"Use minimalism to achieve clarity. While you are writing, ask yourself: is it possible to preserve my original message without that punctuation mark, that word, that sentence, that paragraph or that section?"
This echoes advice I first read in Strunk & White. It remains the most actionable tip for better writing I'm aware of, technical or otherwise.
Aside: I consider McCarthy's residency at SFI an ideal job
Would love to read any of the scientific papers that McCarthy supposedly edited diligently, should anyone happen to know of some. Very curious to see what they read like.
I like the advice about avoiding footnotes. Citing sources is fine. Almost all other footnotes and information from links should either be omitted or incorporated into the main text. They are too disruptive to the flow of reading.
> Find a good editor you can trust and who will spend real time and thought on your work.
Haha, sure, I will send it to my LLM -- ... I mean "editor." :)
I recently wrote a paper for a conference that ended up being rejected, with a split review (2 for, 1 against).
As a non-academic that wrote a paper for the first time, I'll say that writing a good science paper takes an absurd amount of time, even on a topic you are very well versed in. It is also way different than other forms of writing, like blogs or technical documentation.
Frankly, I'm astounded I've even managed to get that result, working on it just one month from the submission deadline (a ridiculously massive time crunch) and only in my spare time, not having touched LaTeX in almost a decade. But if a proper heretic like me managed to get that far on their first try, then everyone who's considering writing a paper for the first time ought to have hope.
I might've somehow got an invitation to present a poster out of this, but that's a story for another day (still wrestling with Inkscape on that one).
> Keep sentences short, simply constructed and direct. Concise, clear sentences work well for scientific explanations. Minimize clauses, compound sentences and transition words — such as ‘however’ or ‘thus’ — so that the reader can focus on the main message.
Repetitive sentence structure is not engaging and lulls a reader to sleep, no matter the context. Clauses and transition words and nontrivial sentence structure allow for qualification and clarification, juxtaposition and contrast, and emphasis, often with many fewer words than if written as a series of single independent clauses. A short sentence following longer ones punctuates its point and can effectively lead into subsequent sentences that express more complex ideas/explanations.
In my own scientific writing I also frequently use compound sentences to indicate that the ideas are related (causally or otherwise). It's also unclear to me how one could more efficiently communicate logical or causal flow between ideas than with transition words like "thus" or "therefore."
Cormac McCarthy was an amazing writer. For anyone with a strong stomach I would recommend "Blood Meridian". It's one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. At times achingly beautiful, at times utterly horrifying. It's a really remarkable journey and the memory of it still troubles me.
David Foster Wallace wrote a memorable review of it once in a piece for Salon, which read (in its entirety)
Most of the advice is good, though not particularly different from an advice you would give about writing any essays. This one though:
> Avoid placing equations in the middle of sentences. Mathematics is not the same as English, and we shouldn’t pretend it is.
I don't know what to make of it. Equations are supposed to be part of sentences, and mathematical equations are compact expressions of relations. For example, the sentence,
Newton taught us that force is equal to mass times acceleration, where both mass and accelerations are inertial quantities.
can be compacted as
Newton taught us that $F=ma$, where both the mass $m$ and acceleration $a$ are inertial quantities.
This becomes more useful with more complex relations. Generally, hanging mathematical expressions (those independent of sentences) should be avoided to the utmost in any technical report.
many early-career folks are afraid to make things too simple and easy to understand because they (subconsciously?) fear that it makes their work seem simplistic or trivial.
when you're an academic that has built a great deal of your self identity around being perceived as 'the smart one', it takes a fair amount self-confidence to start presenting yourself in a way that is easy to understand
Cormac McCarthy had a level of emotional competence that is somewhat transferable from his works. This list of tips becomes easier to follow as emotional insecurities and desperation are better managed.
I agree with most of the advice given here; but the footnotes thing, I feel like there are many authors (Freud and Kant come to mind immediately) where losing the footnotes would take away from the content. There is definitely some value in having non-linear writing, even for work that isn't creative.
18 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 44.4 ms ] threadThis echoes advice I first read in Strunk & White. It remains the most actionable tip for better writing I'm aware of, technical or otherwise.
Aside: I consider McCarthy's residency at SFI an ideal job
> Find a good editor you can trust and who will spend real time and thought on your work.
Haha, sure, I will send it to my LLM -- ... I mean "editor." :)
As a non-academic that wrote a paper for the first time, I'll say that writing a good science paper takes an absurd amount of time, even on a topic you are very well versed in. It is also way different than other forms of writing, like blogs or technical documentation.
Frankly, I'm astounded I've even managed to get that result, working on it just one month from the submission deadline (a ridiculously massive time crunch) and only in my spare time, not having touched LaTeX in almost a decade. But if a proper heretic like me managed to get that far on their first try, then everyone who's considering writing a paper for the first time ought to have hope.
I might've somehow got an invitation to present a poster out of this, but that's a story for another day (still wrestling with Inkscape on that one).
> Keep sentences short, simply constructed and direct. Concise, clear sentences work well for scientific explanations. Minimize clauses, compound sentences and transition words — such as ‘however’ or ‘thus’ — so that the reader can focus on the main message.
Repetitive sentence structure is not engaging and lulls a reader to sleep, no matter the context. Clauses and transition words and nontrivial sentence structure allow for qualification and clarification, juxtaposition and contrast, and emphasis, often with many fewer words than if written as a series of single independent clauses. A short sentence following longer ones punctuates its point and can effectively lead into subsequent sentences that express more complex ideas/explanations.
In my own scientific writing I also frequently use compound sentences to indicate that the ideas are related (causally or otherwise). It's also unclear to me how one could more efficiently communicate logical or causal flow between ideas than with transition words like "thus" or "therefore."
David Foster Wallace wrote a memorable review of it once in a piece for Salon, which read (in its entirety)
"Don't even ask."[1]
If you've read the book, you know.
[1] The article is "Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels > 1960." https://www.salon.com/1999/04/12/wallace/
> Avoid placing equations in the middle of sentences. Mathematics is not the same as English, and we shouldn’t pretend it is.
I don't know what to make of it. Equations are supposed to be part of sentences, and mathematical equations are compact expressions of relations. For example, the sentence,
can be compacted as This becomes more useful with more complex relations. Generally, hanging mathematical expressions (those independent of sentences) should be avoided to the utmost in any technical report.many early-career folks are afraid to make things too simple and easy to understand because they (subconsciously?) fear that it makes their work seem simplistic or trivial.
when you're an academic that has built a great deal of your self identity around being perceived as 'the smart one', it takes a fair amount self-confidence to start presenting yourself in a way that is easy to understand
[1] https://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/post/11950502897/taco-b...
So this is why the LLMs do it