A Template to be Used by the Students

for Typesetting Project Report or

Dissertation

Submitted by:
Maja 2010-Elect-420
Saja 2010-Elect-320
Basantay 2010-Elect-69

Supervised by: Prof. Rab Nawaz

Department of Electrical Engineering

University of Engineering and Technology Lahore
A Template to be Used by the Students
for Typesetting Project Report or
Dissertation

Submitted to the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department

of the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Science
in
Electrical Engineering.

Internal Examiner External Examiner

Director
Undergraduate Studies

Department of Electrical Engineering

University of Engineering and Technology Lahore

i
 Declaration
I declare that the work contained in this thesis is my own, except where explicitly stated
otherwise. In addition this work has not been submitted to obtain another degree or
professional qualification.

Signed:
Date:

ii
 Acknowledgments
The acknowledgements and the people to thank go here, don’t forget to include your
project advisor. . .

iii
For/Dedicated to/To my. . .

iv
Contents

Acknowledgments iii

List of Figures vi

List of Tables vii

Abbreviations viii

Abstract ix

1 Project Report/Thesis Structure 1

2 Motivations and Problem Statement 3

A Introduction to Latex 4
A.1 Learning LATEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A.1.1 A (not so short) Introduction to LATEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A.1.2 A Short Math Guide for LATEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A.1.3 Common LATEX Math Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A.1.4 Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A.1.5 Typesetting mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
A.2 Sectioning and Subsectioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

References 8

v
List of Figures

A.1 The UET Laore logo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

vi
List of Tables

vii
Abbreviations

LAH List Abbreviations Here

viii
 Abstract
The Thesis Abstract is written here (and usually kept to just this page). The page is
kept centered vertically so can expand into the blank space above the title too. . .
Chapter 1

Project Report/Thesis Structure

The flow of information provided in a thesis depends on its structure. The parameters
defining the structure of a thesis are discussed in [2] and are quoted below:

“The structure of a thesis is governed by logic and is invariant with respect

to subject. The substance varies with subject, and its quality is determined
by the technical knowledge and mastery of essentials exhibited by the stu-
dent. Style has two components: language and layout. The former deals
with the usage of English as a medium of sound technical communication;
the latter with the physical presentation of the thesis on paper. All three
componentsstructure, substance and styleinfluence one another.”

There is no definite structure for a thesis. The author is the best judge. One possible
structure of a thesis can be:

• Chapter 1 : Introduction

• Chapter 2 : Motivations, Related Literature and Problem Statement

• Chapter 3 : Proposed Approach

• Chapter 4 : Implementation and/or Experimentation

• Chapter 5 : Conclusions and Future Directions

The purpose of the introduction is to provide an outline of your project in a contextual

framework systematically. The introduction should be kept short and to the point.

Depending on the substance, you can break Chapter 2 suggested above into separate
chapters. For instance, motivation and related literature can be one chapter and problem
statement can be a separate chapter . This is flexible and is decided while writing the
thesis.

1
Chapter 1. Project Report/Thesis Structure 2

The rationale behind the structure selected above is to meet the objective of telling a
story as clearly and convincingly as possible. We have adapted the following table from
[1] to show the flow in the logic:

Introduction/Aim What did you do and why?

Materials and Methods How did you do it?
Observations/Results What did you find?
Discussion What do your results mean to you and why?
Conclusions What new knowledge is extracted from experiment?

There are a number of guiding documents e.g. [5], [4], as well as some documents avail-
able online, which can be helpful in writing the thesis. Two such documents outlining
some general guidelines are [3], [2].

Finally here is a list of words that you should try avoid while writing the thesis: “very
much”, “interesting”, “good”, “fun”, “exciting”, “very”, “too much”.
Chapter 2

Motivations and Problem

Statement

3
Appendix A

Introduction to Latex

The material provided in this appendix is taken from

http://www.sunilpatel.co.uk/thesistemplate.php

A.1 Learning LATEX

LATEX is not a WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) program, unlike word
processors such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect. Instead, a document written
for LATEX is actually a simple, plain text file that contains no formatting. You tell LATEX
how you want the formatting in the finished document by writing in simple commands
amongst the text, for example, if I want to use italic text for emphasis, I write the
‘\emph{}’ command and put the text I want in italics in between the curly braces. This
means that LATEX is a “mark-up” language, very much like HTML.

A.1.1 A (not so short) Introduction to LATEX

If you are new to LATEX, there is a very good eBook – freely available online as a PDF
file – called, “The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX”. The book’s title is typically
shortened to just “lshort”. You can download the latest version (as it is occasionally
updated) from here:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf

It is also available in several other languages. Find yours from the list on this page:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/

It is recommended to take a little time out to learn how to use LATEX by creating
several, small ‘test’ documents. Making the effort now means you’re not stuck learning
the system when what you really need to be doing is writing your thesis.

