BeavTeX howto:

BeaVTeX v0.5 is a document class based on the book class. It intends to be 
as close as a drop-in replacement for the book class. Its purpose is to 
facilitate typesetting graduate thesis/dissertation with LaTeX to meet the 
format requirement of the graduate school of OSU. It is based on the 
previous work of John Metta, but unerwent a major overhaul. It is now 
mostly in accordance to the LaTeX2e package and class guideline. It is not 
compatible with older versions of LaTeX.

*** Options

BeaVTeX recognizes these options:

[10pt], [11pt], [12pt]. These options are passed to book class. The 
default is 12pt.

[1.5in], [1.7in]. These two options set the left margin. Default is 1.7 
inches.

[onehalf], [double]. These two options set the line spacing. Default is 
double.

[preprint], [submission]. When [preprint] is set, it is assumed that the 
thesis is printed double-sided (so the binding margin is on the right on 
even pages), opens right (so that every chapter begins on an odd page). 
Date is included in the header, along with the word "Draft". In the 
submission version, it is assumed that the document will be printed 
single-sided (so the binding margin is always on the left, and chapters 
begin on any page). Default is submission.

[seploa]. When [seploa] is set, the appendices do not appear in the main 
table of contents (except for the entry "appendices" itself). Rather, they 
are listed in the list of appendices. You will need to use 
\listofappendices to list them. According to T.G., you need this if you 
have more than five appendices. It is not set by default.

Other options are passed through to the book class.

To supress pretext pages, do this:

\nopretext{}

*** Author's guide:

** Preambles:

* Begin your document with \documentclass[opts]{beavtex}

* Define mandatory fields of the thesis. Mandatory fileds are:

- title      title of the thesis
- author     name of the author
- doctype    either Thesis or Dissertation
- major      formal name in the catalog
- department formal name in the catalog
- advisor    name of the advisor (including middle initial if present)

* Define optional fields. They are empty by default.

- twomajor      if you have a 2nd major
- twodepartment name of the dept of the 2nd major
- coadvisor     advisor of the 2nd major

* Make necesssary changes to some fields with default values:

- depthead     defaults to "Chair"
- depttype     defaults to "Department"
- twodepthead  for the 2nd major
- twodepttype

- submitdate        defaults to today's date
- commencementyear  defaults to current year

* Define the contents for the pretext pages

- abstract
- acknowledgement
- dedication
- preface
- contributors

abstract is manatory and all others are optional. The contents by default 
are enclosed in a flushleft environment. You can change it by redefining 
the environment. The names for them are:

abspageenv, ackpageenv, dedpageenv, prefpageenv, contripageenv

For example, to make the contents of the dedication page centered:

\renewenvironment{dedpageenv}{\begin{center}}{\end{center}}

** Contents:

* Make the pretext pages by:

\maketitle

These will create the pretext pages and listing pages. All the listing 
commands will not produce any page if the listing is empty. So it is 
always safe to put then there even if you don't have corresponding 
listings.

* Begin your main matter by:

\mainmatter

* If you have appendices, begin it by:

\appendix

This will create the appendix page, insert an entry in the TOC and set up 
the macros so that following figures/tables are put in the list of 
appendix figures/tables.


*** An example:

\documentclass[preprint]{beavtex}
... other preambles
\title{Update Programming -- A Safe Approach to Software Maintenance}
\author{Deling Ren}
\degree{Doctor of Philosophy}
\doctype{Dissertation}
\major{Computer Science}
\department{Electric Engineering and Computer Science}
\depttype{School}
\depthead{Director}
\advisor{Martin Erwig}
\submitdate{August 28, 2006}
\commencementyear{2007}

\abstract{This dissertation...}
\acknowledgements{I would like to thank...}
\dedication{To my family.}

\begin{document}

%% Pretexts
\maketitle

%% Main contents
\mainmatter
\raggedbottom

\include{intro}
\include{litreview}
...

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{dr}

%% Appendices
\appendix
\include{app}

\end{document}