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Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

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Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#51

Post by nkrisc »

kylecazar wrote: post #2

"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

Reminds of this quote attributed to Dieter Rams:

> A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing to take away.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#53

Post by karmakurtisaani »

jeremyscanvic wrote: post #38
parpfish wrote: post #36

one thing i've noticed about scientific writing: 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…

I keep hearing this exact same idea and it puzzles me a great deal. Is it a computer science thing? I'm doing a PhD in signal processing / engineering and people seem to care a lot about giving simple and clear explanations so I don't really relate!

I think there was a study at some point which showed that the worse the university, the more jargon the researchers use in their papers.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#54

Post by suuuuuuuu »

gmueckl wrote: post #34
buildmonkey wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Footnotes make scientific work more accessible and enrich the conversation. In Laurie Garrett’s “The Coming Plague”, the footnotes alone are worth the price. Even in monographs, when reviewing literature in an area where I’m not a specialist, I find footnotes valuable.

Footnotes effectively have no place in CS, engineering or natural sciences. Other disciplines treat footnotes very differently, I think.

This is certainly too strongly worded to be correct. I use footnotes quite a bit in my papers (physics) as a strategy to handle the "two audiences" problem - that many or most readers just skim for main ideas, but some (and those whom I might argue are more important) try to follow the details closely. I presently use footnotes for the latter audience for certain supplementary details or technical qualifications that would break the reading flow or add unnecessary length for the former.

I do appreciate the arguments that footnotes can be distracting, or that one doesn't know whether to skip them, but at present I see them as the best option for keeping the main body streamlined/as short as possible without sacrificing points that I'd like to make that wouldn't make for or fit into an appendix.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#56

Post by greenie_beans »

mariusor wrote: post #37
greenie_beans wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the former from the later my writing advice: never use the former and the latter

Does it make me sound pretentious? That's fine, we're debating literary styles after all. :D

no, it's just a stylistic pet peeve of mine. lacks specificity and always makes me have to think about which is the latter and which is the former, no matter how many times i look it up. scrambles my brain.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#58

Post by tuatoru »

kylecazar wrote: post #2

"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

I routinely reduce my Readmes by 30% or more in the third draft.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#59

Post by abdullahkhalids »

suuuuuuuu wrote: post #49
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #35

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,…

I think it's just wrong. Related, linked recently here: https://dwest.web.illinois.edu/grammar.html The authors are biologists, so I suspect they're not particularly versed in mathematical writing (and that McCarthy was not likely providing them much advice on it).

The link is a pretty great. A bit long though. Not sure if I can get my charges to read it all and apply it to their writing.

Re: Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]

#60

Post by ixnew »

boricj wrote: post #41
haxiomic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on getting that far! There's a story there – how did you get into writing this paper? What is it about?

Well, that's a long story. I'll try and keep it short. So I've worked in my spare time for the past three years on an extremely esoteric and mind-bending reverse engineering technique I call delinking [1] and my tool for it [2] developed a small user-base. At some point I saw in a Discord server a call for papers for the SURE workshop, shitposted that it'd be funny to fry academic brains for a change, then got baited…

Care to post the paper here? Would like to read it.
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