18.704 - Seminar in Algebra and Number Theory (Spring 2012)


Resources for Writing Math

Here are some files to help you write mathematics in a way that is more professional in style and format. To save a file, right click on it.

The following files are the two source files and two compiled versions of the guide, "Writing a Math Phase Two Paper:"

piiUJM2.tex || figure.ps || piiUJM2.dvi || piiUJM2.pdf
This guide gives a lot of tips on writing a short math paper, and also serves as a model of one. The introduction describes MIT's old Phase Two Writing Requirement; its content is, in part, no longer relevant, but it serves as a reminder to write an introduction that includes background material and that discusses the contents.

The following file contains a number of URLs, with lots of info about obtaining and using TeX software:

resources.txt
In particular, the guide
ftp://ftp.ams.org/pub/tex/doc/amsmath/short-math-guide.pdf
is a fairly good summary of the commands of AMS-LaTeX. The file resources.txt is in pure ASCII text, not HTML. So the URLs must be copied into your web browser.

The following two files are the TeX source and the compiled version of the solution to Exercise 10 on Page 12.

SmplEx.tex || SmplEx.dvi
Please use them as a model for your own solution sets. Start with SmplEx.tex, and make all the appropriate changes.

Most publishers of math supply TeX style files, and the next two files are the TeX style files for the department's Undergraduate Journal of Math. Please use them for your term paper.

mathp2e.sty || thmp2e.sty
The following two files make it easier to get started with TeXing your term paper. The former has all the necessary structural declarations; the second also has some examples, illustrating some common formating code.
skeleton.tex || example.tex

Minseon Shin suggests the following online resource:

Detexify
It is s an application for looking up symbols by drawing them; perhaps some sort of optical character recognition (OCR) is used to produce suggestions.