VTU FINAL REPORT HOWTO

NOTE: Mirror of this page is available here: VLSI Systems Lab. THE LATEST VERSION
IS HERE: ECE Dept..
NOTE FOR IIScians: Looks like Google shows this page when queried for IISc Latex
thesis. Download iiscthes.cls, iisclogo.sty,iiscthes.sty and iisclogo.eps. The page ur looking
for is here: http://etd.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/instructions/templates.htm.
Ok .. you have done all the hardwork ... You've read infinite (countably infinite.... for the
purists) number of papers .... You've chosen your project topic, finalized a problem,
visualized, designed and implemented/simulated the architecture, run-modify-rerun the
simulation till it fit your theoretical results .... Basically u've finished your MTech project
(you feel so or ur guide is just plain tired) ...
You have to write the report now. The irony of life (or let's say VTU engineering) is .... no
matter how many nightouts you have done trying to debug that 1 crucial error ... no matter
how many papers u have gone through .... you get marks based on ONLY what you write in
your MTECH FINAL REPORT. (except those internal marks where every dumb tom, dick
and harry in the class gets more than you ;) ). And there is some marks allotted for a paper
presented/published at any seminar/symposium/conference/journal.
I've been there ... done that ... Ya .... MTech. from VTU. Not that i prepared the best project
report in VTU's history... but i have gone through enough to make a page giving instructions
about how to write a final report without common errors and stupid mistakes. After going
through the torture of reading this page you should be able to write a tolerably good report
that might save u one or two correction trips to your college and get that prized signature
from your guide on ur report.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1. Organization of the rest of the report
2. Organization of the VTU Report
3. The VTU Circular
4. Points to Remember
5. LaTeX
1. LaTeX in LinuX
2. LaTeX in Windows

3. LaTeX Intro
4. LaTeX Examples
6. VTU LaTeX CLASS FILE
7. Final Viva
8. Other Reading

Appendix A. Download Materials.

o A.1 Preparation of Report
o A.2 Installation Files/Links
o A.3 LaTeX Materials/Tutorials

Appendix B. Miscellaneous.

1. Introduction
This page is by a VTUian, for a VTUian. The final report guidelines and other information
here for your use. Every single line in this document is my own personal, trivial,
inexperienced opinion. Use and follow at your risk. Any comments, suggestions to
basavaraj_DOT_talwar_AT_gmail_DOT_com. (Replace the _DOT_ with a . and _AT_
with an '@').
I have written the document for PG students (I was one). Most of this applies to UG too. This
HowTo contains:
1. General guidelines about writing a report based on my own experience. I'm writing
here bcz i couldn't find any at the time of my writing when i desperately needed.
2. Formatting guidelines for the report.
3. LaTeX document class file for preparation of the report. Highly incomplete right now
but does most of the formatting well.
4. This is NOT a report writing tutorial. I created the page just to show off my LaTeX
document class file. Many report writing guides/tutors can be found on the Net.

1.1 Organisation of the rest of the article

The rest of the HowTo is organized as follows. Section 2 lists the contents of a VTU report.
Section 3 has links to an available VTU circular that contains rules for formatting etc. The
important points from the circular and some points of my own are presented in Section 4.
Section 5 presents an introductory tutorial on LaTeX. The class file to be used to prepare
reports for VTU is put up in Section 6. Section 7 gives a usual rundown on how ur viva will

be. Section 8 gives some misc materials that might help. Download materials required to
prepare your report are all separately put up in Appendix A. Appendix B always contains
matter that is not yet included in the main article - but will be soon after some refinement. I
have written something on Literature Survey right now.
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2. Organization of the VTU Report

