To produce LaTeX documents that are reasonably conformant to LSU Grad School requirements for theses and dissertations, our document class “lsuthesis” may be used in place of the standard “book” document class. The separate “lsutitle” package provides helper macros and produces the title page. That package is kept separate from the document class so that one can easily switch to other document classes.
Note: This is the 2022/03/11 version. This is a work-in-progress provided in this preliminary form to assist graduate students with an immediate need.
Document class
Template
To use the template below, you also need the two files above.
Getting started
For an example of what can be produced, take a look at “mythesis.pdf”. To produce your own thesis or dissertation, download the other three files and modify “mythesis.tex”. More specifically:
- You need access to a TeX/LaTeX environment;
- Place “mythesis.tex”, “lsuthesis.cls”, “lsutitle.sty” together in a folder;
- Use a text editor to modify “mythesis.tex”;
- Tell your your LaTeX environment to convert your modified “mythesis.tex” into a new “mythesis.pdf”;
- Repeat the last two steps as often as needed.
Debugging conformance issues
When debugging conformance issues, start by comparing your preamble to that of the original “mythesis.tex” from this page. Many conformance issues are not due to the “lsuthesis” document class but instead due to conflicts arising from unnecessary preamble content (particularly macro definitions and \usepackage{...} lines) that the student has copied from somewhere but doesn't actually need.
If you are a math graduate student using these files and receive reports from LSU Grad School over conformance issues that are specific to the document class (e.g., issues with margin sizes or with font sizes or with spacing), please contact Alexander Perlis. The math department also appreciates feedback from other departments and might be able to provide some assistance but ultimately is not responsible for helping students from other departments with the preparation of conformant documents.