A Thesis Class

The ociamthesis.cls was written by Keith A. Gillow, originally for his own use. It is shared here freely for direct use or after modification as appropriate. There are no records of how many people have used this for their thesis but based on feedback over ~30 years it has been used regularly, widely and without technical difficulty or challenge as to how it meet particular university guidance on the format of a dissertation or thesis. However, the responsibility remains with the individual for the format, structure and content of their thesis, and they should seek guidance from their supervisor for any formal opinion - which should naturally happen as part of the drafting, commenting by supervisors, and redrafting process students perform in the run up to a formal thesis submission. As ever, LaTeX is designed to allow the writer to focus on the content rather than the style, and one can switch to a different class file or modify one as part of final polishing once the content is largely settled.

The latest version (2.2) was released on 22/11/2010. The class is based upon the standard report class around which most people design their thesis. Key features are

• It defines the page size allowing for an offset for binding.
• It defines the layout of the title page including title, logo / crest, name, college, submittedtext, degree name, degree date.
• It uses the current university branding square logo by default (but can also use the older shield crest or belt crest).
• Dedication page environment (layout as a verse).
• Acknowledgements page environment (layout as a quote).
• Alternative acknowledgementslong environment form which isn't set out as a quote.
• Statement of Originality environment (originality) and long version (originalitylong). Formatting similar to acknowledgements enviroments. In a modern world where AI is available one needs to declare if and how AI has been used in your work and you could consider including that within this originality statement. Further departmental guidance and policy on the use of AI is available.
• Abstract page environment (layout as a quote).
• Alternative abstractlong environment form which isn't set out as a quote.
• Alternative abstractseparate environment form which isn't set out as a quote and has all the title page info on as well (useful for the separate copy required when you submit the final copy to the Bodleian Library).
• Romanpages environment to number frontmatter pages in lower case roman.
• Support for twoside and openright document class options

Here is an example of how to use this class in a master latex document.

The structure of the dedications file (called dedications.tex in the example) is

\begin{dedication}

This thesis is dedicated to\\

 someone\\

for some special reason\\

\end{dedication}

and the structure of the acknowledgements (acknowledgements.tex) file is of the form

\begin{acknowledgements}

plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle,

plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle.

\end{acknowledgements}

The structure of the abstract (abstract.tex) file is of the form

\begin{abstract}

plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle,

plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle.

\end{abstract}

and the structure of the statement of originality is of the form

\begin{originality}

Originality is claimed for the particular results in Section X and Y. The majority of the work in Chapter Z is review. 

plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle, plenty of waffle,

The research undertaken for this thesis has involved the use of the following AI tools in the following ways. In particular the work in X use AI to .....
\end{originality}

This example PDF file shows some of the sort of output this class generates. This example output uses the gillow bibliography style file which is a very minor modification to the plain bibliography style.

Cover Page Logo / Crest

Current University Logo / Branding

As of version 2.2 the default is to use a graphical logo with file name oxlogo.eps (for LaTeX) or oxlogo.pdf (for PDFLaTeX).

The Mathematical Institute Linux systems have the class and logo files installed by default. If you are using this document class on another system you will need to obtain a suitable logo file to go with the class file available from this page. You can obtain this from OxIntranet, or by taking a copy of the files on the Linux system (just use the command locate oxlogo to find the file).

Previous Logos / Branding

It is still possible to use the older metafont logo of either the belt crest or shield crest by using the new (as of version 2.2) options beltcrest or shieldcrest in the documentclass line, i.e.

documentclass line for old belt crest logo using the beltcrest metafont

\documentclass[12pt,beltcrest]{ociamthesis}

documentclass line for older shield crest logo using the crest metafont

\documentclass[12pt,shieldcrest]{ociamthesis}

In these cases then either the metafont file oxcrest40 or oxbeltcrest installed (for legacy use) on the Maths Institute system are used.