4 ms·

> For niche professional documents, like research papers, I'm sure it's accepted and expected, but you're probably already using LaTeX for those anyway! I thin

by pXMzR2A 12y ago

> For niche professional documents, like research papers, I'm sure it's accepted and expected, but you're probably already using LaTeX for those anyway! I think by LaTeX you mean Microsoft Word. For social sciences, at least.

saryant 12y ago
Back in college I would typeset my polisci and literature papers in LaTeX. Professors would write notes about how great my papers looked, they were so used to Word.
baddox 12y ago
Oh, that could be. Mathematics and computer science are the only fields for which I've read many papers, and they tend to be LaTeX.
TTPrograms 12y ago
That's pretty presumptuous to assume all research papers are like those in social sciences...
Sharlin 12y ago
In hard sciences LaTeX is pretty much the de facto standard. So much that most people in those fields automatically assume papers that don't have the LaTeX look to be subpar science. Of course, one of the reasons for its prevalence is the math support that's lightyears beyond anything Word can offer.
- chronial 12y ago
  Did you have a look at word's math support in recent years?
  - analog31 12y ago
    I find using the equation editor in Word to be physically debilitating. Pretty much any software involving tiny graphics and fine mouse work triggers severe eyestrain headaches and neck fatigue. There's a document here, describing keyboard entry: http://www.chem.mtu.edu/~tbco/cm416/EquationEditor_main.pdf http://www.chem.mtu.edu/~tbco/cm416/EquationEditor_main.pdf It's basically a markup language of sorts, and I'd use it if I were presently writing a lot of text with equations. For better or worse, working in industry, my reports are free of equations! I've formed the hypothesis, that when managers and non-technical people see an equation, they assume the report is "incomplete," i.e., the equation needs to be turned into an actual result. I've been to academic talks where, instead of typeset equations, the author just copies the source code from their MatLab file to a PowerPoint slide.
    - ygra 12y ago
      In university I used Word 2007 to type math lectures in real-time. I never had to resort to the mouse at all for equations. You seem to be thinking of the stripped-down MathType equation editor that was bundled with Office for a while (before it had native math support). The PDF you linked is for Office 2007 onwards and shows that the markup language you mention is mostly like TeX with a few simplifications, e.g. smart handling of things like x^12 which is then actually x¹² instead of x¹2. Basically it uses parentheses where TeX uses braces and needs a lot fewer of them because of more natural tokenizing.
      - analog31 12y ago
        I think you're right. I plan on trying it, next time I need to enter equations into Word. For me, the key to ergonomic use of the computer is being able to look away from the screen. For instance, I can type text forever without constant focused eye contact with the screen, which greatly reduces the eyestrain issue. And I suppose a useful thing is that if you do misspell one of the keywords, it just sits there until you correct it, as a reminder of what you were trying to write.
  - fosap 12y ago
    The last time I did it couldn't even typeset a root. (The line on top and the thing at the front weren't connected) And in Powerpoint the formulas have constantly different sizes and are distorted. I don't like beamer (a latex package), but it the only viable slide show software for me.
    - chronial 12y ago
      That must have been a while ago – nowadays it’s just beautiful real-time latex-style math with just a few improvements where the latex syntax kinda fails (“3/4” instead of “\frac{3}{4}”, “"plain"” instead of “\text{plain}”).
