A thesis LaTeX-template

This LaTeX-template might be used to write a bachelor or master thesis at the computer science department at h_da university of applied sciences in Darstmadt. It is based on the fabulous ClassicThesis style template of Andre Miedé. It is adapted to meet the current style guide for bachelor and master theses at the computer science department of h_da, as outlined in Richtlinien zur Anfertigung der Bachelorarbeit

Table of contents

• Configuration
  • thesis.tex
    • Two-sided vs. one-sided
    • Bibliographies
    • Language
    • Table of content, figures, tables, listings, and acronyms
  • hdathesis-config.tex
    • Personal data
  • classicthesis-config.tex
• Usage
  • Writing abstracts
  • Adding content
  • Compiling the LaTeX source code
• Known issues
• License

Configuration

The LaTeX template can be modified and configured easily using a very limited number of files, namely classicthesis-config.tex, hdathesis-config.tex, and thesis.tex. Only use these three files to modify your LaTeX thesis. Please DO NOT modify the actual LaTeX code for your thesis (as this becomes quite complex and consumes a lot of time). Please finde a brief description of the various configuration options below:

thesis.tex

The thesis.tex file contains the basic structure and all the chapter-files that contain the actual content of your thesis. Thus, you have to modify this file in order to configure some basic stuff like the language of your thesis. The subsequent section "Adding content" explains how to add content.

Two-sided vs. one-sided

The default output of the LaTeX thesis template a two-sided style that also has to be printet that way. In case you want to print one-sided only, you have to remove the twoside option in the \documentclass definition at line 35:

\documentclass[ openright,titlepage,numbers=noenddot,headinclude,%
                footinclude=true,cleardoublepage=empty,abstractoff,%
                BCOR=5mm,paper=a4,fontsize=11pt,
                ngerman,american,%
                ]{scrreprt}

You may also adapt the paper size (paper=a4) and the font size (fontsize=11) if necessary.

Bibliographies

By default all bibliographies that can be referenced in the thesis are put into the bibliography.bib file in the root directory of the LaTeX sources. However, if you want to use additional bibliography files, you may add them to the bibliograph section (starting at line 47) in thesis.tex

%*************************************************************************
% Bibliographies
%*************************************************************************
\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}
.... ADD YOUR FILES HERE ...

Language

The default langauge of your thesis is German. If you want to switch to English, you have to modify the language selection from ngerman to american at line 63.

\selectlanguage{american} % ngerman, american

Table of content, figures, tables, listings, and acronyms

By default, the thesis templates prints a lot of table of content, i.e. for figures, tables, listings, and aconyms. You may want to remove such tables if you only have a very limited number, i.e. less then 3-5, of figures, tables, listings, and acronyms. Simply comment the related line in thesis.tex starting at line 81.

%\cleardoublepage\include{frontbackmatter/Figures}
%\cleardoublepage\include{frontbackmatter/Tables}
%\cleardoublepage\include{frontbackmatter/Listings}
%\cleardoublepage\include{frontbackmatter/Acronyms}

hdathesis-config.tex

The hdathesis-config.tex-file allows to configure the usual stuff needed for a thesis at h_da. Namely, you can configure the title of your thesis, your name, the names of your supervisors, dates, etc. Thus, you MUST touch this file and configure it accordingly.

Personal data

This is where you have to place all the personal stuff of your thesis, starting at line 7.

\newcommand{\myTitle}{A Classic Thesis Style\xspace}
\newcommand{\mySubtitle}{An Homage to The Elements of Typographic Style\xspace}
\newcommand{\myDegree}{Bachelor of Science (B.Sc)\xspace}
\newcommand{\myName}{Andr\'e Miede\xspace}
\newcommand{\myId}{Matrikelnummer\xspace}
\newcommand{\myProf}{Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Bredel\xspace}
\newcommand{\myOtherProf}{Prof. Dr. Martin Stiemerling\xspace}
\newcommand{\myFaculty}{Fachbereich Informatik\xspace}
\newcommand{\myUni}{Hochschule Darmstadt\xspace}
\newcommand{\myLocation}{Darmstadt\xspace}
\newcommand{\myTime}{20. Feburar 2015\xspace}
\newcommand{\myVersion}{version 4.4\xspace}

classicthesis-config.tex

The classicthesis-config.tex-file allows you to configure stuff that comes with the classic-thesis style, like LaTeX packages used by classic thesis. This is quite advanced stuff already. Thus, you should touch this file only if you quite well what you are doing. Usually, you can leave the file as it is.

Usage

In the following, we explain how to actually use, i.e. add content and compile, the thesis template to creage a nice and shiny PDF file that will please your supervisor.

Writing abstracts

Every thesis has to have two abstracts; one in German and one in English. Thus, there are two abstract files included in the thesis.tex-file. Boths files, called AbstractDE.tex for the German abstract and AbstractEN.tex for the English abstract, are located in the ./frontbackmatter/ directory.

You have to modify both these files and place your abstract text in AbstractDE.tex and AbstractEN.tex respectively.

Adding content

By default, the thesis template, i.e. the thesis.tex-file, contains (includes) some default content files for chapters and appendix from the ./chapters/examples/-directory (starting a line 94). You have to remove those includes and include your own files. Please note that it is best practice to put all your content in seperate files.

\cleardoublepage
\part{Thesis}\label{pt:thesis}
%\include{chapters/examples/chapter01}
%\include{chapters/examples/chapter02}
%\include{chapters/examples/chapter03}
... PUT YOUR INCLUDES FOR CHAPTERS HERE ...
%*************************************************************************
% Backmatter
%*************************************************************************
\appendix
%\renewcommand{\thechapter}{\alph{chapter}}
\cleardoublepage
\part{Appendix}
%\include{chapters/examples/appendix01}
%\include{chapters/examples/appendix02}
... PUT YOUR INCLUDES FOR APPENDIX HERE ...

You may also want to have a look at the part(...) section at line 93 and 103. You may want to change the titles of the part(...)-sections. Alternatively, you remove the part(...) section and the corresponding cleardoublepage the line before.

Compiling the LaTeX source code

You may compile the hda-thesis template using the pdflatex and the bibtex command. In addition, the thesis template repository contains a Makefile that allows you to compile the thesis template using the make tool available on most Unix and Linux systems. Simply type:

 $ make

to compile the LaTeX code into a PDF-file. Moreover, you may use

 $ make clean

to remove all temporary files, which are produced during the compilation process. Finally,

 $ make bz2

generates a bz2-package file, which contains all the source files of your LaTeX code.

Known issues

• The LaTeX template only supports bachelor theses (by default)
• The thesis only supports German and (American) English

License

The h_da computer science department LaTeX thesis template is licenced under GPL v3.0