purdue thesis latex

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Resources for mathematical literature, latex - writing papers and presentations, job search advice (phd students), undergraduate math research.

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Overleaf for LaTeX Theses & Dissertations: Home

• Using Templates on Overleaf
• Reference Managers and Overleaf
• Adding Tables, Images, and Graphs

Tips and tools for writing your LaTeX thesis or dissertation in Overleaf, including templates, managing references , and getting started guides.

Managing References

BibTeX is a file format used for lists of references for LaTeX documents. Many citation management tools support the ability to export and import lists of references in .bib format. Some reference management tools can generate BibTeX files of your library or folders for use in your LaTeX documents.

LaTeX on Wikibooks has a Bibliography Management page.

Find list of BibTeX styles available on Overleaf here

View a video tutorial on how to include a bibliography using BibTeX  here

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Collaboration tools

• One version of your project accessible to collaborators via a shared link or email invitation
• Easily select the level of access for collaborators (view, edit, or owner access)
• Real-time commenting speeds up the review process
• Tracked changes and full history view help to see contributions from collaborators
• Labels help to organize and compare different versions
• Chat in real time with collaborators right within the project

How to get started writing your thesis in LaTeX

Writing a thesis or dissertation in LaTeX can be challenging, but the end result is well worth it - nothing looks as good as a LaTeX-produced pdf, and for large documents it's a lot easier than fighting with formatting and cross-referencing in MS Word. Review this video from Overleaf to help you get started writing your thesis in LaTeX, using a standard thesis template from the Overleaf Gallery .

You can upload your own thesis template to the Overleaf Gallery if your university provides a set of LaTeX template files or you may find your university's thesis template already in the Overleaf Gallery.

This video assumes you've used LaTeX before and are familiar with the standard commands (see our other tutorial videos  if not), and focuses on how to work with a large project split over multiple files.

Add Institutional Library contact info here.

Contact Overleaf   or email [email protected]

5-part Guide on How to Write a Thesis in LaTeX

5-part LaTeX Thesis Writing Guide

Part 1: Basic Structure corresponding  video

Part 2: Page Layout corresponding  video

Part 3: Figures, Subfigures and Tables   corresponding video

Part 4: Bibliographies with Biblatex corresponding video

Part 5: Customizing Your Title Page and Abstract corresponding video

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Simplified Purdue LaTeX thesis template

nicklafarge/purdue-aae-simple-tex-thesis

Folders and files, repository files navigation, purdue-aae-simple-tex-thesis.

A simpler implementation of the Purdue official LaTeX thesis template, allowing for easier local compilation (currently specifically to AAE for simplicity)

The folders are named so that when listed alphabetically, the ordering makes sense (a-template, b-front, ch-chapters, d-back).

Note that this is still a work-in-progress, so while it does currently function, it is subject to future changes as I continue work on it.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

IEEE General Format

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Contained in this page are some basic guidelines for formatting a paper in IEEE style. The best way to format your paper may vary slightly depending on which field you’re working in and the specifics of where your paper is being submitted, so remember to double-check against any submission guidelines provided by the organization, instructor, or supervisor to whom you are submitting your paper.

• The paper title should be centered at the top of the first page, in 24-point type.
• Author’s name (or authors’ names)
• Author affiliation(s)
• City & country location(s)
• E-mail address(es).
• The body of the paper should be in 10-point type, and formatted to appear in two columns. The columns on the last page should be the same length; this may require adding a column break after you have finished the body of your paper.
• All papers must begin with an abstract and index terms.

Note to Practitioners

Nomenclature.

• Acknowledgements
• Papers may be divided into sections and subsections; IEEE has guidelines for primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary section headings.
• IEEE papers begin with a drop cap two lines deep, followed by the next 8-12 characters (or 1-2 words, whichever is appropriate) in all caps.
• Figures, tables, and equations should each be numbered consecutively, but separately. They should also be centered in the column in which they appear.

