Athena Scribe Thesis Format
		       	  ---------------------------

				  Jim Fulton
				 Summer, 1985


The files in this directory demonstrate how to generate  an  MIT  Thesis  on  a
Project  Athena  machine.  The easiest way to write a thesis under Scribe is to
copy this directory to your home directory and substitute your thesis  for  the
sample  one  given  here.   This  set of Scribe templates has been used by many
people so it has been fairly well debugged.  The only case in which  you  would
have  to  change  anything  would  be if you wanted to copyright your thesis to
yourself instead of to MIT (you need to include the disclaimer).  With a little
bit of work, even this could probably be automated.

Below is an explanation of each of the files in this directory:

	README		- this file.

	Makefile	- makes it easier to scribe the thesis.  Note
				that because of the way Scribe generates 
				the table of contents you must rename the
				contents files in between Scribe runs.  Type

						make thesis

				to have it handle all of the renaming of
				files and stuff for you.

	thesis.mss	- main file used in Scribing.  Do not put any
				text of your thesis here, only @include
				statements.

	frontpage.mss	- file contain form for generating the title and
				abstract pages of your thesis.

	dedication.mss	- your chance to be poetic and thank Mom and Dad.

	introduction.mss - the beginning of your thesis.  This is really just
				a chapter.

	chapter.mss 	- template for a chapter of your thesis.

	thesis.bib	- bibliography file for your thesis.  This makes
				references a breeze.

      *	mitthe.mak	- the Scribe template for making an MIT Thesis.  Do
				not much with this unless you REALLY know what
				you're doing.  Try to do any customizing within
				your thesis.mss before digging into here.  If
				you want to see some really gross scribe, look
				in here.

      *	mitfig.lib	- the Scribe database for doing Figure numbering and
				getting the page numbers right for the table
				of figures at the front.

      *	mitfor.lib	- the Scribe forms used by mitthe.mak


* = files that might be effected when there are bug fixes.  

This template has been developed from  the  mitthesis  format  written  by  Dan
Ottenheimer at the JCF.  In 1984 Tony Della Fera brought a smaller version over
and did the initial work to make the system run under Unix.  In 1985 I  cleaned
it  up  and  made  it take advantage of the new Imagen and Lptln drivers.  With
minor amounts of work it has been hacked for other  printers,  and  people  are
encouraged to port it to other devices.

You  should  start  by reading the Scribe manual information on large documents
throughly.  Make sure you understand how to use the @part command and how to do
separate  compilations.   Otherwise you will waste immeasurable amounts of time
(both your's and the computer's).

To generate a copy of your thesis you should simple execute the command  'make'
while you in this directory.  You may run Scribe on any seperate section of the
thesis provided you include the appropriate "@Part" commands at  the  beginning
of the section's ".mss" file.

Remember to rename the include file in between each Scribe run.

You  might  want  to  consider  learning  RCS  (the Revision Control System) or
finding a way to make sure that you always have a backup copy.

At the end of the term the printers are in use constantly and are  not  in  the
best shape.  Try to print as few copies of the entire thesis as possible.  When
you get around to doing your final copy, try to do it  when  there  aren't  too
many  people  waiting  for  the  printer.   Also, save yourself some trouble by
making sure that the printer is full of paper BEFORE printing your thesis.  You
may even want to print each section separately.

If  you  have  any  problems  with  the  thesis  system or with Scribe, see the
consultants, they've done a lot of work to make Scribe easier for students to
use.

						Good luck.