The report has to have these in that order starting from the very 1st page (As soon as you
open the hard bound report).
1. An OHP and The Front Page - The front page is the same that appears on the cover
of the hard bound. The OHP is for some mysterious reason even the VTU officials
won't know.
2. Certificates - Two in number. First is the internal guide & college principal's. The
2nd is the external guide's. You may put OHPs before each of these if you wish. The
external guide's certificate, contrary to the popular opinion, is NOT IMPORTANT. If
you are not able to procure one, or if your external guide is not in a position to sign
it ... It's ok .... Every1 will accept ... you will PASS MTech. (I have.)
3. Declaration Page - Says something like ... I am the only one who worked on this
ORIGINAL project and God strike me dead this second if it is found untrue .... Dude,
4get abt what it says. Copy your friend's, change the name and just sign it. That's all.
4. Abstract - Your report starts here. The previous pages don't have any page numbers.
Roman page number i is the Abstract.
5. Acknowledgement - This is where you thank all those people whom you've rarely (or
never) met but whose inspiration, motivation, encouragement, blessings etc. etc. have
helped u to write this immensely knowledgeable report and NOT thank your friend
who did most of your coding. There is some debate as to whether Abstract should
come first or Acknowledgement. I don't care bcz VTU doesnt seem to care. I wrote it
this way and it was accepted ... that's all that matters.
6. The Contents, Lists of Figures, Tables, Acronyms, Equations/Symbols used in the
report and such other lists. - They should know your report isn't hollow.
7. Body of the Report - If you didn't begin your report with an Introduction and
conclude it with a Conclusion and Future Work, you will be hunted like a dog,
caught and put in a lion's den. There some people i know who'd like to try that.....
More details follow.
8. References - NOT 'Bibliography' and NOT 'Just to make others think i'm cool' but
References. The ones you've referred .... in your report .... when you wrote those hi-fi
technical comments. Every item in your reference list should have a citation in the
body.

9. Appendix - Index, Glossary and others can be put here (according to my humble
opinion). Also this is the place where the gr8ter beings put their data sheets/circuit
diagrams and other xtreme stuff that don't fit in the body.
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3. The VTU Circular

VTU Final report guidelines are here(in scanned PDF). They are old and i'd appreciate if
any1 could provide newer ones. In any case .... they give the idea. Only the declaration page
is missing which was added in later years.
Report formatting rules - Page 1

Circular - Page 1

Report formatting rules - Page 2

Circular - Page 2

MTech. Marks distribution

Circular - Page 3

Third semester MTech. Dissertation Evaluation Marks Sheet

Circular - Page 4

Colour of the report cover and other details

Circular - Page 5

Matter for the certificates

Circular - Page 6

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4. Points to Remember
Some other important points from the circular are illustrated here.

The report is a hard bound book with a fixed color cover for each department. (My
guess is this requirement is 2 make the life of the clerk easier. ;). I love bureaucracy.)
The color codes are here for your convenience. Example of a cover page is in
Appendix A.
PG Course (Department)

Color of the outer cover of the report

1.

Electrical

PINK

2.

Electronics

PURPLE

3.

Mechanical

SKY BLUE

4.

Civil

GREY

5.

Computer Science

CREAM

6.

Chemical

YELLOW

7.

Textile

BROWN

(The background colors depicted inside the column r approximate.)

The report should be A4 size, Executive BOND sheets and hard bound in the
prescribed color for each department. Report should be one sided(not back to back),
and text must have 1.5 spacing at least. Borders:
o Left: 1.25 inches------3.18
o Right: 1.0 inch=-------2.55
o Top: 0.75 inch-------1.90
o Bottom: 0.75 inch

The prologue (everything before the First Chapter begins.) should contain:
o The cover page with necessary details about the report.
o Certificates and Declaration are mandatory.
o Abstract and Acknowledgements.
o Table of Contents, List of Figures, List of Tables and if relevant List of
Algorithms, List of Acronyms, List of Symbols etc.

Reports are divided into Chapters, which in turn into sections, subsections etc.
Chapters have to be numbered 1, 2, .... Sections will be numbered 1.1, 1.2 .....
Subsections will be 1.1.1, 1.1.2 ..... A chapter can contain any number of
figures/tables/equations etc. The first figure in chapter 2 will be numbered 2.1.