An IEEE abstract should be written as a single paragraph roughly 200 words long, give or take 50 words. (Abstracts shorter than 150 words or longer than 250 risk incurring the irritation of the editors.) It should be self-contained, and should concisely & accurately summarise the contents of your paper. It is encouraged to try and include three or four keywords or key phrases to help interested readers to find your article.

Abstracts should be simply formatted, without anything that requires specialized typesetting or consultation of material outside the abstract. Abbreviations, footnotes, references, tables, graphs, charts, figures, and displayed mathematical equations are specifically forbidden. The goal of an abstract is to be a simple, accessible, and self-contained microcosm of your paper.

Here is an example of how you might format an abstract:

The abstract should be followed by index terms. These should be in a paragraph separate from the abstract. Index terms are similar to keywords and are provided by the paper’s author to help journals, editors, and readers categorize, archive, or locate your paper. IEEE maintains a standardized list of index terms to make this process easier and its categories more consistent. The most recent version of the  IEEE Taxonomy  can be found on the IEEE website. Here is a link to the 2019 version of the taxonomy .

Index terms should be given in alphabetical order; the first should be capitalized, and the rest lowercase unless they contain acronyms or other components that inherently require capitalization.

Here is an example of how you might format a set of index terms:

Section Headings

Dividing one’s paper into clearly labelled sections increases readability, and is encouraged. Typical sections include Introduction and Conclusion sections as well as sections within the body of the paper that relate to aspects of its content.

Primary headings are enumerated with Roman numerals followed by a period, set in small caps, and centered above the text.

Secondary headings are enumerated with capital letters followed by a period,   set in italics and title case, left-aligned, unindented, and separated from the text by a line break.

Tertiary headings are enumerated by Arabic numerals followed by a close-parenthesis, set in italics and title case, left-aligned, indented one em, and separated from the text by a colon. There is no line break between the heading and the text. 

Quaternary headings are enumerated by lowercase letters followed by a close-parenthesis, set in italics and sentence case, left-aligned, indented two ems, and separated from the text by a colon. There is also no line break here.

Here is an example of what the various headings should look like in your document:

I. Primary Heading

                  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Fermentum leo vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse.

A. Secondary Heading

                  Odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam. Amet consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et.

         1) Tertiary Heading:  Libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Enim nec dui nunc mattis enim ut tellus elementum sagittis.

                  a) Quaternary heading:  Nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus. Malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius.

Special Headings

In addition to the standard headings above, there are a few special cases. References and Acknowledgments are formatted like primary headings, but are not enumerated.

Appendix headings should be arranged under a separate system, though formatted like primary headings; if there is only one appendix, it requires neither a number nor a name, but is simply labelled Appendix. If there are multiple appendices, they should be numbered and titled, though one should note that the numbering system for appendix headings is wholly separate from that of section headings; they start at one, regardless of how many sections were present within the paper. Appendices may be enumerated either with Roman numerals or with capital letters, according to the preference of the author, as long as it is done with consistency. Unlike section headings, the number will come after the word “Appendix”: Appendix A rather than A. Appendix. They should have titles, set on the line below them but still formatted like a section heading.

Here is an example of how you might format the beginning of an appendix:

Regarding the Vermiform Process

                  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. At augue eget arcu dictum varius.

If at any point you wish to refer back to a previous section within the text of your paper – e.g. “As mentioned in [section]…” – you should capitalize the word “Section” and separate subsections from the primary section numeral with a hyphen. E.g., “Section IV,” “Section II-A,” “Section III-B4c,” etc.

The Note to Practitioners, if you choose to include one, goes below your abstract. The aim of the Note is to, without repeating any of the information from your abstract, explain the practical applications of your work without use of jargon. This is so that engineers working on practical problems, who may not have significant background in your particular field, will be able to understand the application of your work to theirs.

A Note to Practitioners can be more than one paragraph, but is otherwise formatted like the abstract.

