wisc-thesis-template

A Minimum Working Example of the Dissertation Template for UW-Madison.

What's New

Easy to use, customize, and debug (there is only one style file)
You can define and change everything as you like
Minimal dependency and minimal working example

Usage

See example PDF at github or download.

\documentclass[12pt,oneside,letterpaper]{memoir}
\usepackage{thesis}

% Use any text & math fonts you like
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{tgpagella}

% Use any bib style you like
\usepackage{natbib}
\setcitestyle{sort,compress,numbers,square,comma}

% Define thesis information
\title{A Minimum Working Example of the Dissertation Template for UW-Madison}
\author{Student Name}
\department{Computer Sciences}
\deposityear{YYYY}
\defensedate{MM/DD/YYYY}

% Define committee members, you can add more.
\committeemember{Faculty Name, Professor, Computer Sciences}
\committeemember{Faculty Name, Professor, Computer Sciences}
\committeemember{Faculty Name, Associate Professor, Computer Sciences}
\committeemember{Faculty Name, Assistant Professor, Computer Sciences}

% Define frontmatters (comment out if you don't want it)
\dedication{...}

\acknowledgements{
	...
}

\abstract{
  ...
}

\begin{document}

% Make everything before the main thesis
\maketitle
\makefrontmatter

% Your thesis
...

% Use any bib style you like
\bibliographystyle{abbrvnat}
\bibliography{...}

\end{document}

How to Customize

Q: I still want to use 1.5 spacing.

Change \DoubleSpacing to \OnehalfSpacing in thesis.sty.

Q: I want to change the title page margin.

Play around with these lengths before \maketitle:

\setlength{\titlepagemedskip}{0.15in}
\setlength{\titlepagebigskip}{0.55in}
\setlength{\committeeindent}{2em}
\setlength{\committeetop}{3\titlepagebigskip}

Q: I want to customize the TOC style.

This package relies on the tocloft package, please google how to customize it or reference the default settings here.

Q: I want to change the depth of section numbers or TOC.

% Set the depth of section numbers you like
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{2}

% Set the depth of table of contents you like
\setcounter{tocdepth}{1}

Q: I am not writing a dissertation for a Ph.D.

Change the text to whatever you want before \maketitle:

\doctype{A dissertation}
\degree{Doctor of Philosophy}

What's Not Working with Previous Templates

Currently, there are three templates available online:

For some unknown reason, all of these packages have several issues:

1. They hardcoded many formats NOT required by UW-Madison

As per UW-Maidison's requirement at web or pdf, there is no requirement for:

Putting chapter titles in the header
Font (the official sample title page uses Times New Roman)
A large margin (only required a minimum of 1 inch)
Reference format
...

2. They used 1.5 spacing, but UW-Madison requires double spacing

Yet, many deposited dissertations in the past few years passed the formatting check with 1.5 spacing.

I don't know why, but it is better to follow the requirements.

3. Hard to customize

They defined many math and proof environments, which conflict with mine and are hard to dig out
They defined the math font, which is not friendly for a math-heavy thesis and hard to change
Too many unnecessary definitions compared with the official requirement
Too many nested files, which costs me several days to debug

Acknowledgements

Although previous templates are not working perfectly after these many years, this template referenced a lot of ideas from them:

The example bib file was generated by:

Claude 3 Opus

Lodour/wisc-thesis-template