The "Chapter 1" text should be either left or right justified. The chapter title should be
Centred. And they have to be of certain sizes:
o Chapter number text: 16pt
o Chapter title: 18pt
o Section title: 16pt
o Subsection title: 14pt
o Report text: 12pt

The last chapter has to be Conclusion and Future work. NOT Conclusions. Should
contain summary of the work and scope for further work. Conventionally it contains 2
sections. The first section is Conclusion and the second section is Future Work.

References should be serially numbered in order of their occurance in the test and
their numbers should be indicated in square brackets. for eg. [3].

Rest of them are just stuff like "Don't copy 4m here and there etc." which you may
ignore as the world knows we all prepare original stuff.
Some important points NOT from the circular are here. Follow them so that you don't have to
make rounds of your college searching for your guide to approve your report more than
once/twice.

The report is a hard bound and a transparent plastic covered sizeable book that wud
look good in your personal library. :). The binding will be done at your (un)official
binders where your seniors have gotten theirs done last year. Also amazingly enough,
he seems 2 know the way the report should look including the color codes of all
departments better than any engineering student. The color codes are given here.
Example of the cover page are in the Downloads Section.
The cover should contain important details about what/where/when of your project
like:
o VTU and the VTU logo: Ofcourse you expand it on the cover, Mr. Engineer.
o Report Title: ofcourse u knew that.
o Your name, USN and branch.
o Names with designation (like Dr. XXX, Prof. YYY or Mr. ZZZ) and
complete addresses of both the guides.
o Complete address of the company/research lab+institution the work was
carried out in.
o Your college logo, name and address.
o Year of submission. Not mandatory though. But wud luk professional.
1 more item my dear friend swears by is the sentence that sounds like "In partial
fulfillment of such a degree in such a university......". Though this is not thaaaaaat
necessary, the purists would include this too. In either case .. i'll try 2 add both
examples in the Downloads section.

Abstract is the expansion of the title. Should not exceed 2 pages and you may fit it in
1 page. (Internal guide's tastes matter here. Usually the abstract should not exceed 1
page according to most.) Usually divided in to 3-4 paragraphs. here goes: Write a very
general paragraph abt the technologies involved. Write briefly and clearly what your
work focusses on. The next section is the summary of the results obtained (Akin to - i
tested it on this and on that and found it works well.). Any paper from a reputed
journal/conference should be an ideal example. Emulate - nothing to be ashamed of.
An example with bad illustration is provided here.
For example: Project title - "Design and Development of Modular System for QoS
Guarantee in Wireless Networks". 1 paragraph about wireless networks, why QoS is
important in wireless networks. Next paragraph talks abt the proposed scheme that
takes advantage of the two existing (opposite) working schemes. Two/three sentences
that give comprehensively the essense/working of the new method. The last paragraph

contains stuff like i have simulated various wireless environments using such a
Network Simulating Tool and found that the method is efficient.
You may look up the abstract in my friends' reports in the downloads section.

The first chapter in the report is an introduction to the work in more ways than one.
Usually named Introduction. Use any name of your choice (if you find one that suits
better). Some sections have become mandatory in VTU reports. More importantly
Literature Survey. This has to be included in the first chapter. Usually after the
general introduction about the technologies involved in the work. You may put it in
the second chapter if you think it fits better there. Somehow it is frowned upon if the
Literature Survey is put later. (My report was rejected bcz i put Literature Survey as
the Fourth chapter.). Refer Related Work sections from reputed journals.
Include matter from (and refer) papers/books and other sources. The works referred
can be previous works(which you may have continued), similar works (they might
have done in wired environments and you have implemented in wireless) or partially
borrowed works (You used one of their algorithms) etc. You get the idea. (I never got
this until my friends explained it thoroughly to me.)
Literature Survey is very important. Referring GOOD, REPUTED JOURNAL/CONF
articles has a LOT of weightage. Take pains to collect references early in your
research.

