tricks

Doctoral Dissertation or Master’s Thesis Template

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I’ve already mentioned one good tool for research papers, so here’s another that might be helpful.

Most schools have a set format for their dissertations and theses. My school was the same.  They provide a manual showing what they expect your formatting to be.  Many people have trouble with this. You must make a meeting with a specific faculty member in the graduate school and she will take a ruler and measure your margins, and go over in extreme detail the spacing, numbering, etc. of your document. Many many people get rejected and I’ve even talked to people who pay lots of money for other people to format the documents for them.  They don’t provide an exact template for any specific software, but using the google machine can help you find Microsoft Word or LaTeX tempaltes.  Personally, I like LibreOffice it is completely cross-platform (works on windows, mac, and linux systems)  completely free, open source, has lots of great plugins and it lives in the world between Microsoft Windows and LaTeX. It is GUI-based (WYSIWYG, visual) like Microsoft Word, but also much more powerful like LaTeX.   I dislike LaTeX because it is incredibly buggy and you have to program your text documents.  I program other stuff all day long, I am sick of that!

Anyway, I made my own template and write up a very detailed explanation on how to use it and my best tips and tricks for modifying the basic template if you want.  I also have a chart of suggested plugins to make your papers look amazingly good and professional. Again, I used LibreOffice, so it can be used in OpenOffice as well. This is specific to my school, so be sure you double check your school’s documents to see exactly what kind of margins and page numbering they require.  (Note it is in Open document Format and though I haven’t tested it, it *might* work in other programs like Microsoft Word).

Download my template here!

Adam-Atom

Annotating (Grading) PDF Assignments

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For a while now, I’ve been asking my students to submit their work as PDFs online using moodle (or email).  I always use open source tools to annotate and grade these documents.  There are several apps out there for this, I happen to use Xournal.  The problem was that my preferences in Xournal were never saved.  So I figured if I had the problem, maybe others do to.  Here’s how to fix it:

First find where the preferences are stored.  In Linux, these are found in a text file in my Home folder. I assume it will be similar in Windows.  I edited this text file to automatically start with good grading tools already selected: ie. Red text with a Serif font.

$ gedit ~/.xournal/config

Then Ctrl+F and find “startup_tool”  set this to “text”

Then Ctrl+F for “pen_color”and change this to “red”

Finally Ctrl+F for “default_font” and set this to “Serif”.

Save the file and you are done. Now every time you open Xournal, these settings will be loaded and you can just start commenting and grading without having to do any additional tool selections.

 

UPDATE: In Windows, Xournal configurations are hard to find.  You must first set it up so you can view hidden folders and files (Go to Start menu–> Control panel –> Appearances and Optimizations –> Folder Options –> Show hidden files and Folders.  Look for the radio buttons and select “Show hidden files, folders, or drives”.  While I’m in here I usually also uncheck “Hide extensions of known filetypes”  which lets me rename files including their filetype and see what types of files they are directly.

Once you do this, you can run Xournal and “Save Preferences” once as Ken mentioned in the comments below. Close Xournal first, then go to the path “C:Users\<username>\.xournal  (Notice the dot in “.xournal”!!!) Open the “Config” file in a text editor (like notepad or notepad++ or Sublime text editor)  Now you can make the changes above, and save.

A note of caution, edit a PDF with text, export it, then open it in another PDF reader to make sure it does not mess up.  Sometimes when editing the config file, the Font doesn’t work correctly and I end up with garbage text and random characters on my exported copy which isn’t useful for students.  If this happens to you, simply delete the config file and start over.

 

Adam-Atom

Tips on Getting into Grad School: Part 2

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In the first part of this two-part series, I went over some of the basics of graduate school applications.  In this part, I’ll go over some more detailed aspects you should consider when choosing a program and tell you some tips that might help you get in even if you don’t fully meet the requirements.

After each detailed section, there’s a “TLDR” notice. This stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Read” and gives just the basics of the section.

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Tips on Getting into Grad School: Part 1

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From time to time, people ask my advice for how to get accepted into Graduate school. Reading the school websites, and talking to professors and administrators isn’t enough.  Not to mention you need people skills to get in.  In this, the first of a two-part series, I’ll break down the very basics of what many programs require, and give you tips and tricks to help out.  The second half will be advanced tips, that show that you really want in the program.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert on this subject. I don’t have the best people skills, and I don’t know all there is to know about Grad school, but I do know what worked for me, and my advice has helped a few people to get accepted so far.

I’ll begin with some general questions I get asked.  The second part of this series will go into more advanced aspects of Grad school selection and even some tips that may help you get in even if you don’t meet the requirements.

After each detailed section, there’s a “TLDR” notice. This stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Read” and gives just the basics of the section.

Read more