- mattgrice 12y ago
  I don't think so. Of the hard sciences, the only one I know where TeX is common is physics. It is also common in math and CS but those are not sciences.
  - JadeNB 12y ago
    I can buy not calling mathematics a science (although I don't agree), but surely it's torturing language too much (in one direction or the other) to say that computer science is not a science?
    - flatfilefan 12y ago
      If Mathematics is not a science, then the only one definition of it I know is that Mathematics is a language. Now is that not too much torture to the language by itself? That borders to a borderless recursion, which is supposed to be a part of Mathematics. Can you see what I did there?
    - delish 12y ago
      there's a humorous point: all "xxxxxx sciences" are /not/ sciences. compare political science, social science, computer science, earth science, with chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology. the real sciences don't need what ends up being a self-negating qualifier. computer science isn't a science because it's a hodgepodge of algorithms and miscellanea, and very little theory-building.
      - JadeNB 12y ago
        > there's a humorous point: all "xxxxxx sciences" are /not/ sciences. compare political science, social science, computer science, earth science, with chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology. the real sciences don't need what ends up being a self-negating qualifier. Certainly I see the humour in this humorous point, and in my most chauvinist moments as scientist (well, mathematician) might mutter it to myself, but I cannot agree with it as fact. > computer science isn't a science because it's a hodgepodge of algorithms and miscellanea, and very little theory-building. It sounds like you're discussing programming (which I think of as not yet a science—but I am no programmer), rather than computer science. There is certainly a rich theory behind computer science—indeed, there is a vein of computer science that is essentially just lightly 'applied' mathematics. Just see a random sampling of questions at http://cstheory.stackexchange.com http://cstheory.stackexchange.com if you don't believe it!
fosap 12y ago
I get a teaching degree. Every discipline as it's own formating requirements. For CS and Physics things have to look good, but there is not too much specified. Everybody uses TeX, length is measured in characters, not pages, usually there is no minimum length, but a maximum length. For pedagogics there are huge (like 30 pages) formating requirements. The formating requirements itself are incredible ugly and often quite objectively bad. Such as lots of widows and orphans (even in tables!). The document is distributed as a .doc file, and yes it does look like this even in Word, it's not a fault of LibreOffice. Length is measured in pages and the critical limit is the minimum length. On the subjective side they IMO made the worst possible choices. Arial (or similar), 12 points, almost no margins, 150% spacing between the lines, italic and bold headings. It looks very bad, is MS Word centric, but they have the nerve to make a style guide longer than a page. Also, looking at psychology papers, it seems to me that non technical fields have a thing for shitty typography.
- analog31 12y ago
  I have to laugh when my kids are assigned a "five page" paper, that will never be printed.
- girvo 12y ago
  > On the subjective side they IMO made the worst possible choices. Arial (or similar), 12 points, almost no margins, 150% spacing between the lines, italic and bold headings. So that's why my high-school's formatting requirements for assignments and papers were exactly what you've listed there.