After the literature survey there is another necessary section called Motivation. This
is your justifaction to your literature survey and work. You will here justify the need
of your work, present consicely and precisely the novelty in your work. It should
contain matter that says something like "i read all these works and i understood the
workings of the system. I also noticed that there is this part missing in these systems. i
decided to work on the missing part." You may also include in the Motivation
something like "all the above works used technology X to implement the algorithms. I
will use technology Y because it seems to be ___________ ."
Important: You _HAVE_ to justify your work properly. If you think noone will read
this and write crap here .... u get shot at in the viva by the external. i have seen many
friend get stuck justifying the need, novelty and quality of their work. This is the first
question asked in every viva. " A lot of ppl have done this b4 you. What is new in this
one?". You have be ready with a satisfactory answer.

Include a section called Proposed Work as the last but one section of the
"Introduction" chapter. Any (technical) person reading this section should get a broad
idea of your complete project. It's paragraphs contain: problem statement, your
approach to the solution, tools you have used to arrive at the results, and finally the
result obtained.

The last section of your first chapter SHOULD be Organization of Rest of the
Report. It contains 4/5 sentences like - Chapter 2 illustrates the architecture of the
Modular System for QoS Guarantee in Wireless Networks...... Summary of the work
with some future research directions are presented in Chapter 6. Glossary of related
terms are listed in Appendix A.

I have always found it easy to start a chapter with an expansion of its title. The second
paragraph contained organization of the rest of the chapter. Then the first section.

The rest of the chapters may correspond to Proposed Work, Implementation, Case
Study. You may add one or two chapters before these if you feel understanding of
other topics are necessary to understand your work. For. eg. My friend worked on a
recent tool called "LabView" and he included a chapter about it before explaining his
own work.
My advice: Take a wise decision in this regard. DONOT compromise the quality of
your report by adding a _LOT_ of general details. Noone is interested in timepass
stuff.

The conclusion is not more than 2 pages (usually) and matter is not very different
from the abstract. Take some time to research and fill the future work section.

Most important: THE SIZE OF THE REPORT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH

YOUR MARKS. I learnt this the hard way. Ample report size in VTU is 60-80 pages
(starting from Abstract page to References page). 50 is consice and to the point. 100 is
considered BIG. No one's interested in the general description. Let your report be abt
YOUR WORK. Egoistically explain everything done by you. That'll make a good
report.

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5. LaTeX
Now you know the rules. Don't just run away and start MS-Word and start typing. What MSWord does LaTeX (pronounced lay-tech) does a zillion times better. And is a million times
easier. An excellent introduction to latex is given by the latex people themselves here. A good
latex reference is Not so short intro to LaTeX. The latex user guide at the latex project page is
available here. Here's 1 very good book on how to write a thesis in LaTeX. It'll take 30
minutes to learn more than half of LaTeX (and more than half is more than enough to write
more than 100 MTech reports.)
And learning is made easy by a cool latex editor environment called Kile - KDE Integrated
LateX Environment..
And learning is made easy by a cool latex editor environment called Kile - KDE Integrated
LateX Environment.. An even better editor called LYX follows the WYSIWYM paradigm in
text proecessing. It can create PS, PDF, DOC, TEX files from an interface similar to ones in
the standard word processors. I strongly recommend LYX for any1 who is uncomfortable
with the idea of creating and compiling a .tex file, converting it to ps or pdf. However BOTH
editors require some initial knowledge of LaTeX. Most info abt latex in the following
paragraphs should be enough to make a LOT of progress. OpenOffice 2.0 has an export to
LaTeX2e option.
LaTeX is a typetting, text formatting system (language). Similar to HTML at the surface
(there are start and end tags for most tasks). LaTeX was written to give the author freedom
from formatting the text. Trivial stuff like setting the chapter titles to 18 points and putting
them in the centre of the page etc. is handled by LaTeX. A very short intro to LaTeX is
presented here. TeX (a formatting language was written by the Donald E Knuth). LaTeX is a
macro package created by Leslie Lamport to help us mortals to create high quality documents

(ps/pdf among others). A very brief LaTeX tutorial is presented in the following sections.
Tutorial links for LaTeX are presented in Section 5.3 and also in the downloads section.

