All of the writing that I do in graduate school is done in LaTeX and typeset in TeX. In order to rapidly learn LaTeX, I decided to submit all of my homework assignments using it. At first, this made assignments take a little longer, but once I got used to it, there were lots of benefits, and, of course, I definitely learned a lot about LaTeX and TeX.

During this time, I put together a LaTeX template for homework assignments (and other similar papers). I'm posting that here in the hope that it will make it easier for others to get started using LaTeX in their homeworks (and then hopefully also in their research publications).

In the templates posted below, I use Stephen Riehm's bracketing rules to mark places where user text should be merged into the template. In other words, wherever you see a <+place holder+>, replace it with the appropriate text. Example text will be given in the caption of the place holder. If you are like me and use VIM, then you should be able to use <C-j> to move from place holder to place holder. (just like moving from bullet to bullet with <C-space> in WinEdt; in fact, I used to use bullets in these files instead, but I started using VIM more than WinEdt, and VIM place holders are more descriptive than WinEdt bullets)

• homework.tex – the template
  • homework_tex.ascii – click here to view homework.tex in browser
  
  
• homework_tex_example.tex – an example assignment using the template
  • homework_tex_example_tex.ascii – click here to view homework_tex_example.tex in browser
  
  
  • homework_tex_example.pdf – a pdf rendered from the example
  
  
• NOTE that changing the documentclass from article to report will take the page number off of the title page and start the numbering on the first actual page of the homework.

NEW!! – I have made two additional similar homework templates that may also be helpful. Both of these include a subtitle that will be excluded if the subtitle is left blank. Both also include a \matlabscript and a \scalefig macro for including MATLAB scripts and figures easily. Otherwise, the first is almost identical to the original template. The second uses a different type of homeworkProblem that is a macro rather than an environment. This macro allows for subtitles to be used on each homework problem. The titles of the homework problem will be included in the header and footer information while the subtitles will only be shown at the beginning of each problem.

There are comments within the templates that explain the usage of the new macros. See the simple examples for more help. The examples make use of \matlabscript and \scalefig.

• homework_new.tex – the new template
  • homework_new_tex.ascii – click here to view homework_new.tex in browser
  
  
• homework_new_example.tex – an example assignment using the template
  • homework_new_example_tex.ascii – click here to view homework_new_example.tex in browser
    
    
  • homework_new_example.pdf – a pdf rendered from the example
    
    
  • NOTE: This example shows a subtitle being used and a caption on the MATLAB script.
  
  
• homework_type_2.tex – the template
  • homework_type_2_tex.ascii – click here to view homework_type_2.tex in browser
    
    
  • homework_example.m file used in source: (.m file)   (.ascii file for browser)
  
  
• homework_type_2_example.tex – an example assignment using the template
  • homework_type_2_example_tex.ascii – click here to view homework_new_example.tex in browser
    
    
  • homework_example.m file used in source: (.m file)  (.ascii file for browser)
    
    
  • homework_type_2_example.pdf – a pdf rendered from the example
    
    
  • NOTE: This example shows the use of no subtitle and no MATLAB script caption.