[Tex/LaTex] How to eliminate extra vertical space between the title and the first section heading

amsartsectioningspacing

When I use the amsart class with a lot of in-text figures, I find that the section headings do not stand out quite as much as I would like. Thus, I have taken to adding the following to my preamble, which adds a extra vertical space before each section heading:

\let \oldsection \section
\renewcommand{\section}{\vspace{8pt plus 3pt}\oldsection}

This works well for me, except when I have a section heading right after the document title; in this case, I find would prefer that no extra space be added.

How can I eliminate this extra space "automatically"–i.e., without explicitly adjusting spacing in the body of the document?

Examples:

Here are three examples side-by-side:
enter image description here

You may want to zoom in.

The example on the left is the result of the code below:

\documentclass{amsart}

\let \oldsection \section
\renewcommand{\section}{\vspace{8pt plus 3pt}\oldsection}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\title{Random title}
\author{Fred P.~Author}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{The first section}
\lipsum[2]
\section{The next section}
\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

enter image description here
Notice the extra space after "Fred P. Author" compared to the result I would like (the image on the right, in the side-by-side picture):

\documentclass{amsart}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\title{Random title}
\author{Fred P.~Author}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{The first section}
\lipsum[2]
\vspace{8pt plus 3pt}
\section{The next section}
\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

enter image description here

Finally, the image in the middle was given simply to illustrate that the titlesec package does not seem to solve the problem–at least, not in any naively obvious way. The code I used for it was the following (which I do not claim is exactly equivalent, but which still demonstrates the same extra space after the document title/author):

\documentclass{amsart}

\usepackage{titlesec}
\titleformat{\section}[hang]
  {\scshape\filcenter}
  {\thesection.}
  {1ex}
  {}
\titlespacing{\section}
  {0pt}{18pt}{6pt}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\title{Random title}
\author{Fred P.~Author}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{The first section}
\lipsum[2]
\section{The next section}
\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

Best Answer

I wouldn't redefine \section like that, but use the standard method. If you're sure that your document starts with a section title, use

\documentclass{amsart}

\makeatletter
\def\amsartsection{\@startsection{section}{1}%
  \z@{2.5\linespacing\@plus\linespacing}{.5\linespacing}%
  {\normalfont\scshape\centering}}
\def\section{\vspace*{-34pt}\vspace{\baselineskip}\let\section\amsartsection\section}
\makeatother

\usepackage{lipsum}

\title{Random title}
\author{Fred P.~Author}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{The first section}
\lipsum[2]
\section{The next section}
\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

The \maketitle command adds 34pt space minus the value of \baselineskip. Adjust the multiples of \linespacing used in the definition of \amsartsection (which is the definition of \section that will be actually used in the document).

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