University of Rochester Dissertation Template

This repository contains a LaTeX template for dissertations at the University of Rochester. It is, to my knowledge, consistent with UR regulations as of July 2014. Use at your own risk. If the requirements change or you notice an inconsistency, please submit an issue or pull request and I'll try to update the template.

Example output is available here.

Files

The template consists of the following files:

• dissertation.tex: The master document, which includes all packages and all content files.

• 01-title.tex: Title page, formatted per guidelines

• 02-dedication.tex: Dedication (optional)

• 03-bio.tex: Biographical Sketch, including sample text

• 04-acknowledgments.tex: Acknowledgments (optional)

• 05-abstract.tex: Abstract

• 06-contrib.tex: Contributors and Funding Sources, including sample text

• 07-contents.tex: Table of Contents, List of Tables, and List of Figures

• 08-chapter-01.tex and 08-chapter-02.tex: Sample chapters

• 09-references.tex: References/bibliography (bib file sample.bib)

The inclusion of the numerals preceding the descriptive names leads to an order of the files based on file names that is consistent with their logical order.

Building and Cleaning

I recommend using Latexmk to build the output. Latexmk runs LaTeX and BibTeX successively until the final product is complete, so you don't have to worry about the dreaded ?? showing up where a reference should be.

# Compile the dissertation
latexmk -pdf dissertation

# Remove auxiliary files, log files, etc., after compilation
latexmk -c

# Remove all generated files, including PDFs
latexmk -C

In addition, the file makefile is set up to do the same as the latexmk commands above. To use it, instead run the following:

# Compile the dissertation
make

# Remove auxiliary files, log files, etc., after compilation
make clean

# Remove all generated files, including PDFs
make fullclean

One advantage of the makefile approach is that you can extend the definitions and use make to accomplish much, much more than just building LaTeX documents.