Here is an example of what a Note to Practitioners might look like:

                  Note to Practitioners – Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc scelerisque. Feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum. Lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et molestie. Pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem.

                  Vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse. Velit scelerisque in dictum non consectetur a. Phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla. Gravida neque convallis a cras semper auctor. At elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo.

                  Cursus eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in. Fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi.

If your paper uses a number of different symbols, variables, and so forth, you may want to avoid having to define them within the body of your paper by providing a list of definitions up front; this is called the Nomenclature section. If you choose to include a Nomenclature section, it goes immediately before the Introduction section.

The heading for the Nomenclature section is formatted like a primary heading with no numeral, and the section itself is formatted generally the same as body text, including the italicization of variables. The main difference is the way in which the text must be aligned: the terms being defined are flush against the left margin, and the definitions are aligned one em-space after the longest defined term.

If you are working in a word processor, the easiest way to do this is often to insert a table into your document with invisible borders below the Nomenclature heading. See the images below for an example. Note that the images have been zoomed in to enlarge the text for clarity purposes.

Example of a nomenclature section

Example of a nomenclature section with the borders of the table used to format the section set to visible

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Thesis and Dissertation Policies and Practices

All thesis-option master’s students and doctoral students must follow the Thesis & Dissertation Policies that are outlined in the University Catalog – Policies and Procedures for Administering Graduate Student Programs .

Thesis Copyright Protection

Purdue University Policy I.A.1 , May 18, 2007, Intellectual Property , established that copyright ownership now resides with you, the author. The copyright symbol © is not required for works to be copyrighted. All candidates have the additional option of applying for registration of their copyright: This establishes a public record of theses/dissertations and confers additional legal rights, enabling individuals to file infringement suits and seek statutory damages as well as attorneys’ fees. Copyright registration can be filed here .

Specific questions regarding your rights and responsibilities under U.S. copyright law may be addressed to the Purdue University Copyright Office: 765.496.3864 or Stewart Center Room 246A.

Using Material Protected by Copyright

Purdue University promotes compliance with U.S. copyright law and understanding of the appropriate use of copyrighted works: Purdue University Policy I.A.3, January 1, 2015 Use of Copyrighted Materials for Educational and Research Purposes .

When quoting extensively from copyrighted material, the author must obtain written permission from the copyright holder. There is no precise relationship between the amount of text quoted and the requirement for written permission to use the material. The law governing copyright infringement is based on the fair use principle. Ordinarily, if you plan to quote more than 150 words of continuous text from copyrighted material, you should ask permission from the author. If the work you are quoting has significant commercial value, you should obtain permission to quote any complete or nearly complete text item or section. When your quotation of copyrighted material could have a negative impact on the existing commercial value of that material, obtain the copyright holder’s permission. Figures or other graphical material, including Web pages, should not be reprinted in your thesis without the author’s consent. Permission to use copyrighted material is usually granted on condition that acknowledgment is made. You will be responsible for any required payments.

You will be required to upload copyright permissions to HammerRR (Figshare) when depositing your thesis with the Purdue University Graduate School.

By depositing a thesis with the Purdue University Graduate School, you certify that all copyrighted material incorporated into the thesis complies with United States copyright law and that you have received written permission from the copyright owners for the use of their work, which is beyond the scope of the law. You also agree to indemnify and save harmless Purdue University from any and all claims that may be asserted or that may arise from any copyright violation.

Data subject to EAR, ITAR, DFARS Clause 252.204-7012, and other controlled data designators require increased security to establish compliancy with government regulations. Due to these increased security requirements an alternative method is required to be followed for controlled theses see Controlled Thesis Submission Process -  Guidance Document - Controlled Thesis Submission Process.

Publication of the thesis or dissertation is a required part of the deposit process. The university currently uses HammerRR to publish the thesis after which, your thesis will become an Open Access document with no additional cost to you.

