pictures, diagrams, etc. is virtually effortless (this alone will save you literally hundreds of hours versus Word).

Furthermore, if your document contains any kind of mathematics, there really is no substitute for Latex. Try producing a simple formula like this in Word and see if it looks even half as professional:

[latex]\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi \sigma^2}} \exp \left( \frac{-(x-\mu)^2}{2 \sigma^2} \right) [/latex]

magneticimpulse

Preusse wrote: »

I am not sure about Masters. My supervisor won't tell me anything until he has the full final draft in his hands. It is pretty difficult to judge sometimes but then again as a PhD student you are required to identify the end point of you research because you own that research and are the expert on that particular topic in the end.
Maybe the supervisors are just waiting for you to say: Right, that's it, I am done here? I don't know, it's difficult to judge as I said.

yeah i handed in a week by week plan to my supervisor. he seemed alright with it. but it was good for me to get idea's of how they felt my phd going. only 2 months left in my contract and i was hoping i could finish up lab work. at this stage im doing a lot of chemistry synthesis and not progressing very far. in my mind i would progress more writing and the coming back to anything that needed finishing in the lab. but they want me to continue in the lab which is a pain. when i suggested feb i would have viva...he said more like march.

magneticimpulse

Preusse wrote: »

I submitted my thesis about three weeks ago. All done in words with a large amount of images, diagrams etc...Also formulae. For these I used the Microsoft Equation function. No problems at all, and even the pagination worked out fine. The only problem was that I had to print it myself because I wanted all the images on quality photographic paper and because these were interspersed with the text no printing/binding service would go near it. The result of the final bound thesis with images on photographic paper is fantastic though and well worth it.

congrats on handing it in. im at the chapter by chapter goal at this stage. im sure people tick off the stages...chapters...then printing, binding, then handing it in, then viva...finally finished

magneticimpulse

djpbarry wrote: »

The Wikibook is a decent starting point:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Introduction#What_is_LaTeX

Should get you up and running pretty quickly. Give yourself a few hours to familiarise yourself with the language - it's pretty straightforward to pick up, especially if you've any programming experience at all.

The major advantage that Latex has over the alternatives is, in a word, consistency. All of your fonts will be exactly the same throughout your document. All of your tables will be exactly the same (if that's what you want). The sizing and positioning of tables, figures, pictures, diagrams, etc. is virtually effortless (this alone will save you literally hundreds of hours versus Word).

Furthermore, if your document contains any kind of mathematics, there really is no substitute for Latex. Try producing a simple formula like this in Word and see if it looks even half as professional:

[latex]\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi \sigma^2}} \exp \left( \frac{-(x-\mu)^2}{2 \sigma^2} \right) [/latex]

have to look into this Latex program. downloaded BLENDER during the week for graphics and diagrams. but looks so difficult to begin. why dont they give a computer course on how to write your thesis?? it would be very helpful. ive only had a class on how to do a CV...it hardly compared to writing a thesis, with different style consistent fonts, diagrams, equations and chemical formulas. i agree that WORD is lacking when it comes to writing scientific documents. im using openoffice at the moment and will try to use Latex

magneticimpulse

im came here as it says thesis rant. so far the comments have been mild. i was expecting people to be complaining and moaning. is that just me?? im sure i get over this stage once i get into a mode of writing....in the meantime roar...argh....f;;ck...argh thesis

pow wow

I'm on my four billionth rewrite and I could recite the entire text from memory. Even with that skill it's a mile away from being finished. Down with higher education :P