5.1 LaTeX in LinuX

The required packages to run LaTeX are probably already there in Linux right now (if you
have installed tetex-utils package). This package is present in Authoring and Publishing
group in RedHat installation. This is the teTeX homepage. It can be downloaded from there.
type latex at the command line and it should give an output similar to the following (both in
Linux and Windows) if installed. Type Ctrl-D to terminate it.
[satanix@pclab ~]$ latex
This is pdfeTeX, Version 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.4)
**

5.2 LaTeX in Windows

LaTeX implementation for windows is called MikTeX. Download and install it completely.
Instructions for download and installation are available at the MikTeX homepage itself. After
installation execute the latex command to obtain the following result. (type Ctrl-C) to get
out of it.
C:\>latex
This is e-TeX, Version 3.141592-2.2 (MiKTeX 2.4)
**

5.3 LaTeX Intro

Here i make the grave sin of trying 2 xplain LaTeX to you in simpler terms than the galore of
simple tutorials already available. In no way is the intro comprehensive and will not help in
becoming an accomplished LaTeX user. It serves as a starter for any1 who's scared to read the
huge tutorial at first go. Feel free to skip this section if you have prepared LaTeX documents
before. Here are tutorials to LaTeX:
1. Essential LaTeX
2. Essential LaTeX for Mathematical symbols/equations
3. Cornell's LaTeX Primer.
4. David R Wilkins' LaTeX Primer
5. Has more links and a very good tutor
6. Norm Matloff's LaTeX Tutorial
7. One more good tutorial
8. Excellent LaTeX references

5.3.1 Steps for creating a PS/PDF file using LaTeX

These are the steps involved in created a Postscript/PDF file using LaTeX.
1. Source File: You have to create a source file. This contains the text to appear in the
final document in pure ASCII TEXT format. extension .tex. This file contains source
to include figures/tables etc in LaTeX format.
2. Compile the Source: The source file is ready. Compile it. Using the latex command.
This generates (atleast) 3 files. A .log, .aux a .dvi file. The .aux file is used by latex
during preparation of the final document. Of real interest for us is the .dvi file. It is a
device independant format which can be viewed and converted into a ps or a pdf for
printing. Linux has 'xdvi' package that allows viewing of a dvi file. Complete example
is presented in Section 5.3.
3. Convert to PS/PDF: The greats have already written for us and given us commands
such as dvips and dvipdf to do this. Alternatively one can use pdflatex to compile a
.tex source file into a pdf directly. That's all a printable brand new document is ready
for you. No hassles of formatting etc.
5.3.2 Important points about LaTeX

Every latex source file belongs to a document class. A document class is just a string
that specifies the type of document that is going to be prepared. Important types of
document classes:
o article: For small articles/papers etc. Divided into sections, subsections, and
subsubsections.
o report: For large reports. Divided into chapters, sections, subsections, and
subsubsections.
o book: For books/monographs. Divided into chapters, sections, subsections,
and subsubsections.
o letter: To create letter.

Extra functionalities to LaTeX can be added by including separate packages for each.
For example: graphicx, graphics, epsfig, psfig packages define commands
for inclusion of graphics (types jpg, bmp, eps, ps). glossary.sty helps in producing
good looking glossaries.

All the text for a document has to be embedded inside

\begin{document}....\end{document} commands.

Figures to be included inside a document have to be available separately. Figures

appear best in a LaTeX document in Encapsulated Postscript Format (EPS). You
can either create (beautiful, high quality) EPS files (using xfig or dia) (dia is better for
starters) or convert JPG/BMP using ImageMagick or convert.

One easy way to create images for those who don't want to use xfig or dia is to create
a diagram on open office presenter (or ms-powerpoint) and capture the screenshot, cut
to the required size and convert to EPS.
Do what you want in whichever format you want. The figures have to be separately
available.

Elegant and xtreemly helpful methods exist to create the bibliography. It is very well
explained in the book on how to write a thesis in LaTeX.