All theses submitted to HammerRR are considered the final copy and are required to undergo a format review. Candidates will upload their thesis to HammerRR and Graduate School administrators will review the thesis for any format errors. In the event format changes are required, the administration will provide you a list of necessary changes that you should make and re-submit to HammerRR as soon as possible. Format reviews will continue until your format is in an acceptable condition. You may schedule a Formatting Consultation before your Final Exam (Defense) to avoid an extensive format review during the deposit process.

To further promote and preserve the intellectual contributions of its degree recipients, Purdue is also partnering with ProQuest / Clarivate to disseminate its emerging scholarship through the ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global and Web of Science databases, which reaches thousands of institutions and millions of researchers worldwide. ProQuest also partners with major search and discipline-specific indexes for additional amplification and provides all of these services free of charge. By distributing your work with ProQuest, you will increase its visibility and impact within the global research community.  ProQuest recognizes the critical importance of embargos and will never publish a thesis until it has been released for dissemination by the university. You may withdraw your work from distribution at any time. You are eligible for a 10% royalty based upon sales and usage of the full text of the work. Please contact [email protected] with any questions and to set up your account to collect royalties.

Open Access Theses and Dissertations

Each student grants, without restriction, royalty free to Purdue University the nonexclusive right and license to reproduce, distribute, and display, in whole or in part, all theses and dissertations in any format now known or later developed for preservation and access in accordance with this agreement and will be made to the general public at no charge.

Benefits of an Open Access Thesis or Dissertation:

[1] Higher Citation Rates

The more users who can access a work, the more researchers that can cite that work.

[2] Better Global Visibility of Your Work

By making their work globally visible through open access, authors are allowing more scholars, more promising students and future scholars, less wealthy institutions, policy makers, news reporters, and the unexpected reader and citizen scholar to have access to their work who may not have otherwise had the ability or funds to access closed-access scholarship.

[3] Meeting the Land Grant Mission of the University

"Open access at Purdue can publicly showcase the scholarly output of the University and its community members, this provides greater visibility and traffic to your department, school, and ultimately the university. It can also show that scholars and researchers at Purdue think beyond their own disciplines by showcasing the interdisciplinary scholarship and research being created at Purdue. Finally, open access scholarship demonstrates accountability to the public that funds the university, while disseminating knowledge gained and created at Purdue; satisfying the public, land-grant mission of the university."

Students who wish to delay public release of their thesis must make the appropriate selection on the Electronic Thesis Acceptance Form (ETAF), provide the reasoning for the requested embargo, and make the same embargo selection in their HammerRR profile. The information that is provided to ETAF and HammerRR will be validated for consistency at the time of your thesis submission. If inconsistencies are present between the ETAF and HammerRR, the HammerRR profile will be updated by administrators to match what you have selected and what your committee chair has approved on the ETAF. Embargo periods are 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, or indefinite. During the embargo period, the deposited thesis abstract will be available for viewing; however, the main content will remain unpublished until the embargo period has expired. Students may embargo their thesis when applying for patents, have publications pending, or when proprietary rights are involved.

Confidentiality

Students who are applying for patents, are including sensitive ITAR/Export Controlled material, have a contract on file with Sponsored Program Services (SPS), or are including proprietary information may request confidentiality of their thesis. Confidentiality can be requested for one or two years and students who have contracts on file with SPS may request longer periods.

ADA Compliance and Accessible Documents

Before depositing your thesis with the Graduate School, the PDF copy of your thesis needs to be made accessible (the file will be accessible to screen readers and other assistive computer technologies) to the best of the author’s ability.

Word users: To check your thesis for accessibility it is recommended that you use Word 2013 or Word 2016 as these versions have a built-in accessibility checker. You can learn more about the accessibility checker from the Microsoft Accessibility Checker page. Once you convert your file to PDF, you should also verify that the accessible Word document has converted to an accessible PDF file.

