B.Sc. and M.Sc. Theses Writing Checklist

Find below a list of the most common mistakes made by our students. A more comprehensive list can be found here WritingChecklist.

MAKE SURE TO DISCUSS WITH YOUR ADVISOR WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO GET 1.0! IT IS YOUR JOB TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU REALLY MEET OUR EXPECTATIONS.

Section Heads and Titles

  • Either use American "A Really Awesome Thesis" or British "A really awesome thesis" and stick with it throughout the thesis. Do not mix.

Writing

  • Never place a comma before that
  • Never use This 'alone', i.e., "This is stupid!" should be "This $SUBJECT is stupid!"

Equations

  • Only add equation numbers if you also refer to them in the text
  • Never use the \frac command in inline equations
  • Never finish a section (or sub- or subsub sections) with an equation

Figures

  • All figures should be floating and have a long caption
  • No pixelized graphics. Seriously consider using tikz.
  • Do not use figures from other people without permission

Thesis Submission Checklist

Please make sure that you have complied with all these points.

  • You must submit two physical copies of the thesis to the student office.

Due to Covid it is currently sufficient to send the "Erklärung zur Abschlussarbeit" to the student office, see here

  • You can hand it in person during office hours, or at the main gate in the old main building (S1/03) outside office hours.
  • In addition, you must submit a digital copy to TUbama.
  • For more information, have a look at at this page.
  • Your thesis has to have your real signature under "Erklaerung der X Arbeit".
  • Make sure it arrives in time!
  • Check whether your thesis contains any of the mistakes in Writing Checklist.

Templates

You can install the tuddesign globally but you don't have to and it is not recommended.

Local installation (easy)

Thesis

Presentation

  • Use our template
  • Please pull the beamer repository recursively
  • You need a texlive installation

Global installation (hard)

How to use them with LyX?

1. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/LyX-2.0/layouts or .lyx/layouts.
2. Add 'tudexercise.layout' as
#% Do not delete the line below; configure depends on this
# \DeclareLaTeXClass[tudexercise]{article (TU Darmstadt)}
Input article.layout
3. Add 'tudreport.layout' as
#% Do not delete the line below; configure depends on this
# \DeclareLaTeXClass[tudreport]{report (TU Darmstadt)}
Input scrreprt.layout
4. Reconfigure in LyX.

They will now be available in Document Settings.

Where to get the IAS Logo?