Approach Used
The DISSc package contains the information needed to create a sample disseration. The technique is to provide examples of the source files which can be viewed along with the processed document. The purpose of this is to illustrate the use of the various commands and environments which can be used in LaTeX to generate your dissertation document.
Layout
Instead of everything being in one file, much of the information is segmented into separate files, similar to what would be found in computer programs in which subroutines are called from the main routine.
To run the package, you will need a computer which has LaTeX loaded on it.
There are six main compartments in the organization of this information. The main file is called DISSc.tex. This file calls DISSc_pream.tex and DISS_pream_ams.tex (if the AMS font and macro commands are to be loaded). The next component loads the information required by the University in the pages before the actual dissertation. This is referred to as the leader pages. This includes, title pages, and abstract pages.
The actual text of the document begins with the file DISS_abbreviations.tex. This is an optional file containing the definitions of the terms and symbols used in the document. It is recommended that you include this section if your dissertation contains extensive technical terms or symbols. You should also consider including an index. The generation of an index is automatic in LaTeX, but you do have to tell the software which objects need to be included in the index. This means you will have mark the words or phrases in the document you are typing which are to be included in the index. This is best done when you are beginning the task of typing.
The actual chapters are in the files DISS_chap1.tex, DISS_chap2.tex to DISS_chap4.tex. Each of these chapters illustrate the use of different commands and tools that you can use in LaTeX to create a your document. The file DISS_appenda.tex shows how to produce an appendix, illustrating in this case how to introduce verbatim information, such as a computer code listing, into your document. The file DISS_chap4.tex shows the details of the AMS font and macro packages. If you do not need this package, you can ignore this somewhat more complicated chapter. You will need this if you want to use some of the AMS font extensions such as the Fractur and Blackboard fonts, etc.
The files DISS_*.PS contain postscript files which are used to produce figures for inclusion into the document. These figures in this document were produced using the utility gnuplot using the pslatex and postscript output options. The utility along with Tecplot is the major graphics package supported presently. Further information on these is also available in Mathematical and Computational Resource, Description of Graphic Utilities.
In addition to these files, you will need to generate a Bibliography for your document. This is done using LaTeX's bibtex utility. The proper way to do this is to create a bib file (not a bbl file). The bib file is a database file containing the information on each citation. This file is processed using the bibtex command to produce the bbl file. The bbl file is the formatted file which is included in your LaTeX document. In constructing the bib file and processing it with bibtex, you can choose the style for your bibliography. Indeed, you can change the style quite easily so that the information in your database bib file is reformatted to meet the requirements of SIAM, or APA or other such standard bibliography style requirements.
In terms of choosing the style for the document itself, LaTeX provides only the book.sty option. This has been modified at USM to provide a style which is consistent with the requirments of the Graduate School. These style files are dissertation_usm.sty and dissertation12_usm.sty. You only need to specify the first of these in your doucment. It calls the other one directly. Note, that this means you cannot specify the point size for type in your document. This is set at 12pt type as required. The files dissertation_usm.sty and dissertation12_usm.sty were modified from the book.sty and bk12.sty files.
