Background

The Department of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University previously used both TEX and L^ATEX to generate theses. TEX can create documents of typeset quality, but it is difficult to learn, requiring a great deal of time and effort on the part of the user. Therefore, there the thesis template only supports L^ATEX. Donna Knight and Suzanne Lednicky were members of an EE 403/404 team that designed a set of macros called ``TEX Macros for Thesis Formatting'' that generated all of the special pages and created simplified sectioning commands, making TEX much easier to use. However, their package did not allow virtual labeling of equation and reference numbers [#!kl!#]. Two years later, another EE 403/404 team, Mike Payne and Vijay Kodali, incorporated the TEX macros into L^ATEX document style thesis, which made the formatting of theses even easier. However, this document style did not allow students to use some of the really nice features of L^ATEX such as the automatic table of contents, list of tables, and list of figures [#!pk!#].

This package incorporates the original TEX Thesis Macros into a new eethesis document class so as to utilize the many useful built-in functions available with the L^ATEX system. Some salient features of this package are listed below:

• Sectioning is now done by the standard L^ATEX commands \chapter,\section, and \subsection.
• The Table of Contents, List of Tables, and List of Figures are now automatically generated.
• By using the \include and \includeonly commands, you can now split your input into sections without having to re-initialize page numbers or equation numbers in each file.
• It is now possible to use BIBTEX to produce your reference pages. This will free you from worrying about how to format your bibliography as well as saving you time if you write several papers using many of the same sources.
• If the caption of a figure or a table is longer than one line, the new macro can line them up right after the table or figure number.
• There are some new options. For example the \verbatimfile{file} and
  \verbatimlisting[n]{file} can be used to include code or a program into the thesis.
• Finally, all known errors in the old thesis document style have been corrected in this new eethesis document class.

The journal model for the eethesis document class is IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. It does not matter if your major area is communications, computers, power, etc., as this journal model is accepted by the entire department. There are many differences in format among the IEEE journals; you cannot simply change the footnote at the bottom of the first page to say that the journal model is some other IEEE journal. The footnote will not be true and your thesis may be rejected. If required to give a sample of the journal, give the Thesis Clerk the article refered to in [#!citeorder!#].

If you are in a department other than Electrical Engineering, you may still be able to use this document class; check with your department. If the journal model proves to be unsatisfactory to your department, you should probably consider using another means to type your thesis. Changing a document class is not a trivial matter; only experienced users should attempt it. Appendix A of The L^ATEX Companion [#!goos!#] has an overview of how to write a L^ATEX package or class.