title: Why do LaTeX documents have a whacking great big space at the top?
body: <p>I am extremely new to LaTeX but have noticed that in the examples I have seen of LaTeX documents that there is always a massive number of empty lines at the top of the compiled pdf file. Nobody seems to say a word about this! Is this some kind of academic convention?</p>
  <p>Here is an example:</p>
  <pre><code>\documentclass[]{article}
  \usepackage{graphicx}
  
  
  \title{Here is my title}
  \author{Kevin Wright}
  
  \begin{document}
  
  \maketitle
  
  \begin{abstract}
      This is my abstract stuff
  \end{abstract}
  hello $\sqrt{x+y-10}$
  
  
  
  \end{document}
  </code></pre>