SM Thesis

This repo builds my SM thesis PDF from .org files.

Start with main.org. See comments for usage.

To submit

https://libguides.mit.edu/mit-thesis-faq/instructions

What to submit to your Department/Program

Submit the following:

A PDF/A-1 of your final thesis document (with no signatures) Signature page (if required by your department; your department will provide specific guidance) Source files (not required)

File naming

Files must be named according to this scheme: authorLastName-kerberos ID-degree-dept-year-type_other.ext

Examples:

Thesis PDF: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-dusp-2023-thesis.pdf Signature Page: macdonald-mssimon-mcp-dusp-2023-sig.pdf

Exporting

1. Write thesis in .org files
2. Open main.org
3. Use org export to build the PDF C-c C-e l p by default or SPC m e l p with Doom Emacs / evil mode

Dependencies / Setup

This repo is not self-contained - utilities, packages, and configuration for LaTeX exporting and bibliographies are required.

These snippets are from my Doom Emacs config. You may need to modify them for your setup.

External Tools

This may not be a complete list of required binaries for exporting LaTeX.

• biber
• dvisvgm
• imagemagick
• lualatex
• pygments

You could use other tools by modifying the compilation pipeline defined below.

Compiling

Setup the PDF compilation pipeline.

The part about minted is only required if you want nicely formatted code blocks in your PDF (source1, source2). Add #+latex_header: \usepackage{minted} to any document that needs code highlighting. Additionally, any code block may be framed in a border with #+attr_latex: :options frame=single.

(setq org-latex-listings 'minted
      org-latex-packages-alist '(("" "minted"))
      org-latex-pdf-process
      '("lualatex -shell-escape -interaction nonstopmode %f"
        "biber %b"
        "lualatex -shell-escape -interaction nonstopmode %f"))

(setq luamagick '(luamagick :programs ("lualatex" "convert")
                            :description "pdf > png"
                            :message "you need to install lualatex and imagemagick."
                            :use-xcolor t
                            :image-input-type "pdf"
                            :image-output-type "png"
                            :image-size-adjust (1.0 . 1.0)
                            :latex-compiler ("lualatex -interaction nonstopmode -output-directory %o %f")
                            :image-converter ("convert -density %D -fuzz 10\% -trim -antialias %f -quality 100 %O")))

(setq luasvg
      '(luasvg
        :programs ("lualatex" "dvisvgm")
        :description "dvi > svg"
        :message "you need to install lualatex and dvisvgm."
        :use-xcolor t
        :image-input-type "dvi"
        :image-output-type "svg"
        :image-size-adjust (1.0 . 1.0)
        :latex-compiler ("lualatex -interaction nonstopmode -output-format dvi -output-directory %o %f")
        :image-converter ("dvisvgm %f -n -b min -c %S -o %O")))

(after! org
 (add-to-list 'org-preview-latex-process-alist luasvg)
 (setq org-preview-latex-default-process 'luasvg))

If the LaTeX preview process starts complaining about policies, see this thread.

Document Class

Define MIT thesis style LaTeX documents.

(setq mitthesis-class
      '("mitthesis" "\\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{mitthesis}"
        ("\\chapter{%s}" . "\\chapter*{%s}")
        ("\\section{%s}" . "\\section*{%s}")
        ("\\subsection{%s}" . "\\subsection*{%s}")
        ("\\subsubsection{%s}" . "\\subsubsection*{%s}")
        ("\\paragraph{%s}" . "\\paragraph*{%s}")
        ("\\subparagraph{%s}" . "\\subparagraph*{%s}")))

(add-to-list 'org-latex-classes mitthesis-class t)

References and Citation Formatting

We’ll be enabling new native org-cite citations. First, install packages for references and citations.

(package! org-ref)
;; probably not necessary
(package! helm-bibtex)
(package! org-roam-bibtex
  :recipe (:host github :repo "org-roam/org-roam-bibtex"))
;; When using org-roam via the `+roam` flag
(unpin! org-roam)

This part of the configuration assumes some file paths. Change for your own system. Setup bibtex and org-cite with my default library.bib file. Also add support for CSL styles managed by Zotero. For instance, you can use IEEE styles by adding #+cite_export: csl ieee.csl to the header. For more info on CSL, see here.

(defconst bibfile "~/Dropbox/org/library.bib")

(use-package! oc
  :after org
  :config
  (setq org-cite-global-bibliography (list bibfile))
  (setq org-cite-csl-styles-dir "~/Zotero/styles"))

(use-package! org-roam-bibtex
  :after org-roam
  :config
  (require 'org-ref)) ; optional: if using Org-ref v2 or v3 citation links

;; probably not necessary
(use-package helm-bibtex
  :config
  (setq bibtex-completion-bibliography '(bibfile))
  (setq bibtex-completion-library-path '("~/Dropbox/papers"))
  (setq bibtex-completion-notes-path "~/Dropbox/org/roam"))

Resources

MIT guidelines for SM thesis format