by pXMzR2A 12y ago

saryant 12y ago

Back in college I would typeset my polisci and literature papers in LaTeX. Professors would write notes about how great my papers looked, they were so used to Word.

baddox 12y ago

Oh, that could be. Mathematics and computer science are the only fields for which I've read many papers, and they tend to be LaTeX.

TTPrograms 12y ago

That's pretty presumptuous to assume all research papers are like those in social sciences...

Sharlin 12y ago

In hard sciences LaTeX is pretty much the de facto standard. So much that most people in those fields automatically assume papers that don't have the LaTeX look to be subpar science. Of course, one of the reasons for its prevalence is the math support that's lightyears beyond anything Word can offer.

chronial 12y ago
Did you have a look at word's math support in recent years?
- analog31 12y ago
  I find using the equation editor in Word to be physically debilitating. Pretty much any software involving tiny graphics and fine mouse work triggers severe eyestrain headaches and neck fatigue. There's a document here, describing keyboard entry: http://www.chem.mtu.edu/~tbco/cm416/EquationEditor_main.pdf http://www.chem.mtu.edu/~tbco/cm416/EquationEditor_main.pdf It's basically a markup language of sorts, and I'd use it if I were presently writing a lot of text with equations. For better or worse, working in industry, my reports are free of equations! I've formed the hypothesis, that when managers and non-technical people see an equation, they assume the report is "incomplete," i.e., the equation needs to be turned into an actual result. I've been to academic talks where, instead of typeset equations, the author just copies the source code from their MatLab file to a PowerPoint slide.
  - ygra 12y ago
    In university I used Word 2007 to type math lectures in real-time. I never had to resort to the mouse at all for equations. You seem to be thinking of the stripped-down MathType equation editor that was bundled with Office for a while (before it had native math support). The PDF you linked is for Office 2007 onwards and shows that the markup language you mention is mostly like TeX with a few simplifications, e.g. smart handling of things like x^12 which is then actually x¹² instead of x¹2. Basically it uses parentheses where TeX uses braces and needs a lot fewer of them because of more natural tokenizing.
    - analog31 12y ago
      I think you're right. I plan on trying it, next time I need to enter equations into Word. For me, the key to ergonomic use of the computer is being able to look away from the screen. For instance, I can type text forever without constant focused eye contact with the screen, which greatly reduces the eyestrain issue. And I suppose a useful thing is that if you do misspell one of the keywords, it just sits there until you correct it, as a reminder of what you were trying to write.
- fosap 12y ago
  The last time I did it couldn't even typeset a root. (The line on top and the thing at the front weren't connected) And in Powerpoint the formulas have constantly different sizes and are distorted. I don't like beamer (a latex package), but it the only viable slide show software for me.
  - chronial 12y ago
    That must have been a while ago – nowadays it’s just beautiful real-time latex-style math with just a few improvements where the latex syntax kinda fails (“3/4” instead of “\frac{3}{4}”, “"plain"” instead of “\text{plain}”).
mattgrice 12y ago
I don't think so. Of the hard sciences, the only one I know where TeX is common is physics. It is also common in math and CS but those are not sciences.
- JadeNB 12y ago
  I can buy not calling mathematics a science (although I don't agree), but surely it's torturing language too much (in one direction or the other) to say that computer science is not a science?
  - flatfilefan 12y ago
    If Mathematics is not a science, then the only one definition of it I know is that Mathematics is a language. Now is that not too much torture to the language by itself? That borders to a borderless recursion, which is supposed to be a part of Mathematics. Can you see what I did there?
  - delish 12y ago
    there's a humorous point: all "xxxxxx sciences" are /not/ sciences. compare political science, social science, computer science, earth science, with chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology. the real sciences don't need what ends up being a self-negating qualifier. computer science isn't a science because it's a hodgepodge of algorithms and miscellanea, and very little theory-building.
    - JadeNB 12y ago
      > there's a humorous point: all "xxxxxx sciences" are /not/ sciences. compare political science, social science, computer science, earth science, with chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology. the real sciences don't need what ends up being a self-negating qualifier. Certainly I see the humour in this humorous point, and in my most chauvinist moments as scientist (well, mathematician) might mutter it to myself, but I cannot agree with it as fact. > computer science isn't a science because it's a hodgepodge of algorithms and miscellanea, and very little theory-building. It sounds like you're discussing programming (which I think of as not yet a science—but I am no programmer), rather than computer science. There is certainly a rich theory behind computer science—indeed, there is a vein of computer science that is essentially just lightly 'applied' mathematics. Just see a random sampling of questions at http://cstheory.stackexchange.com http://cstheory.stackexchange.com if you don't believe it!

fosap 12y ago

I get a teaching degree. Every discipline as it's own formating requirements. For CS and Physics things have to look good, but there is not too much specified. Everybody uses TeX, length is measured in characters, not pages, usually there is no minimum length, but a maximum length. For pedagogics there are huge (like 30 pages) formating requirements. The formating requirements itself are incredible ugly and often quite objectively bad. Such as lots of widows and orphans (even in tables!). The document is distributed as a .doc file, and yes it does look like this even in Word, it's not a fault of LibreOffice. Length is measured in pages and the critical limit is the minimum length. On the subjective side they IMO made the worst possible choices. Arial (or similar), 12 points, almost no margins, 150% spacing between the lines, italic and bold headings. It looks very bad, is MS Word centric, but they have the nerve to make a style guide longer than a page. Also, looking at psychology papers, it seems to me that non technical fields have a thing for shitty typography.

analog31 12y ago
I have to laugh when my kids are assigned a "five page" paper, that will never be printed.
girvo 12y ago
> On the subjective side they IMO made the worst possible choices. Arial (or similar), 12 points, almost no margins, 150% spacing between the lines, italic and bold headings. So that's why my high-school's formatting requirements for assignments and papers were exactly what you've listed there.