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Table of Contents: [[ETD Guide]]


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ETDs are prepared to facilitate scholarly communication. They are vehicles for transmitting the research 
results of a student, in the most effective way, to each person with interest. Truly effective 
communication requires students to become facile with tools and methods of expression so their ideas 
and findings can be clearly conveyed.  At the same time, since communication takes place across gaps in 
space and time, it is important that the form chosen for an ETD be understood in different places and in 
future times, as typically occurs when standard representation schemes are used. 
Thus, at a 1994 meeting of ten universities discussing ETDs in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, it was 
recommended that ETDs be prepared in both a rendered and a descriptive form, like PDF and SGML. 
The former ensures that a reader sees things the way the author desires, which may be of particular 
importance with regard to mathematics or artistic works. The latter instead emphasizes the logical 
structure and content (as is done with HTML pages) and makes it easier to precisely specify the target of 
a search. 
However, no authors write using tools that store their works only in PDF, and few authors directly create 
SGML documents. Rather, they employ tools they select based on cost, availability, popularity, 
familiarity, efficiency, or other criteria.  For many, the choice is a package like Microsoft Word that may 
have been bundled with their computer. For others, like mathematicians who need to work with proofs 
and equations, the main decision may be what representation to use (e.g., LaTeX), with subsidiary 
decision regarding what editor or other special tool can best manipulate LaTeX files. 
Such choices may be discipline specific, may be based on what is commonly used by faculty and 
students who are in a particular group, or who use a particular computing environment.  If there is no 
clear choice imposed, then a decision could be based on the information provided in subsequent sections 
of this Guide. These cover, in particular: 

*[[ETD Guide:Students - Overview: writing with word processors and structured editors|an overview of approaches]]
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Writing in word processing systems|using word processing systems]]
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Writing directly in SGML/XML|using an editor (or converter) to prepare SGML/XML]] 
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Preparing a PDF document|preparing PDF]] 
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Preparing for conversion to SGML/XML|rationale/overview for SGML/XML - and converting to them]] 
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Integrating multimedia elements|multimedia]] 
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Providing metadata – inside, outside documents|metadata considerations]] 
*[[ETD Guide:Students - Protecting intellectual property / how to deal with plagiarism|intellectual property considerations]] 


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Next Section: [[ETD Guide:Students - Overview: writing with word processors and structured editors|Overview: writing with word processors and structured editors]]