Williams College Astro-Physics Thesis Template
Author
Dr. Kevin Flaherty
Last Updated
2 years ago
License
Creative Commons CC BY 4.0
Abstract
A template for senior astronomy and physics theses at Williams College
% Williams Physics Thesis template
% Patterned after the work of Cole Meisenhelder '15
% Commented by Prof. Charlie Doret, 12/2016
% Uploaded to Overleaf by Dr. Kevin Flaherty, 5/2021
\documentclass[12pt, oneside]{book}
% The \usepackage{} command will import predefined fonts, symbols, environments, etc. For example, the ams packages below come from the American Mathematical Society and include all kinds of useful math symbols like integrals
\usepackage{amscd}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{verbatim}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{geometry} % See geometry.pdf to learn the layout options. There are lots.
\geometry{letterpaper} % ... or a4paper or a5paper or ...
%\geometry{landscape} % Activate for for rotated page geometry
\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx} % Use pdf, png, jpg, or eps� with pdflatex; use eps in DVI mode
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{physics}
\usepackage{subcaption}
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage{bm}
\usepackage{wrapfig} % enables the use of \wrapfig, for figures with text wrapped around them
%\usepackage{lipsum} % gives access to \lipsum, which dumps some latin text into your document as filler if you want to check formatting
%\usepackage[parfill]{parskip} % Activate to begin paragraphs with an empty line rather than an indent
% Here we set the page dimensions to match the standard thesis format. These values should not be changed.
%%% SET LENTGH AND WIDTH %%%
\setlength{\textwidth}{6.5in}
\setlength{\textheight}{8.5in}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0pt}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{0pt}
\setlength{\topmargin}{0pt}
\setlength{\marginparsep}{0pt}
\setlength{\marginparwidth}{1in}
%\begin{document} starts LaTeX looking for actual content. Everything above this point is purely formatting.
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\begin{center}
% \vspace* creates some vertical white space on the page to make the title page look more pleasing. \vspace would do much the same thing, but would not insert the white space if we were at the top of a fresh page. As this is the start of the document we're obviously at the beginning of a page, so the asterisk is necessary to ensure we still put in two cm of white space.
\vspace*{2cm}
{\huge Thesis Title} % \huge sets the font size. Other options include things like \large, \Large, \small, \tiny, etc.
\vspace{2cm}
{\large by\\Student Name}
\vspace{2cm}
{Professor SuperProf, Advisor}
% \vfill creates an arbitrary amount of vertical white space as necessary to fill the page
\vfill
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment\\
of the requirements for the\\
Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors\\
in Physics
\vspace*{3cm}
WILLIAMS COLLEGE\\
Williamstown, Massachusetts\\
\today % you might choose to set a permanent date, but \today will put in today's date
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}
% \frontmatter defines the pieces of the thesis which will use roman numerals for page numbering
\frontmatter
% \chapter{} and/or \chapter*{} will create a chapter in your thesis. Including the asterisk will cause the chapter to not appear in the table of contents.
% \input will reference a particular .tex file. Here we are grabbing a file entitled Abstract stored in the folder Chapters
\chapter{Abstract}
\input{Chapters/Abstract}
\chapter{Executive Summary}
\input{Chapters/ExecutiveSummary}
\chapter{Acknowledgments}
\input{Chapters/Acknowledgments}
%\tableofcontents will create a table of contents. By default it will include entries for any \chapter, \section, and \subsection command that appears in your thesis unless you have called the tag with an asterisk
\tableofcontents
\listoffigures
% \mainmatter defines the main body of the thesis and marks where regular numbering will begin
\mainmatter
\chapter{Introduction}
\input{Chapters/Chapter1}
\chapter{A second chapter}
\input{Chapters/Chapter2}
% the \appendix tag tells LaTeX where it should start labeling chapters with letters (denoting appendices) rather than numbers (denoting main chapters)
\appendix
\chapter{An appendix}
\input{Chapters/Appendix}
% \bibliographystyle tells LaTeX how you want to format your bibliography. There are many standard formats. apsrev is fairly typical, but feel free to explore other options if the mood strikes.
\bibliographystyle{apsrev}
% \bibliography calls the actual file that contains your bibliographic information. This file can be generated by hand or in an automated way using software such as BibTeX. Either works fine, but it is worth learning to use BibTex in the long term. Take a look at the .bib file included here if you want to get some idea of the formatting required to create a bibliogrphy file of your own.
\bibliography{bibliography}
\end{document}