5.4 LaTeX Examples

What the previous section presented in theory this section will present in practice. The section
provides an brief example to create an article and a detailed description to create a report.
General outlay of a simple LateX source file (.tex file) is given below. Anything after the '%'
character in a .tex file is treated as comment by LaTeX compiler.
A TeX source file skeleton.
\documentclass[options]{type of document to be created}
% We may want to use packages that enable inclusion of graphics, headers
footers, etc.
\usepackage{packagename1}
\usepackage{packagename1}
% The title and the authors \title{Title of this article}
\author{Author 1 and Author 2}
% There's a beginning for everything.
\begin{document}
% Create the title and the author....
\maketitle
There are paragraphs ..... Full of pure text ....
And there are tables ....
\begin{table}[options]
% To create a table with 3 columns with text in them left, centre and
right justified respectively
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|r|}
\hline
This & is an & illustration \\
\hline
to draw & a table & in LaTeX \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
and there are equations .....
\begin{equation}
Insert some cool looking equation you copied from somewhere ...
\end{equation}
\begin{displaymath}

Insert cool looking equation you derived ...

\end{displaymath}
And there are figures .....
\begin{figures}
{\center \includegraphics[options]{filename} \par} \end{figures}
% There's an end for every begin. ;).
\end{document}

5.4.1 LaTeX Article Example

Download the example article file. Give it any name and a .tex extension. Also download the
diagram used in the article: Internet.eps and put it in the same directory as your first.tex file.
This diagram was created in dia. All PS viewers can be used to view EPS files.
Execute the following commands to create a PS file from the source. i have named the file as
first.tex.
$latex first.tex
$latex first.tex

(ya .... u have 2 do it atleast twice.)

$dvips -o first.ps first.dvi

$kghostview first.ps
The first two command compile the source file and a lot of stuff appears on screen of which
mostly the warnings and the errors are the only of real interest. The third command converts
the device independent file (.dvi) into a ps file. View both the dvi and the ps files. View this
file with any of your favourite PS viewer (ggv, kghostview, gv and evince in LinuX and
Ghostview in Windows).
5.4.2 LaTeX Report Example
This section provides a similar example to create a report. The major difference here is the
report gets formatted into chapters, sections subsections etc. This is the format we are
interested in. To create a full fledged report with hot shot diagrams, hi-fi equations, path
breaking algorithms, we'll need to use the LaTeX report format. Download this zip file. If will
unzip a "report-example" directory. The contents of this directory are explained below. The
generated report should look like this.

report-example.tex: This is the main source file of the report. There can be as many
supplementary source files that are 'included' in the main source file as one wishes.
This is main file is where we define the type of document being prepared, the
packages we require to compile this document etc. Very similar to the main manager
module of ur project implementation ;).

abstract.tex, ack.tex, intro.tex, proposal.tex, cas.tex, app.tex: These source files

correspond to the contents of the Abstract, Acknowledgement, Introduction and other
chapters repectively. Such a method makes management, debugging and
troubleshooting easy (The old divide and conquer rule).

.eps files: Are the figures that are included in the final document. Can be viewed
using any PS viewer (the same ones you use to view the .ps files.)

refs.bib: The file used by bibtex to create the bibliography. More details in the Howto
prepare PhD thesis pdf.

makereport: Just to show the steps to compile, create a ps file and open it. just run
this script. It'll generate the final ps file and show it to you.

