Research Journal

This is a LaTeX template for a research project journal. I designed it for my PhD thesis, but it could probably be used for more general project management. It is intended as a place for recording daily work, tracking progress, outstanding tasks, lingering questions, answers to those questions, and so on.

Compiled output & screenshots

The compiled template is available alongside as a GitHub release. Here are some screenshots showing off the basic layout and some key features:

Requirements

I designed the journal to fulfil the following minimal desiderata, ranked by importance:

1. Low activation energy: It should require almost no effort to add entries.
2. Cross-referencing: Wherever they make sense, hyperlinks should be inserted (preferably automatically, given #1): questions should link their corresponding answers & vice-versa, there should be hyperlinked PDF bookmarks, table-of-contents, reference lists, etc.
3. Issue tracking: Unresolved issues (questions & TODOs) should be collected into a single (hyperlinked) list, and automatically removed upon being resolved.
4. Progress tracking: There should be high-level progress indicators & goal trackers (eg. calendar & Gantt chart), as well as records of completed low-level tasks (eg. reading & exercises).
5. Readability: Layout should be compact, color-coded, & readable.

Feature list

Here is a selection of the core functionality, designed to meet the requirements detailed above:

• Simple syntax for new entries with automatic date headings
• Compact hyperlinked table of contents & automatic PDF bookmarks
• Project calendar that automatically links to entries & highlights current day
• Automatically-updating Gantt charts for high-level timeline
• Global list of unresolved issues, separated by high- & low priority, & sorted by date
• Automatic hyperlinks between questions & their answers
• Easy checklists

Getting started

Dependencies

• pdflatex
• latexmk
• GNU Make

Overview of setup

1. Fork & clone the repo.
2. Install the dependencies listed above.
3. Test compilation by running make in the repo root directory. Sometimes it needs to be run twice for the initial compilation; subsequent compilations are faster.
4. Customize the metadata & entries on the lines indicated by comments in journal.tex.
5. Customize the references in references.bib.
6. Optionally create Gantt charts for your project progress in figures/gantt.tex.

Compilation

The build process is orchestrated by GNU Make and latexmk. The following Make targets are implemented:

• all: default target; build journal
• bg: background compilation; watch files & recompile on changes
• clean: delete compilation artifacts

Usage guide

For the most part, the file journal.tex documents the package via comments. If you need to change things in the class definition file, journal.cls, you will find this file equally well-documented by comments.

We give an overview of the usage below, though it should be considered less comprehensive than the documentation in the comments.

Initial configuration

To use the class, save it in the same directory as your .tex file, then set \documentclass to "journal" at the start of your preamble. There are a couple of class options you can pass to toggle some functionality:

\documentclass[
	raggedright, % ragged-right alignment (instead of justified)
	%widetoc, % wide table-of-contents (instead of 2-column)
]{journal}

Then, still in the preamble, set up the journal metadata as such:

\name{Research Journal}
\project{PhD Journalism}
\subject{The use of LaTeX typesetting for journalism} % only in PDF file metadata
\author{Alice Atwood \and Bob Benston}

Gantt chart(s)

The last thing to customize is the file defining the Gantt charts. By default, this is at the path /figures/gantt.tex.

Here's the example Gantt chart definition from the template:

\begin{gantt}[Overview]{2022-11}{2025-12} % optional argument creates subsection heading
	% defining chart rows
	\phase{lit review}{2022-12}{2023-12}\\ % \\ moves to the next row in the chart
	\task{topic 1}{2022-12}{2023-03}
	\phase{research}{2024-01}{2025-01}\\
	\task[topic2]{topic 2}{2023-02}{2023-04}
	\task[research1]{research goal 1}{2024-01}{2024-07}\\
	\task*[research2]{research goal 2}{2024-07}{2025-01}
	\task[topic3]{topic 3}{2023-03}{2023-07}\\
	\task*{topic 4}{2023-06}{2023-09}\\
	\task*[topic4]{topic 4}{2023-08}{2023-12}
	\phase{writing}{2024-09}{2025-10}\\
	\milestone{reading}{2023-12}
	\task[paper1]{paper 1}{2024-09}{2024-12}\\
	\task*[paper2]{paper 2}{2025-02}{2025-04}\\
	\task*[thesis]{thesis}{2025-04}{2025-10}
	\milestone{1st paper}{2024-12}\\
	\milestone{2nd paper}{2025-04}
	\milestone{PhD}{2025-10}

	% additional links
	\link{topic2}{topic3}
	\link[link type=f-s]{topic4}{research1}
	\link[link type=rdldr*, link bulge 2=2.5, link mid=1/8]{research1}{paper1}
	\link[link type=rdldr*, link bulge 2=5.5, link mid=1/8]{research2}{paper2}
\end{gantt}

This is a little chunky, but you only need to design such a chart once or twice for your entire project. Moreover, we are using a bunch of shortened commands (\phase, \task, etc) defined by the class to simplify the syntax here. Otherwise, this syntax is thoroughly documented in pgfgantt documentation.

See the second screenshot in the section above for the output of this definition.

Front-matter

With the configuration done, generate the front-matter with:

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\tableofcontents % optional table of contents
\calendar[11-01]{2022}{2025} % optional calendar
\timelines % optional Gantt charts
\listofissues % optional list of unresolved questions & TODOs

Journal entries

To add a new journal entry:

\logday % \logday[skip] to skip days
Your entry here.

We implement custom environments like checklists and task lists. The latter records todos, questions & answers, plus completed reading & exercises. The "Open Issues" lists are automatically kept up-to-date and hyperlinked accordingly.

Here is a demo of the syntax for this functionality:

\logday
Here is a checklist:
\begin{checklist}
	\item* Checked item
	\item! Crossed item
	\item Unchecked item
\end{checklist}
and here is a tasklist:
\begin{tasklist}
	\todo* "Learn how to use tasklists."
	\todo? "Tick this item off."
	\read*[baez1994gauge][pp.~10--26] "You can refer to citations."
	\ex[baez1994gauge][\#~1--3] "Exercises work just like reading tasks."
	\qstn[baez1994gauge] "Why did I use this book as an example?" \label{qstn:why}
		It just makes no sense.
	\ans[qstn:why] I probably just copied a piece of my actual reference list.
\end{tasklist}

More details about the command flags are in journal.tex and/or journal.cls.

Contributing

Please feel free to give me feedback! I encourage comments, issues, and/or pull requests!