Writing

Resources

• How to Write Papers so People Can Read Them
• Teach Technical Writing in Two Hours per Week
• How to Write a Great Research Paper (talk)
• Pet peeves
• Style: Towards Clarity and Grace (book)

Tips

• Always define terms before you use them
• Never use symbols or code as nouns in themselves: “function foo” instead of foo
• Finding a venue:
  • It can be nice to find smaller communities
  • Who will the work resonate with? Which reviewers will care?
• Citations are parenthetical, not subjects or direct objects

Notes on How to Write Papers so People Can Read Them

• Flow:
  • Every sentence is linked to the previous one
  • Start with the connection to the old, end with the new idea
• Coherence:
  • Every sentence and paragraph relates clearly to the big picture
  • One point per paragraph, near the beginning
• Name your baby: give things unique names, use them consistently
• Just in time: give information when needed, not before
• Short subjects: the subject of a sentence should be at most 8 words long
• Organization:
  • Top-down: Start at a high level and get more detailed
  • What they want to know
    • How is it important?
    • Novel?
    • Interesting?
    • NOT how it was challenging!
• A structure that works
  • Abstract (1-2 paragraphs, 1000 readers)
  • Intro (2-4 pages, 100 readers)
  • Key ideas (4-6 pages, 50 readers)
  • Technical meat (8-12 pages, 5 readers)
  • Related work (1-3 pages, 100 readers)
• Abstract: CGI
  • Context: Set the stage, motivate the general topic
  • Gap: Explain your specific problem and why existing work doesn’t solve it
  • Innovation: State what you’ve done that is new, relate to gap

Notes on Teach Technical Writing in Two Hours per Week

Principles:

[…]

1. Consistent names. Refer to each significant character (algorithm, concept, language) using the same word everywhere. Give a significant new character a proper name.
2. Singular. To distinguish one-to-one relationships from n-to-m relationships, refer to each item in the singular, not the plural.
3. Subjects and verbs. Put your important characters in subjects, and join each subject to a verb that expresses a significant action.
4. Information flow. In each sentence, move your reader from familiar information to new informa- tion.
5. Emphasis. For material you want to carry weight or be remembered, use the end of a sentence.
6. Coherence. In a coherent passage, choose subjects that refer to a consistent set of related concepts.
7. Parallel structure. Order your text so your reader can easily see how related concepts are different and how they are similar.
8. Abstract. In an abstract, don’t enumerate a list of topics covered; instead, convey the essential information found in your paper