Guidance on Projects

Transcription

1 Guidance on Projects Oxford FHS in Mathematics and Joint Schools Introduction Structuring a thesis Referencing Style and presentation Timing Questions, discussion and a.o.b. 0

2 Introduction Plan for this session: to offer general advice and suggestions, with time for questions and discussion as we go along and at the end. Assumption 1: that you are well on the way. Assumption 2: that you have set yourself up to use some dialect of T E X such as LAT E X. Remember that the aim of the thesis is to introduce something new to the literature. This doesn t mean original mathematics necessarily, but does mean something new in the story you are telling. 1

3 Write with a reader in mind Structuring a thesis yourself before you embarked on your research a friend at a similar stage of development perhaps an examiner (but then remember that the examiner could be an expert, but, equally, could be someone with more experience and background than yours but with less usable knowledge of your topic) give your work a beginning, a middle, an end give it a good send-off: title-page, preface, contents page. historical background can often lend the thesis motivation and a helpful narrative. 2

4 Referencing I List references with full bibliographical detail; the list is placed at the end of the thesis (but before index if any) [See next screen] refer to the references at the relevant points in your text to help make your work self-contained to give credit where credit is due to avoid plagiarism 3

5 Referencing II: your reference list Put items cited in alphabetical order of authors For books give author(s), title, publisher, place of publication, year of publication For articles give author(s), title, journal, volume number and year, page-range Give each item an identifier, e.g. number them serially References in the text should quote the identifier and indicate where to find the relevant bit of information e.g. by Theorem number or Section or page number (especially important in the case of books and long articles). 4

6 Referencing III: your reference list Formatting references (European standard): Authors names in roman or small caps; Article name in roman type; Book titles and journal titles in italics; Publication information in roman type. See next slide for examples 5

7 Referencing, IV: examples [1] Fredrick Arnold and Benjamin Steinberg, Synchronizing groups and automata, Theoretical Comp. Sci., 359 (2006), [2] Peter J. Cameron, Parallelisms of complete designs, CUP, Cambridge [3] Jean-Éric Pin, Černý s Conjecture, web page at NB: Give authors names in the form they themselves use. 6

8 Style and presentation I Write grammatically (see, for example, London Math Soc advice to authors: see Make sure you have defined all the notation and terms that you use Proper mathematical writing involves a careful mixture of English and mathematical symbols. Make sure mathematical equations do not wrap from one line to the next. In general it is probably better to have mathematical equations displayed; certainly important ones should be. 7

9 Style and presentation II Don t use symbols (e.g.,, ) as mere abbreviations in text Avoid abbreviations unnecessarily, (such as WLOG, TFAE, AFAC) though they can be helpful when particular ones are used frequently Don t let formulae coalesce accidentally (for example, don t start a sentence with a symbol or formula when the preceding sentence ends with a symbol or formula) Ensure that any figure has a caption and is of a size for all parts to be clearly visible. Use a spell checker 8

10 Style and presentation III use some dialect of T E X such as LAT E X use the correct symbol: for example \langle, \rangle to get, (not <, > wrong symbols, give very bad spacing) \mid to get in the construction {x P (x)} (not it gives wrong spacing) notation such as Aut, Sym, Hom,... is printed in roman type in formulae (like log, sin, cos, min, max, lim,...). 9

11 Style and presentation, IV Never attach a footnote marker to a symbol or a formula. Avoid attaching footnote markers to names or display material such as titles or headers. In fact, avoid footnotes where possible (at least in mathematical essays and dissertations). Avoid including formulae in titles or headers 10

12 Timing Aim to get a first draft finished by Week 6 of Hilary Term. Proofread it carefully before giving it to your supervisor for comment Give a presentation on it (to your supervisor and A N Other) in Week 6 or Week 7 of Hilary Term you MUST submit your final draft by 12 noon on Monday of Week 10. Watch out for printer overload at the end of Week 9. 11

13 Further Information See the projects web-page questions to me at 12

14 Questions, discussion and a.o.b. Does the mathematics all have to be at H-level or M-level? How rigid is the length restriction? How much can go into appendices? And do they count in the word-limit? What form should the presentation take? AOB 13