SCRS LaTeX Thesis Template

This template provides a scaffold for writing your thesis. While layout changes are generally not a problem, please try to leave the title page as it is.

Usage

• The template is currently setup for only lualatex, biblatex and biber. Other LaTeX engines and bibliography tools should generally work as well, but will probably require adjusting the preamble and/or class file. If you do this, let us know, so we can try to include your word, so that the next person does not have to do it as well ;)
• The compilation is orchestrated by latexmk.

Generic Instructions

• Install a TeX distribution. Development currently happens under Debian / TeXLive
  • Debian and probably most Debian-based distributions: apt install texlive-full (all-inclusive service, but a big download/install! If you do not have the space, you need to identify the individual packages yourself - but feel free to let us know.)
• If you rename writeup.tex, also adjust @default_files in latexmkrc accordingly.
• To compile, just run latexmk in the directory of the main .tex file and the latexmkrc file. It will automatically compile as often as needed and run biber as well, when required.

VSCodium / VS Code

• James-Yu's LaTex Workshop (GitHub, Open VSX) works great, to get it to compile with latexmk using latexmkrc, set "latex-workshop.latex.recipe.default" to "latexmk (latexmkrc)" (already set in the .vscode/settings.json included with the template)
• You might also want to use valentjin's LTeX – LanguageTool grammar/spell checking extension (GitHub, Open VSX) together with LanguageTool for type and grammar checking.

Common Mistakes & Hints for a Good Thesis

Graphics

• When referring to a figure, write Figure 1, with a capital letter F - even in the middle of a sentence. \autoref{LABEL HERE} can help you.
• When including drawings, plots, etc., include them as vector graphic (eps, pdf, ...) if at all possible (and reasonable).
  • Exporting a PDF from draw.io is not more complicated than exporting a raster image, but the result looks much better and stays sharp when zoomed in.
  • If possible with your plotting toolkit, you can also export your graphic as drawing commands for e.g. pgf - then with correct configuration the type face and font size will also match with the rest of the text. Matplotlib can do that, see its documentation here. Note: This is typically more work and not strictly necessary.
  • A vector graphic is no longer reasonable if a recent computer takes a few seconds to render the resulting page. If the vector graphic is a plot, then with tools like matplotlib and pgf, it is possible to rasterize the plot lines while still keeping the axis, labels and legend as vector elements. If this is not easily possible, pre-render the graphic to a lossless raster format with sufficient resolution.
• Use raster images with lossless compression (png, ...) for screenshots and other images that were rastered in their original form.
• Use raster images with lossy compression (jpeg, ...) for pictures taken with a camera.

Symbols and Equations

• All symbols that appear in equations (or elsewhere) must be properly explained.
• Symbol usage must be consistent throughout your writeup, e.g. don't use x(t) to refer to the baseband and the passband signal.

Units and Quantities

• When writing quantities, use a package like siunitx (if possible) - then you don't have to deal with the typography yourself.
• Prefer quantity equations (equations that remain valid independent of the units, e.g. \lambda = c / f) and make sure the units work out. Avoid numerical-value equations (equations that depend on the quantities being expressed in specific units, e.g. \lambda in m = 300 / f in MHz). If numerical-value equations are required or very common, give the quantity equation beforehand.
• To label e.g. a column containing numeric values of a symbol, write SYMBOL / UNIT, or SYMBOL in UNIT, e.g. SNR / dB. The square brackets [] are used to indicate the unit of a symbol, e.g. [SNR] = dB. Ergo, SNR [dB] is nonsensical and wrong - even if commonly seen.
• More information about correctly dealing with units and equations can be found in the Rhode & Schwarz Brochure (in german, currently no other language version is known) Der normgerechte Umgang mit Größen, Einheiten, und Gleichungen (IA) (Source: Search for Einheiten in the Knowledge Center Downloads)
  • Exception: dBm and friends are acceptable here, even if this document says these ITU abbreviations are to be avoided.

Acknowledgements

Based on the Info 3 template - many thanks!