[OS X TeX] Getting students to use LaTeX (and apa.cls)

[Gary L.Gray]

On Aug 17, 2006, at 3:25 PM, Robert Sekuler wrote:

> On Aug 17, 2006, at 2:46 PM, Themis Matsoukas wrote:
>
>> On 8/17/06, Michael Kubovy <kubovy at virginia.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Your write "I don't let my students use anything else". Do you  
>>> impose
>>> this on students working in your lab, or students in a course? If  
>>> the
>>> latter, are these grad students? How do you persuade them to do
>>> what's best for them and abandon the deeply ingrained MSW habit?
>>
>> Last semester I taught two undergraduates in my lab to use latex.  
>> They had to start from scratch with MikTeX (not much help from me  
>> there), but they got it quite fast. In a dumb-down world of low  
>> expectations where anything beyond MSW is too geeky and anything  
>> beyond high-school algebra is too advanced, these kids made me  
>> feel better about the future.
>>
>> Themis
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>
> Hi. I insist that everyone in my lab (undergrad, grad or post-doc)  
> learn and use LaTeX for any doc that I see or work over.   Harsh as  
> that may sound, in practice the requirement has turned out to be  
> not much of burden at all.  The reasonable hand-holding and support  
> that are available in the lab makes this requirement relatively  
> easy to fulfill, and (good) students quickly appreciate the utility  
> of the requirement.
>
> Of course, I do not expect students to become expert in all of  
> LaTeX's  details, or all the .sty packages, etc., but then again I  
> don't expect that of myself.  That's what the LaTeX Companion --and  
> the internet-- are for.

We do the same. All students who work with us use LaTeX. They pick it  
up pretty quickly when they are immersed in it and we give them a  
very complete setup, along with the entire contents of my ~/Library/ 
texmf directory as well as many of the templates we use. We also  
teach a LaTeX course every so often that attracts 25-35 students  
every time it is offered. See:

http://www.esm.psu.edu/courses/latex-course/

Regards,
   Gary
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