thesis

Using APA7 with usmthesis

Posted on by Lian Tze Lim

Following up from the previous post Using APA7 with umalayathesis, but about usmsthesis. Likewise, I am hoping (against hope?) that one day, apacite package will be updated to support APA7, so that usmthesis.cls won’t need to undergo overhauling either.

But until that day comes, if you need to use APA7 with usmthesis now, then it may actually be easier to make the following changes within usmthesis.tex itself (don’t modify usmthesis.cls).

Add these lines before \documentclass.

\RequirePackage{scrlfile}
\PreventPackageFromLoading{apacite,multibib}
\AfterClass{book}{
  \RequirePackage[style=apa,natbib]{biblatex}
  \let\bibsep\bibitemsep
  \addbibresource{mybib.bib}
}

Remove these lines from usmthesis.tex: (They may be far away from each other; look carefully for each line in your .tex)

\newcites{own}{List of Publications}
\bibliographystyle{apacite}
\bibliographystyleown{apacite}
\bibliography{mybib}

Where you had \bibliography{mybib}, write instead:

\printbibliography[heading=bibintoc]

If you have lists of your own publications, remove these lines too:

\nociteown{lim:2007,lim:latextypesetting}
\bibliographyown{mybib}

and write instead:

\begin{refsection}
\nocite{lim:2007,lim:latextypesetting}
\printbibliography[title={List of Publications},heading=bibintoc]
\end{refsection}

After making these changes, delete the previously generated .bbl files (if any) in the directory.

Then run pdflatex, biber, pdflatex, pdflatex. Note that the biber processor must be used instead of bibtex now.

(If compiling on Overleaf, it should all “just work” because the build tool knows which processor to use.)

Using APA7 with umalayathesis

Posted on by Lian Tze Lim

Currently the umalayathesis class uses apacite to implement the bibliography style, but apacite supports only APA6. For full APA7 it would be necessary to use biblatex-apa; no BibTeX style for full APA7 exists yet.

I’m still hoping (against hope?) that one day, the apacite package will be updated to support APA7, so that umalayathesis.cls won’t need to undergo overhauling…

But for now, if you want to use full APA7, it may actually be easier to make the following changes within thesis.tex itself.

Add these lines before \documentclass:

\RequirePackage{scrlfile}
\PreventPackageFromLoading{multibib}
\providecommand{\newcites}[2]{}

Make sure to add the custombib option in the \documentclass declaration:

\documentclass[english,singlespacedlisttitles,custombib]{umalayathesis}

And then add these lines after \documentclass:

\usepackage[natbib,style=apa]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{myrefs.bib}
\setlength\bibitemsep{2\onelineskip}
\setlength\bibhang{0.5in}
\renewcommand{\bibfont}{\SingleSpacing}

Next remove or comment out these lines:

\bibliography{myrefs}
\nociteown{Lim:2009,Bond:etal:WordNetBahasa:2014}
\bibliographyown{myrefs}

Add instead:

\cftinserthook{toc}{PlainChapTocLines}
\cftinserthook{toc}{disableuppercase}
\printbibliography[heading=bibintoc,title=\refname]
 
\begin{refsection}
\nocite{Lim:2009,Bond:etal:WordNetBahasa:2014}
\printbibliography[heading=bibintoc,title=\listpubname]
\end{refsection}

If you are using the splitpubs environment to separate your publication list for journal articles and conference proceedings, then change your splitpubs in your .tex file to be:

\begin{splitpubs}
\begin{refsection}
\nocite{Bond:etal:WordNetBahasa:2014}
\printbibliography[heading=subbibintoc,title={List of Publications:}]
\end{refsection}
 
\begin{refsection}
\nocite{Lim:2009}
\printbibliography[heading=subbibintoc,title={Papers Presented:}]
\end{refsection}
\end{splitpubs}

After making these changes, delete the previously generated .bbl files (if any) in the directory.

Then run pdflatex, biber, pdflatex, pdflatex. Note that the biber processor must be used instead of bibtex now.

(If compiling on Overleaf, it should all “just work” because the build tool knows which processor to use.)

UMalayaThesis updated to v1.2 for Guidelines (2015)

Posted on by Lian Tze Lim

Sigh, so I finally realised and managed to find the 2015 version of the UM thesis guidelines!!!

So I’ve updated the .cls and .tex (changes to existing v1.1.2), which includes the following updates:

  • Added a \faculty field
  • \makecoverandtitlepage now takes an option to output the
    relevant statement on the title page
  • Chapter headings are now single line, with less spacing after
    the chapter title.
  • Bibliography entries are now explicitly 0.5 inch indented and
    with really wide double spacing between entries.
  • Re-ordered elements in thesis.tex to match the updated guide.

You can download umalaythesis v1.2 from here, or from Bitbucket and Github, or open it as a an online project on Overleaf.

USMThesis Updated (Again)

Posted on by Malaysian LaTeX User Group

Following the most recent feedback from the Main Campus, USMThesis has been updated to v1.6.3 today. The changes this time are in usmthesis.tex, where the List of Publications is moved after the appendices (so now Main Campus and Engineering Campus are on the same page now!) Pun unintended.

Looking at the ChangeLog, usmthesis v0.1 was Nov 2005 — so it’s been 10 years!! In fact if anyone wants to host a meetup/talk or something, ping me.

USMThesis Updated

Posted on by Malaysian LaTeX User Group

USMThesis has been updated to v1.6.2, following feedback from IPS that the page numbering of appendices should be turned off in the table of contents.

If you already have the template (v1.6.1) from September 2015 and don’t want to re-download the template again now, just add these lines before \appendix in your thesis.tex:

\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\cftpagenumbersoff{part}}
\addtocontents{toc}{\protect\cftpagenumbersoff{chapter}}

Also, from recent feedback, it looks like Main Campus-IPS requires the List of Publications before the abstracts; while the Engineering Campus IPS requires the List of Publications after the appendices. So do check with IPS of your respective campuses before you print your entire thesis!

Another thing — when printing out the PDF, do remember to set paper size to A4, and Scaling to 100% or None in the Print dialog. Many PDF viewer applications would set it to 92% or Fit on page by default, and then the font sizes would come out too small and the page margins too wide!

UPNMThesis — LaTeX document class for Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia Theses

Posted on by Malaysian LaTeX User Group

I’ve created a LaTeX document class and template, upnmthesis, for Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM), as commissioned by the university’s Centre for Graduate Studies.

It’s also available on Bitbucket, as well as on Overleaf.

The user guide/manual is also my first attempt at using the tufte-book class, as well as minted for the code listings. I must say I like the look!