Theses

UBC has regulations and guidelines for theses. Please be aware of them.

Thesis are usually written in MS Word or Latex. Either is OK with me, although the type of feedback you will get is different for each. If you use MS Word, I expect to get both the MS Word source file and a PDF version of each draft. If you use Latex, I expect to get a PDF version of each draft and also access to a directory on the departmental file server that has the various Latex source file, including bibtex and other auxiliary files (permission must be properly set on the files and the directory path so I can access them -- you need to be in the Imager Unix group!).

Guidelines

• Know the proper rules for possessive apostrophes, so that Fitts's, Charles's, and Jesus' are correct in all documents you submit. See the very first example on the very first page of the main body of Strunk and White if you are not sure of the rules. A good test of whether you know the rules is whether you think these two cartoons are funny:

  • singular possessive
  • plural possessive

• Know how and when to use the Oxford comma.

• Use APA-style citations such as to the seminal work by Fitts (1954), whose bibliographic reference would be as follows.

  Fitts, P.M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47(6):381-391. (Reprinted in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121(3):262-269, 1992.)

• When discussing work by others in a lit review chapter (or anywhere else) don't say "According to those author(s) ..." because "author(s)" refers to you. If you mean the authors of a reference you are discussing, name the authors explicitly so there is no confusion on the part of the reader: "According to Fitts..."

• The word "since" has connotations of a temporal relationship. Use "because" when you mean a purely causal relationship and reserve "since" for purely temporal relationships.

  Since the beginning of time supervisors have dreaded reading students' theses because of the many stylistic errors they contain.

• A similar rules applies to the word "as" that can be used instead of "because" but also has other meanings. Try to avoid using "as" as a substitute for "because" because it is clearer to use "because."

• Know the difference between "that" and "which" and when to use each and when and if a comma is necessary.

  This is a rule that is important to know, which is explained quite well by Strunk and White (page 59 in the Fourth Edition, published in 2000).