Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au!spam!spam.ua.oz.au!wvenable From: wvenable@spam.ua.oz.au (Bill Venables) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Re: Theses: a cry for help! Message-ID: Date: 12 Nov 90 13:11:05 GMT References: Sender: wvenable@spam.ua.oz Distribution: comp Organization: Adelaide University. Lines: 35 In-reply-to: tim@cstr.ed.ac.uk's message of 9 Nov 90 18:17:26 GMT In article tim@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Tim Bradshaw) writes: > > Here at Edinburgh the University recommendations for theses specify > `1.5 to 2' line spacing, and these regulations are enforced. This > means that theses both look nasty and are hard to read (and also that > I spend a lot of time breaking my nice thesis document style!). ... > It seems to me that major theses should be submitted for external examination in a rough draft form, and only when this process is complete should they be properly typeset in final form and bound. At this second stage there seems no reason not to adopt anything less than proper typesetting standards; in particular the thesis should then use *both* sides of the paper and a comfortable line spacing. (Hideous line spacing is not the only problem by any means.) Most of the flaws in the present typical regulations seem to come from the implicit assumption that it will only be economically feasible to produce *one* master copy, as was indeed the case once whey you actually had to type the damn thing yourself. Nowdays separate rules should apply for draft and final copies, but what actually happens is typically an ugly compromise between the two. (This line of reasoning should appeal to the administrators and bean counters, since this way they would get to have *two* sets of regulations to quibble over, and with theses half their present physical size they stand to save a *lot* of library shelf space!) Are there any enlightened institutions that already allow theses to be submitted separately in draft and final form? -- Bill Venables, Dept. of Statistics, | Email: venables@spam.adelaide.edu.au Univ. of Adelaide, South Australia. | Phone: +61 8 228 5412