My Notes
Since I have a bit of time before I have to leave for college (Riju’s already left), I went and polished my Abstract Algebra notes from this year.
You can find the PDF link to my notes here, and if you want the source code, you can find that here.
These notes weren’t made live in class so there was less stress on me creating these notes quickly. I do think I’ll have some classes to try in-person LaTeX notes in the future though.
The LaTeX Journey
I should say that these thoughts are from the perspective of someone who just finished high school, so my introduction to LaTeX wasn’t having to write a paper or anything.
I started learning LaTeX through Evan Chen’s source code, which he leaves on his website. There are a lot of good templates there to see how he structures his .tex files. Also his LaTeX FAQ is quite useful (although a lot of the setup isn’t necessary because in modern code editors, a lot of the compile process is handled already).
I had two main reasons at the time for writing LaTeX: for my math notes, and for writing proofs for a local math competition. The latter definitely motivated me the most to learn LaTeX, because it meant that the PDFs I made had an audience.
As much as die-hard TeX users complain about it, I started using Overleaf, which is alright for creating .tex files. If you are just taking notes, or writing something that isn’t going out to hundreds of people, I think Overleaf has enough to work as a LaTeX compiler. My course notes were mainly written in Overleaf.
After that though, I did want to switch to something that could compile locally. As I was using Atom at the time (R.I.P.), I got a configuration working pretty quickly. Good things don’t last forever though, so I had to make the switch to VSCode. The TeX tools in VSCode are extremely comprehensive, and seemed like a lot more than I needed, but they did get what I needed done relatively quickly. It is good that all you need is one package to get everything you need done.
The Future
As a whole, I would definitely recommend learning to write in LaTeX, since it is, in my opinion, the most efficient way to convey mathematics online, and to other people, other than handwriting of course. There are lots of online forums like Art of Problem Solving and Codeforces where learning to write in LaTeX is essential for writing any kind of solution, and I think that alone should be reason to learn to write basic mathematical expressions in it.
I also can’t avoid the fact that LaTeX is just so pretty to write in. The aesthetics definitely won me over, especially looking at the types of notes others could make online, and being able to see my own writing become a stylized pdf with little theorem boxes :3.
However, I know LaTeX has it limits, especially with diagrams. Now, to be fair, if I wanted to still write TeX files and create diagrams I could:
- Start learning different ways to efficiently insert hand-drawings or create diagrams to put into my pdfs, or
- Just have the TeX file for more organized and equation heavy math where I need to make sure that everything is in its right place, and a handwritten notebook for freeform thought, such as brainstorming a solution.
I’ve seen a lot of arguments for both sides of this online, but I think that they all agreed that at least some form of handwritten notes is good to have. I agree with that. Sometimes spending too much time writing notes in a LaTeX doc demotivated me to just let the idea flow in my brain. It was harder to write in a disorganized way. Now, there aren’t a lot of reasons to want to be less organized, but sometimes a proof that I was writing would’ve worked easier as a quick sketch and a few arrows and words describing how the figure proves the point. While there are technically options for that, LaTeX emphasizes rigor through all the structure that it has.
I did get the sense that having skills in LaTeX was not directly growing my mathematical skill, and I agree with that, but it was a lot of fun to learn and create using LaTeX this year. Modifying and improving my LaTeX setup made me feel better about what I knew, and all that really matters with notes though is writing something that makes you (and perhaps others) want to read it again and study it, and I think LaTeX notes did a pretty good job of that!
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