LaTeX users: Authors using LaTeX should manually check the accessibility of their PDF document using Acrobat Pro.

Post-Facto Edits

The Graduate School expects candidates and departments to thoroughly review format and content of theses and dissertations prior to their electronic submission. The Graduate School does not generally permit post-facto revisions to ETDs once they have been accepted for deposit by the Thesis & Dissertation Office. Post acceptance changes are only permitted to correct significant textual, data, or mathematical errors affecting accuracy of content and which could be potentially embarrassing to Purdue University.

Exceptions to Graduate School policy will be considered on a case-by-case basis and may be requested by submitting a letter with justification for the exception to the Graduate School for consideration. Requests must be endorsed by the student’s major professor and the Head or Chair of the Graduate Program. The Graduate School may require additional approvals if the request may impact other offices within the University (see Section VII.I of the University Catalog).

A thesis authored at Purdue University should be structured and formatted using one of the below methods:

Traditional

A traditional thesis is a document that provides a complete and systematic account of your research. A typical traditional thesis suggests the following structure:

• Statement of Approval page
• Dedication (optional)
• Acknowledgments (optional)
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Conclusions and Recommendations
• Appendix (optional)
• Vita (optional)
• List of Publications (optional)

* Thesis structure may vary by department. Please consult your committee for specific departmental requirements.

Article-based

An article-based thesis is a collection of published (or will be published) research articles consisting of an introductory and concluding chapter. A typical article-based thesis suggests the following structure:

• Published Article #1
• Published Article #2
• Published Article #3

Theses authored using this structure will need to include acknowledgement of prior publication within the respective chapter. Although each journal may have specific statement requirements, the acknowledgment should be single spaced and appear 3 single spaces under the chapter title. Consult your publisher regarding required information that should appear in this acknowledgment.

Creative work

The Graduate School is prepared to accept theses in creative formats subject to departmental and committee approval. Students wishing to submit a creative work as their thesis requirement should consult with their committee chair and contact the Thesis & Dissertation Office with their proposal.

If the primary literature on a subject matter is in a language other than English and the thesis or dissertation addresses a community of scholars who publish in a language other than English, a student may elect to write the thesis in a language that all committee members speak and read and support its use in the thesis. In this case, the thesis should contain a title page and abstract page in English.

All West Lafayette , IUPUI , and Northwest candidates are required to submit the ETAF through their Plan of Study portal. This form should be submitted on the day of Defense or no later than the date of the Final Examination Deadline each semester.

Purdue Fort Wayne candidates are required to submit paper versions of Forms 9, 32, and 15 . Copies of these forms should be submitted to the Thesis & Dissertation Office prior to submitting the thesis to HammerRR.

Effective September 1, 2014, Purdue’s Graduate School requires that all theses and dissertations be reviewed using the iThenticate software and any issues identified by the software and any issues identified by the software addressed prior to the deposit of the final thesis or dissertation with the Graduate School. Satisfaction of this requirement will be certified by both committee chair and degree candidate on the ETAF. Click here for more information.

All master’s candidates are required to pay a Thesis Deposit Fee of $90 and Ph.D. candidates are required to pay a Thesis Deposit Fee of $125. The fees will be uploaded to a student’s myPurdue account within 5-10 business days after the HammerRR submission is approved.

West Lafayette, PFW, and PNW candidates will pay the fee through their local bursar’s office. IUPUI candidates will receive an e-bill following their successful thesis deposit.

Candidates are required to meet both departmental and Graduate School deadlines each term.

Thesis-option master’s and doctoral students are required to submit their thesis for a final format check to the Graduate School no later than the close of business (5:00pm ET) the day before the semester's designated deposit deadline date. Candidates who miss the semester's deposit deadline at 5:00, but still wish to graduate, must submit a request for a deposit extension (endorsed by committee chair and department head) to the Graduate School for full consideration. If approved, the student should expect to pay a Late Graduation Deadline Fee . Contact the Thesis & Dissertation Office for questions.

