[TriLUG] latex & thesis prep - what am i getting into?

[Robertdkeys at aol.com]

You are not crazy at all for using TeX as a writing instrument
for your thesis work.  It does an extremely good job at that,
much better than what I have seen done in other so-called
"word processors".  I have had the fortune to compare some
of my grad student's works done in WPWYSIWYG mode vs.
through TeX or troff.  In the cases I compared TeX blew the
other things away.  Even troff was usually better than the
other things.

Learning TeX is not intuitively easy, although it is not all that
difficult if you use what is called, "boilerplate" (i.e., preformed
document shells), as a starting point.  If you want to try some,
I think I still have my generic ms/phd boilerplate around in my
archives, that was suited to NCSU theses and dissertations.
These are what I recommended to my students as starting points.
I think I still have them on cd somewhere, although much of that
kind of thing disappeared when I retired from NCSU.  I could probably
dig them up in a day or two.

The generic works for TeX and LaTeX are the old Knuth and Lamport
works.  They can often be found around used book stores.  I don't
think they are still in print, although a modern LaTeX2e document set
might be available.  Although I use my own roll of TeX/LaTeX, most
folks these days use teTeX which has more features.

If you scan the TeX archives (ftp.tug.org, or the european counterparts),
you should find most everything you need to get started.  Search for
"ctan" archives and that should get you pointed in the right direction.

Run the sample documents first and note what they do, then work up
from that to more complex documents that are available online, and
then try some boilerplate.  Good thesis boilerplate should allow you to
merely change headers and subheaders and fill in the paragraphs.
You may have to modify it slightly to fit the exacting parameters of
your particular thesis committee or grad school.

I heartily recommend TeX/LaTeX for thesis writing.

Good Luck

Bob Keys