Template for Seminarpapers and Thesis

Author

Martha Brinkmann

Published

December 17, 2024

Assignment 3

The goal of this assignment is for you to get comfortable with using Quarto for a seminar paper or thesis (and our final “take-home exam”).

To receive the points for this exercise, please submit a ZIP-file containing the PDF and HTML output, as well as all code and supplementary files needed to reproduce them, using the upload area on ILIAS (available soon). The deadline is 18 December, before our last meeting. OPTIONAL: If you send your files by 10 December, I will have a closer look and try to give you more detailed feedback.

You do not have to add anything specific, but please use the time until our next/last tutorial to get familiar with the project structure and try to add a new chapter (for example, you could add some of the material from our previous sessions or try simulating another example of confounding), adjust the format as you like and try to produce professionally pleasing, publication-ready output.

Please do reach out if you have problems – however, try first to fix any issues you encounter using the Quarto guide, R help, Package websites and ChatGPT/other LLMs. I strongly encourage that you try the capabilities of GPT-4o or Claude in this context, we will discuss how to use LLMs most effectively as part of the next tutorial.

Instructions

To begin, start a new RStudio project in a folder with the following files:

  • _quarto.yml: Enter your name, adjust the HTML theme and the PDF setup as you like. Some PDF settings are provided in two separate files:
    • before_body.tex: This file contains the code for the title page. Name and date are taken from _quarto.yml, here you can change other text and the logo (UFR_Siegel_Blau.png and UFR_Wortmarke.pdf).
    • include-in-header.tex: Additional LaTeX settings and packages.
  • index.qmd: This introduction as the first chapter and start page.
  • main.qmd: The main part of the thesis/book, replace with separate chapters as needed.
  • references.qmd: The chapter showing the list of references cited from references.bib, as well as a paragraph citing the version of R and the packages used. Update grateful_refs.bib and check before submission. For a different citation and bibliography style, replace the-quarterly-journal-of-economics.csl and update _quarto.yml accordingly.
  • Readme.md describes the files

To generate the HTML and PDF book, go to the terminal and enter quarto render. All files will be saved in the folder docs (you can change the output directory in line 3 of _quarto.yml).1.

For additional guidance, see the Quarto Documentation, as well as these two blog posts by Cameron Patrick and Sophie Lee

  1. If you are logged into your quarto-pub account, typing quarto publish quarto-pub will render your project and publish it as a website (alternative options include Netlify or GithubPages). Setting the project type to websiteor manuscript would provide additional flexibility, see the Quarto guide for further information↩︎