Ph.D. and master’s students are required to complete the Graduate School Exit Questionnaire (GSEQ). In addition to the GSEQ, Ph.D. candidates are required to complete the Survey of Earned Doctorates. These surveys will become available to complete during the semester the student registers as a candidate for graduation.

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Case Study - Purdue University - Graduate School improves thesis authoring and submission processes

Executive Summary

The Purdue University Graduate School was evaluating tools and solutions that would address the following goals:

• Make the thesis writing process easier for students.
• Decrease the amount of time and work required by the Graduate School to review theses.
• Streamline the thesis review process.

Providing premium Overleaf accounts and customized writing templates to all students, faculty and staff is helping the Purdue Graduate School achieve these goals.

Results from 1-year Pilot:

• After a successful 1-year trial, the Purdue Graduate School chose to invest in a 5-year adoption of the Overleaf platform to benefit students, faculty and staff.
• 35% of all STEM students now use the Purdue Overleaf thesis template – with that number continuing to grow.
• In cases where students used Overleaf to write their theses, workload and review times were significantly reduced – from 5 or more graduate staff/student meetings per thesis to approximately 2-3 meetings per thesis.
• Out of 1,400 theses submitted to the Purdue Graduate School per year, ~490 will be submitted using Overleaf – providing an estimated 980 meetings removed, a huge time savings!
• The Purdue Graduate School now recommends the use of Overleaf to all students - “The Graduate School and I recommend you use Overleaf.” - Mark Senn, Engineering Computer Network Systems Programmer.

Prior to partnering with Overleaf, the Purdue Graduate School provided theses templates to students as traditional LaTeX templates and Word documents. Both options had, and continue to present, challenges.

Word documents may be more familiar and easier for students to use initially; however, there are specific formatting requirements and rules that must be followed for a thesis to be accepted which are not easily accomplished using Word. Word requires students to format and compose their documents prior to submission. This is rarely done correctly. A huge amount of time is then required by the Graduate School to reformat, clean up and work with students on finalizing their documents. For the Purdue Graduate School, this resulted in 5 or more meetings between the student and the Graduate School staff.

Due to these formatting requirements, and time needed to fix formatting issues, LaTeX templates have always been preferred by the Graduate School. LaTeX composes the document for students based on the template layout – so there is much less work required on the back-end for formatting. However, with the traditional LaTeX template, the hurdle was the learning curve and accessibility of LaTeX itself. It’s a programming language – so students need to know how to use it. And even though LaTeX is free to download and use, it’s not easy to install and there are versioning issues. So even though Purdue had a LaTeX template which was superior to Word – few students used it. It was highly intimidating.

Purdue was looking for a way to overcome the LaTeX intimidation and accessibility hurdle. They knew that having students use the LaTeX template would save everyone time and headaches in the end, but they also knew they had a challenge getting student and faculty buy-in on a format that was not widely known or used.

They started looking for LaTeX options – they wanted an ‘off the shelf’ solution that would allow students to start using their LaTeX template right away – without having to install and learn the LaTeX programming language. Andy Hughes, a thesis format reviewer in the Electrical Engineering Department came across Overleaf and was impressed. He started the ball rolling by bringing his findings to Mark Jaeger, Manager of the Thesis/Dissertation Office and Dr. Philip Pope, Sr. Associate Dean of the Graduate School.

Andy Hughes, Manager of Web and Multimedia Services, Electrical Engineering Department says:

“I looked at several different LaTeX authoring tools and Overleaf was by far the best. It was easy to use, very intuitive, with nothing to install - just open and write. And the ability to have our template loaded onto their site and ready for students to use made it a perfect fit.”

