Updates of Dissertation With LaTeX

The deadline is coming closer but I’m so tired struggling with semiotic concepts…

Contents

• Use ‘book’ for ‘twoside’
• Normal Abbreviations
• Divide References into parts
• Use ‘fancyhdr’ in ‘book’
  • Header I like
  • With normal blank pages
  • Display correct chapter title

Use ‘book’ for ‘twoside’

I was convinced to use the report documentclass, but I just knew that my dissertation shall be bound, so I have to use book documentclass. But during writing, I still reply on using report for preview. Note that openright will allow every chapter to start on right-sided page. It’s default for book, not default for report and here it’s just a reminder.

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,openright]{book}

Normal Abbreviations

\usepackage[acronym,nonumberlist,nopostdot]{glossaries}

Page numbers and the period should be omitted by default…

Divide References into parts

I was required to separate ‘non-academic sources’ (magazine, blog articles, etc.) from ‘academic sources’. Besides, I want the title Bibliography changed to References. For me, bibliography is what I think may be useful for readers for further reading so put here, and references are what I have in-text citations (if I use Harvard style; or strict ‘footnotes’ if I use Oxford style) in my main texts. Thus, readers may expect References with in-text citations (or strict ‘footnotes’) with page number quoted. As for Bibliography, readers do not even expect the corresponding in-text citation (or strict ‘footnote’) exist! The final point is that Oxford style always get you MUCH closer to the word count. Although I’m not a good student who love to read more and write more, I don’t like Oxford style.

\defbibheading{aca}{%
  \chapter{References}
  \subsection*{Academic Source}}
\defbibheading{nonaca}{\subsection*{Non-academic Source}}
\defbibheading{data}{\subsection*{Data Source}}

Then before \end{document}, add this,

%\nocite{*}
\printbibliography[heading=aca,notkeyword=not,notkeyword=nonaca,notkeyword=data]
\printbibliography[heading=nonaca,notkeyword=not,keyword=nonaca,notkeyword=data]
\printbibliography[heading=data,notkeyword=not,keyword=data]

To explain, I have a lot reading materials in BibDesk and some of them are not that meaningful for my dissertation. So I simply mark them with keyword not and in LaTeX file, add notkeyword=not option in the above code. You may use type=book, nottype=article, etc., but this is not appropriate for me to do so in my dissertation (I have asked).

Note: \nocite{*} include all items from .bib file in the list produced by \printbibliography, which helps you to do a test. Besides, I will explain in the next part that use \chapter in stead of \chapter* is to let fancyhdr to correctly display chapter title in the header. Because fancyhdr dependes on secnumdepth to decide chapter title (ref) and \chapter* seemingly does not produce secnumdepth, then I use \chapter that surely produce secnumdepth.

Use ‘fancyhdr’ in ‘book’

Header I like

\fancyhf{}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\fancyhead[LE,RO]{\thepage}
\fancyhead[RE,LO]{\nouppercase{\leftmark}}

First, \fancyhf{} removes all headers. Then, the second line removes the rule. Next, L is top-left, R is top-right, O is the page with odd page number, E is the page with even page number, \thepage is the page number to display, \nouppercase will produce capitalised ‘“chapter” + chapter number + chapter title’ or section if section is available and \leftmark is to let chapter is always shown.

With normal blank pages

openright may produce a left-sided blank page to make right-sided the first page of a chapter. This blank page shouldn’t have a header. Add this (from fancyhdr doc) to the preamble,

\makeatletter
\def\cleardoublepage{\clearpage\if@twoside \ifodd\c@page\else
  \hbox{}
  \thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage
  \if@twocolumn\hbox{}\newpage\fi\fi\fi}
\makeatother

will automatically remove the header.

Display correct chapter title

Before I did the following steps, the headers of the references pages were Abbreviations, which was quite annoying. I have mentioned a little in ‘Divide References into parts’, and I don’t want display chapter number in the table of contents, what should I do? Use book documentclass, add \backmatter before the command blocks of \printglossary and \printbibliography, and add the following in the preamble,

\makeatletter
\renewcommand\chaptermark[1]{
    \markboth{\MakeUppercase{%
      \ifnum\c@secnumdepth>\m@ne\if@mainmatter
         \@chapapp\ \thechapter. \ \fi\fi #1}}{}%
}
\makeatother