Fall 2023  
0413155 LaTeX in Academic Writing

Tue 10:00–11:35 AM / Thu 1:25–3:50 PM at Chengjun Complex 4, 305 

Course Information

Instructor Dr. Bruno Bentzen

Office Location Chengjun Complex 4, 306

Office Hours by appointment

Email bbentzen at zju.edu.cn

Credits 32 hours (8 weeks)

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the use of LaTeX to typeset academic documents, covering topics such as the software installation, the use of classes for writing articles, books, or slide presentations, the typesetting mathematical equations, enumerated lists, tables, figures, and the use of packages for specialized additional features such as drawing natural deduction proofs in Fitch-style or tree style and pictures and diagrams in TiKz.

Course Materials and Resources

This course is roughly based on the freely available textbook:

Course Objectives

Upon the successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

Assessment and grades

Project

There will be one major project in this course. I will assign you a sample scientific article and you will be required to typeset it using the article class in LaTeX. Your project will be judged not by how the output resembles the article given but by the efficiency of your code. The TEX file of the project can be sent to me digitally by email in a compressed folder also containing all auxiliary files needed to compile it. There is no need to include the PDF output.

Homework

Each homework assignment must be completed and turned in on time electronically only. If you missed the deadline due to illness or other valid reasons, please send me an email explaining your situation. I wish to evaluate your performance, so your homework should reflect your own efforts. Since LaTeX is also a programming language printed assignments are not allowed. I can only compile the code in your assignments if it is sent to me in digital format. Please double-check that the code you are submitting can be compiled without any errors and that all auxiliary files needed for the compilation are sent too.

Presentation

You will be required to give oral presentations using beamer slides. The slides need to contain original material and the code has to represent your own work. Presentations will be given in class during the course of the semester and should last for about 5 minutes. I will make some brief additional comments after each presentation. The topics of the presentations will be chosen from other aspects of LaTeX not covered in full-length in class. I will give some topic suggestions in class and you are free to suggest other topics of your choice. The first presentation will start one week after I introduce you to the use of beamer in class and continue each class meeting with one or two student presentations per time.

Attendance policy

You are expected to attend every lecture and be on time. If you cannot come to class due to an emergency please let me know as soon as possible. Keep in mind that if you miss a class for any other reason it is your responsibility to make up the material missed and catch up with your classmates.

Feedback

I welcome feedback, be it positive or negative. You can either speak to me directly after class, send me an email, or, if you feel more comfortable, send me an anonymous note. Rest assured that giving feedback will not affect your grade, neither positively nor negatively, but it will help me to see my lectures from different angles and develop new ways of improving them.

Schedule (tentative)

Week 01: Overview and installation, WYSIWYG attitude adjustment, packages

Week 02: Typesetting text, lists, tables, figures, and structuring documents

Week 03: Entering math mode

Week 04: Managing references with BibTeX

Week 05: Creating slide presentations with Beamer

Week 06: Getting your first publication, journal templates, typesetting books and CVs

Week 07: Drawing formal proofs

Week 08: Drawing diagrams with TiKz

Past instances

Please let me know if you find any broken links.