How Overleaf Helped

Overleaf is a cloud-based, collaborative LaTeX and Rich Text authoring platform. Think of it like Google Docs™, but for researchers, scientists and engineers. It’s incredibly intuitive and simple to use – users go to the website, open a template (over 3000 available), and start to write. There’s nothing to download or install. And users can choose to write in LaTeX or a Rich Text mode, which provides a ‘word processor’ type environment for users who are new to or aren’t familiar with LaTeX. This was perfect for Purdue – it allowed students to use LaTeX quickly and easily and put a friendly face on LaTeX.

On top of that, Purdue took advantage of Overleaf’s ‘TeXperts’ to enhance and improve upon their current thesis template for use in Overleaf. It allows students to very easily click a link, open the template in the cloud-based Overleaf editor, write, and invite collaborators into the document if wanted or required. The platform automatically composes the document for the students, as they write – in real-time – they write on the left and see the finished document on the right. When they’re finished, they simply download the finished file as a PDF or zip file with the LaTeX source and supporting files.

This met the goals of Purdue – they were able to provide their LaTeX template to students in an easy to use format, which in-turn, persuaded more students to use LaTeX, which in-turn eased the thesis writing process for students, which in-turn, saved the Purdue Graduate School staff a lot of time! On top of that, Overleaf provided unexpected benefits.

Unexpected Benefits

Overleaf provided a custom Purdue Institutional Web Portal . This allowed the Graduate School to easily provide a URL to students and faculty from which they could quickly enroll for the service with no administration from Purdue. Students and faculty simply used their Purdue email address to enroll – nice and easy. Through this portal, the students and faculty also had access to multiple templates relevant to Purdue students, faculty and researchers. This not only included the thesis template, but templates for scientific journal submissions and standard papers. Access to quick start guides , help, and FAQs were available via the web portal as well and Overleaf ‘TeXperts’ were available to answer questions about the service, the template, or even LaTeX itself.

Overleaf provided marketing and training support – so campus-wide promotion and roll-out was much easier. The Graduate School set up a series of training sessions which, with the help of Overleaf, they marketed to students and faculty. Posters, literature, and swag were provided to help spread the word and entice students to the sessions. Overleaf further supported the effort by attending the sessions live and via webex. Having Overleaf available ‘live’ to explain and help launch the service was beneficial.

And lastly, Overleaf provided a data and analytics web portal which gave Purdue a detailed look into the program and template use. Purdue can access their custom analytics hub at any time and see how many students and faculty are using the service, which departments are using the service, the template use, and what collaborations are happening – both internally and with external institutions. The ability to gather these details allowed the Graduate School to keep track of their trial and make sure it was being used as expected.

Mark Jaeger - Manager, Thesis and Dissertation Office at Purdue says:

"We provide students with customized Overleaf thesis and dissertation templates - it provides a quick and easy way for students to write in the correct format which saves our department huge amounts of time.  Overleaf submissions come in beautifully formatted and ready to go!"

Results, Return on Investment and Future Plans

The trial was a huge success! The Purdue Graduate School sees an average of 1,400 theses submissions each year – out of these ~490 or 35% now use the Overleaf template.

These submissions come into the Graduate School correctly formatted and ready to go – allowing the Graduate School staff to work with students on content – not formatting. It allows both students and staff to focus on what’s most important – the research.

By taking out the need to deal with formatting and composition issues, this took the number of meetings between students and Graduate School staff from an average of 5 or more meetings, down to 2-3 meetings. That’s an average of 980 meetings cut!

The feedback from students and faculty has been overwhelmingly positive. The ease of use and accessibility are incomparable and they appreciate the Graduate School providing a tool that is not only useful for their thesis, but for a myriad of other authoring and class projects as well.

With the trial being such a resounding success, Purdue has signed up for a 5-year partnership. Not only will they continue to push Overleaf for thesis use, but they hope to see use of Overleaf grow to other departments and campus use. A possible next step will be to integrate into the Purdue institutional repository – making it simple for students and faculty to write and then submit into the institutional repository directly from within Overleaf - with 1-click.

If you'd like more information about an institutional account at your institution - please get in touch!

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