The test-chap.tex is for you to add a dummy chapter into the report .... and glossary.sty and
gloss.tex are for the glossary. Instructions can be found in the ps in this directory.
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6. VTU LaTeX CLASS FILE

The latex "report" class allows the author to break up the document into chapters, sections,
subsections etc. This u have already seen in the previous section. But it doesn't format the
report exactly like our respectful VTU guidelines state. A couple of extra lines, a couple of
extra pages into the default report class should fix this. Hence we have a brand new "vtu"
class file that can be used instead of the "report" class file. Two versions of the class file exist.
vtu.cls generates a report without a header and footer. vtuhf.cls generates a header and footer.
You may use any that suits your taste. The class file is complete except for.... well ...... er....
er.... the frontpage.
The missing frontpage can be added by creating the same using OpenOffice or MS Word. An
example is shown here (DOC, SXW and ODT). Certificates to be attached before the abstract
are here: DOC, SXW and ODT.
To try the class file do these steps:
1. Download it: vtu.cls or vtuhf.cls.
2. Copy the vtu.cls into the same directory as your contents (wherever your main tex file
is).
3. Edit the first (non-commented) line of your main source tex file. (report-example.tex
4m the prev example). The report by default includes "report" class file (As in
\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}). Change it to vtu (the name of the class file in
your directory without the extension.). Also the font and paper size ([12pt,a4paper])
is not required as such details are now included in the class file. After the change the
line should look like this:
\documentclass{vtu}

4. Recompile the main tex file and view it. Notice the difference ???? The recompiled
report using vtu.cls is here.
The complete vtu report example directory is here for your reference in TGZ and ZIP
formats. Some points to be noticed in the report using vtu class are:
1. Page borders are set according to the VTU formatting rules requirement.

2. All chapter names are centred. Chapter numbers are right justfied.
3. Mandatory pages such as Abstract, Acknowledgements and Declaration are
generated automatically. Only the matter has to be filled by the candidate.
4. and many other points i'm too lazy to add right now....

6.1 Report Frontpage

Of course the front page has not been designed in LaTeX. The main page takes a bit more
work to do such as converting the VTU logo into latex text pic (that can be embedded into a
page). Also there are a million branches in VTU both in BE and MTECH.... any case .... i'm
working on it ... will put up as soon as possible i hope.
The missing frontpage can be added by creating the same using OpenOffice or MS Word. An
example is shown here (DOC, SXW and ODT). Certificates to be attached before the abstract
are here: DOC, SXW and ODT.
IMPORTANT: The class file is constantly being improved and the latest made available
here. To use a new vtu.cls u just have to overwrite the old one and compile the report
again. That's all. The recompilation will use the new file and new changes will take
effect.
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7. Final Viva
About the FINAL VIVA and DEMO.
1. Looks like it isn't a rule (that i have heard of) regarding the demo during ur Final viva.
This brings us to conclude that ur viva MAY or MAY NOT have a demo with it.
2. Also, ur final demo during the viva is influenced by these factors:
o If ur internal guide has visited ur project working place and checked d demo
already (like they come 2 ITPL and bug u 2 come and pick them up ..... that is
seriously SICK man.).
o If ur college does not have enough facilities - in which case u as a responsible,
obedient, teacher fearing student should bring the necessary tools to the
college during the demo. Like they get the loaded, installed and ready to fire
CPU to d college 4m d house.
o Interest of the internal/external: It so happens that 99.99% of the externals
don't want to see d demo. They are paid for asking questions (and God help
them do that properly for once) and they don't do anything else. The idea of a
demo is usually the internal guide's. If there is a demo (it is a BIG IF), it is
almost definitely b4 the viva and usually b4 he gives u a go ahead on report
writing.

3. Final viva duration usually lasts 30-45 mins. If u stammer during the Q-A session it'll
prolong even more.
4. Every1's belief that the external exists for the sole purpose of making ur viva
miserable is plain wrong. Externals are in most cases good friends of ur internal
guides. If ur interal guide has a good opinion abt ur work ..... u score.
5. Prepare a precise presentation abt ur work. The presentation should NOT be more
than 30 mins. Don't go on for an hour abt everything that ur team did and ur manager
planned and stuff like that. The presentation should be crisp and about ur work in the
past year.
6. Prepare visually appealing presentations (with quality content in them ;)). Use Beamer
package for latex. This most helpful for those who have written their report in latex.
Beamer makes exceedingly beautiful presentations in PDFs and it'll beat everything u
have seen till date. U may use OpenOffice or other presentation making software.
7. One way u can be sure that the examiners are interested in ur work is when query in
between d presentation without waiting for u to finish d presentation. Take special
interest and answer such queries and u'll earn extra points.
8. A Q-A session follows d presentation. Again it is a misconception that they test ur
"C++" (or whichever area ur project is in) knowledge in this Q-A session. They do
that only if u convince the examiners during ur presentation that u r NOT d original
creator of the work.
9. Overall experience on d viva by MOST of my classmates (including me) is that it is a
general, healthy, technical chit-chat about YOUR work with some prof 4m another
college. that's all. Usually they are impressed ... and usually they award enough
marks. U don't have 2 b extra-ordinary in d viva. But u have 2 have GOOD technical
content to talk and original work to show. They come 2 viva to award u some marks ...
not to screw ur life.
Back to Top

