[sci.research] Single-spaced theses/dissertations?

wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (07/20/88)

Is anyone aware of any universities which accept single-spaced master's
theses and/or doctoral dissertations?

The archivist's "norm" appears to be to demand double spacing throughout
a thesis, except for occasional passages such as extended quotations.
UCLA, for instance, requires this.

Since I wholeheartedly feel that double-spaced documents are ugly, and
would love to be able to submit a dissertation formatted with single
spacing in standard LaTeX fashion, I am thinking of starting a grass-
roots effort here at UCLA to get the university archivist to change the
current format standards.  If I start doing this right now, just maybe
the change might come through by the time I've finished my dissertation
(I'm just about ready to start it now!).

If any other universities accept single spacing for theses and disserta-
tions, this fact could be very helpful to me in convincing the local
people that single spacing is not flatly unreasonable.

Alternatively, I would be interested in hearing any "war stories" about
anyone else who has tried unsuccessfully to get their university to
change a double-spacing requirement.

-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683
   3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
   wales@CS.UCLA.EDU      ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales
   "Spiff's hyper-freem drive malfunctions!  The aliens close in!"

shorne@citron (Scott Horne) (07/20/88)

From article <14562@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, by wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu:
> Since I wholeheartedly feel that double-spaced documents are ugly, and
> would love to be able to submit a dissertation formatted with single
> spacing in standard LaTeX fashion,....

Double spacing looked better in the days of typing (I'm giving typewriters an
early burial!  :-) ); but in the days of phototypesetting, single spacing looks
much better.  When was the last time you saw a book double-spaced?!

Good luck with your single-spacing campaign.  Best wishes.

cje@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Cthulhu's Jersey Epopt) (07/21/88)

I believe the double-spaced requirement is for readability after theses are
put on microfilm (that is, it's probably required by UMI, and the universities
just pass it on).
-- 
Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin,

Chris Jarocha-Ernst
UUCP: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje
ARPA: JAROCHAERNST@ZODIAC.RUTGERS.EDU

hildum@bnrmtv.UUCP (Douglass Hildum) (07/22/88)

The Davis campus of the University of California accepts single spaced 
theses done with LaTeX.  That may be helpful to persuading UCLA to be 
reasonable.

				Eric Hildum