On Using LaTeX

To write LaTeX documents, use R Markdown

In many ways, R Markdown is much easier to use than LaTeX directly. Check out the resources on using R Markdown provided by RStudio: http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/. These include a quick tour as well as links to "Markdown Basics", cheat sheets, and information on bibliographies and citations.

Pros:

• code is less distracting
• can still include equations
• can still create a bibliography from a .bib file
• creating a Word document (to send to collaborators!) is easier with R Markdown, especially on Mac

Cons:

• Tables are harder to format, especially if your output is a Word document

Note - you'll still need to download LaTeX first.

Bibliography

Creating a LaTeX bibliography (.bib file) is easy. Under your Google Scholar settings, you can choose to show links to import citations into BibTeX. Then, for a paper that shows up in your Google Scholar search that you would like to include in your bibliography, click the "Import into BibTeX" link and cut and paste the code into your .bib file.

Reference managers also offer a way to create a LaTeX bibliography. For Mendeley, see http://blog.mendeley.com/2011/10/25/howto-use-mendeley-to-create-citations-using-latex-and-bibtex/.

Citation Styles

Check out my notes here on formatting citations and references: https://github.com/ksauby/CitationStyles

Equations

I often use an online website to write my equations: https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

Online LaTeX Editors

These look potentially useful, although I haven't personally used these.

https://www.sharelatex.com/

https://www.overleaf.com/