8. Other Reading:
1. Advice on report writing..
2. How to write a doctoral thesis.
3. A note on academic integrity.
4. Acceptable and Unacceptable use of non-original material
5. Literature Survey
.

Back to Top

Appendix A. Download Materials.

A.1 Preparation of Report.
Important download materials that appear in the article are listed here:
1. The VTU class file OR VTUHF class file.
2. The VTU report example directory: TGZ and ZIP
3. The final report example using the VTU class file.
4. Internal and External certificate formats in DOC, SXW and ODS formats.
5. Frontpage Example in DOC, SXW and ODT
6. The glossary style files
7. VTU Logo JPEG.

A.2 Installation Files/Links:

1. Ghostview (.ps file viewer) for your OS.
2. LaTeX implementation for windows: Download and Install.

A.3 LaTeX Materials/Tutorials:

1. Lyx Homepage, LyX Download, Lyx Links
2. Kile - KDE Integrated LateX Environment - Homepage., Kile - Download, WineFish
LaTeX editor, vim-latex extension for vim users. Emacs users may be interested in
these: Highlighting latex in emacs, Emacs/LaTeX inline Preview.
3. Not so short intro to LaTeX
4. how to write a thesis in LaTeX.
5. The latex user guide PDF and TEX.
6. Excellent LaTeX references
7. Essential LaTeX
8. Essential LaTeX for Mathematical symbols/equations
9. Cornell's LaTeX Primer.

10. David R Wilkins' LaTeX Primer

11. Has more links and a very good tutor
12. Norm Matloff's LaTeX Tutorial
13. One more good tutorial
14. Tex Tips. Have a look.
15. Ten Reasons Why TeX is Better than Word
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Appendix B. Miscellaneous.
View and sign my guestbook.
NOTE: Latest Version is here. Mirror of this page is available here..

Literature Survey Howto:

Ok .... all this right 4m d top of my head.

Literature Survey (LS) exists to help every1 beleive in ur work. It so happens that the
world we live in is a cruel one. Anything u say or do slightly out of the ordinary is
looked at suspiciously, jeered at or may even cause death.

LS instills a certain unhostile (if there exists such a word) approach to ur work by the
audience. The fact that some other gr8 person has already been working on a similar
problem gives a sense of security to the audience and tend to become more open to
understanding ur work. (NOTE: "Being open to understanding ur work" and
"Understanding ur work" r like "fish" and "bicycle". There is no relation b/w d two.)

LS is a collection of past and current research works limited to a certain

domain/problem in a field. LS is NEVER complete. It cannot be done in 1 day. LS
begins the day u start ur project and ends at some point probably bcz u have 2 stop
researching and start implementing ur project.

For example, Consider a problem "Encryption scheme for mobile commerce". Even
non-IT ppl should get this as the basic principles of a LS are same irrespective of d
domain.
1. The 0th task (d one b4 the first task) is to properly understand what the
words/phrases "Encryption", "Encryption schemes", "mobile", "e-commerce",
"m-commerce" and its derivatives mean. U start up google and type
"encryption" and press enter. Lo and behold ur Literature Survey has begun.

2. Reading definitions and understanding introductions of articles never got

anybody anywhere .... so u dive deeper into the dark trenches of international
research.