uchi-astro-lab-manuals

See the LICENSE.md for the license granted to you regarding this repository.

Latex Setup

• Each lab write-up and appendix lives in its own directory, to be included in the main course lab manual's .tex file at the repository root. The lab write-up can then have the convenient file name lab.tex or something similar.
• Each lab write-up or appendix file should start with its title as a chapter. For example, the source file for the lab about measuring the local acceleration of gravity starts with \chapter{Little g}.
• The name of the course lab manual .tex file follows the convention {lowercase course prefix}{course number}-{lab-manual.tex}. For example, the 2018 Autumn quarter lab manual for PHSC 12700 Stars filename should be phsc12700-lab-manual.tex.
• For certain courses, latex parent documents exist which only contain the instructions for a single lab. For example, the file parallax-manual.tex generates a document containing only the parallax/lab.tex file.
• Latex packages required for compilation:
  • latex, biblatex-biber
  • several texlive packages including texlive-fonts-extra
• Compile using pdflatex and biber. At the command line, type

$ pdflatex lab-manual-phy252.tex
$ biber lab-manual-phy252
$ pdflatex lab-manual-phy252.tex

Text Style Guide

• Figures should be referenced by Fig.~\ref{foo}. The ~ is a space that prevents line breaking on that space. Similarly, equations should be referenced as Eq.~, tables as Table~, and questions as Question~.

• To refer to two referants, use the plural. For example, Figs.~\ref{foo} and \ref{bar}.

• All labels should have a prefix giving the abbreviation of the lab and type of reference. For example, figures in the Rydberg Constant lab start with ryd:fig:. This creates a 'namespace' for each lab, so that a lab never refers to a figure in a different lab.

• If there is a sentence that defines a term, that term should be in italics. For example, ...The distance $f$ is called the \textit{focal length} of the lens.

• Symbols used in formulas should be also displayed in math mode in the inline text. ...$h$ is the height of the object

• Hyphens in words use '-', a hyphen indicating a range of values is '--', and the hyphen as a form of clause separation is '---'. ...A two-level system in the range 10--20 MeV is just that --- a two-level system.

• Avoid capitalizing an entire word for emphasis. It reads as shouting and can be confused with acronyms. Instead, use boldface and underlining.

• For acronyms, use the smallcaps fontface, e.g. \textsc{MSU}. This makes the acronym read more easily with text.

• For labels of buttons on hardware, software menu items, and spreadsheet commands, use \texttt{} to differentiate. For example,

  To average the cells \texttt{A1}--\texttt{A3} in a spreadsheet, type \texttt{=AVERAGE(A1:A3)}.

• For descending into menus, use a right-facing triangle:

  \texttt{Plot} $\blacktriangleright$ \texttt{Axis Options}

• Images should be kept at 512 kb or less, to keep the total file size of the manual low.

• Quotes in latex are done ``like this''. Notice 2 backquotes (the key to the left of '1' on a standard US keyboard) beforehand and 2 single apostrophes after. This will make the quotes open and close correctly.