A.1.2 A Short Math Guide for LATEX

If you are writing a technical or mathematical thesis, then you may want to read the
document by the AMS (American Mathematical Society) called, “A Short Math Guide
for LATEX”. It can be found online here:

4
Appendix A. Introduction to Latex 5

http://www.ams.org/tex/amslatex.html
under the “Additional Documentation” section towards the bottom of the page.

A.1.3 Common LATEX Math Symbols

There are a multitude of mathematical symbols available for LATEX and it would take a
great effort to learn the commands for them all. The most common ones you are likely
to use are shown on this page:
http://www.sunilpatel.co.uk/latexsymbols.html

You can use this page as a reference or crib sheet, the symbols are rendered as large,
high quality images so you can quickly find the LATEX command for the symbol you
need.

A.1.4 Figures
There will hopefully be many figures in your thesis (that should be placed in the ‘Figures’
folder). The way to insert figures into your thesis is to use a code template like this:

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics[width = 1.5in]{./Figures/uet_logo.pdf}
\rule{35em}{0.5pt}
\caption{The UET Laore logo.}
\label{fig:uet_logo}
\end{figure}

Also look in the source file. Putting this code into the source file produces the picture
of the UET logo that you can see in the figure below.

Figure A.1: The UET Laore logo.

Sometimes figures don’t always appear where you write them in the source. The place-
ment depends on how much space there is on the page for the figure. Sometimes there
is not enough room to fit a figure directly where it should go (in relation to the text)
and so LATEX puts it at the top of the next page. Positioning figures is the job of LATEX
and so you should only worry about making them look good!
Appendix A. Introduction to Latex 6

Figures usually should have labels just in case you need to refer to them (such as in
figure A.1). The ‘\caption’ command contains two parts, the first part, inside the
square brackets is the title that will appear in the ‘List of Figures’, and so should
be short. The second part in the curly brackets should contain the longer and more
descriptive caption text.

The ‘\rule’ command is optional and simply puts an aesthetic horizontal line below the
image. If you do this for one image, do it for all of them.

The LATEX Thesis Template is able to use figures that are either in the PDF or JPEG
file format. It is recommended that you read this short guide on how to get the best out
of figures in LATEX, available here:
http://www.sunilpatel.co.uk/texhelp5.html

Though it is geared more towards users of Mac and OS X systems, much of the advice
applies to creating and using figures in general. It also explains why the PDF file format
is preferred in figures over JPEG.

A.1.5 Typesetting mathematics

If your thesis is going to contain heavy mathematical content, be sure that LATEX will
make it look beautiful, even though it won’t be able to solve the equations for you.

The “Not So Short Introduction to LATEX” (available here) should tell you everything you
need to know for most cases of typesetting mathematics. If you need more information,
a much more thorough mathematical guide is available from the AMS called, “A Short
Math Guide to LATEX” and can be downloaded from:
ftp://ftp.ams.org/pub/tex/doc/amsmath/short-math-guide.pdf

There are many different LATEX symbols to remember, luckily you can find the most
common symbols here. You can use the web page as a quick reference or crib sheet
and because the symbols are grouped and rendered as high quality images (each with a
downloadable PDF), finding the symbol you need is quick and easy.

You can write an equation, which is automatically given an equation number by LATEX
like this:

\begin{equation}
E = mc^{2}
\label{eqn:Einstein}
\end{equation}

This will produce Einstein’s famous energy-matter equivalence equation:

E = mc2 (A.1)
Appendix A. Introduction to Latex 7

All equations you write (which are not in the middle of paragraph text) are automatically
given equation numbers by LATEX. If you don’t want a particular equation numbered,
just put the command, ‘\nonumber’ immediately after the equation.

A.2 Sectioning and Subsectioning

You should break your thesis up into nice, bite-sized sections and subsections. LATEX
automatically builds a table of Contents by looking at all the ‘\chapter{}’, ‘\section{}’
and ‘\subsection{}’ commands you write in the source.

The table of Contents should only list the sections to three (3) levels. A ‘\chapter{}’
is level one (1). A ‘\section{}’ is level two (2) and so a ‘\subsection{}’ is level three
(3). In your thesis it is likely that you will even use a ‘\subsubsection{}’, which is
level four (4). Adding all these will create an unnecessarily cluttered table of Contents
and so you should use the ‘\subsubsection∗ {}’ command instead (note the asterisk).
The asterisk (∗ ) tells LATEX to omit listing the subsubsection in the Contents, keeping it
clean and tidy.
References

[1] R. Barrass. Scientists must write: a guide to better writing for scientists, engineers
and students. RoutledgeFalmer, 2002.

[2] R. Chandrasekhar. How to Write a Thesis: A Working Guide. http://ciips.ee.

uwa.edu.au/pub/HowToWriteAThesis.pdf, Last accessed on May 19, 2010.

[3] S. Easterbrook. How Thesis Get Written. http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~sme/

presentations/thesiswriting.pdf, Last accessed on May 19, 2010.

[4] D. Evans and P. Gruba. How to write a better thesis. Melbourne University Pub-
lishing, 2003.

[5] R. Murray. How to write a thesis. Open Univ Press, 2006.