Just to add to the comments of the other posters. Just add packages as you need. A thesis preamble is bound to expand fast. Divide it into sections such as General, Typography, Mathematics, Commands etc. As the preamble grows some of these you will pass to a package say moremath.sty
.
Keep the style simple, no fancy fonts. Under typography you can include microtype
and stmarysd
. Under mathematics you have included the basis and I will second Mico's suggestion of mathtools
. Under commands put all your specials. For example under theorems you should include all your formatting decisions as well. As a bonus, here is some styling for theorems.
%% Theorems formatting
\newtheoremstyle{itheorem}{}{}{\itshape}{}{\bfseries}{.}{ }{#1\if!#3!\else\ \fi\thmnote{#3}}
\newtheoremstyle{icorollary}{}{}{}{}{\itshape}{.---}{0pt}{#1}
\newtheoremstyle{numcorollary}{}{}{}{}{\itshape}{.}{ }{#1\if!#3!\else\ \fi\thmnote{#3}}
\newtheoremstyle{idefinition}{}{}{}{}{\bfseries}{.---}{0pt}{}
\newtheoremstyle{ilemma}{}{}{\itshape}{}{\bfseries}{.---}{0pt}{#1\if!#3!\else\ \fi\thmnote{#3}}
\newtheoremstyle{iother}{}{}{\itshape}{}{\bfseries}{.---}{0pt}{\thmnote{#3}}
\theoremstyle{ilemma}
\newtheorem*{lemma}{Lemma}
\theoremstyle{itheorem}
\newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem}
\theoremstyle{iother}
\newtheorem{other}{}
\theoremstyle{icorollary}
\newtheorem{corollary}{Corollary}
\theoremstyle{numcorollary}
\newtheorem{ncorollary}{Corollary}
\theoremstyle{idefinition}
\newtheorem*{definition}{Definition}
\newtheorem*{definitions}{Definitions}
\newtheorem*{defnorder}{Definition of Order}
%% Proof environment
\renewcommand{\proofname}{\upshape\bfseries Proof}

Keep the style simple and clean with minimal bold and don't use the standard LaTeX class.
t1enc
(use\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
instead). And it would be better to use packages like geometry or typearea to setup text area and margins. At least better use\setlength
to set lengths instead of using low level TeX.