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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]

#61

Post by ghaff »

cubefox wrote: post #21

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 think it depends on what the situation and format is. When I was writing research notes and a few books, I found bottom of the page footnotes really useful as, not only references, but also as parentheticals and other purposes that some readers might find useful or interesting but didn’t really justify breaking the flow of the text.

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

#62

Post by haxiomic »

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…

That’s wonderful :) it sounds like you have an adventure ahead of you! Thank you for the story

You sound like exactly the sort of wizard they want to see!

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

#63

Post by boricj »

ixnew wrote: post #60
boricj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's too weak as a paper for me to put out there. I also haven't even applied the minor corrections from the reviews.

If you want to take a peek at the case studies, I've blogged about my butchering of aln across C standard libraries and operating systems [1]; there is also widberg's outstanding write-up of their FUEL decompilation project [2], which uses ghidra-delinker-extension as part of the magic.

If you want to read a paper on the technique, there is the one for Ramblr [3] which I became aware of after the reviews came back.

[1] https://boricj.net/atari-jaguar-sdk/2023/11/27/introduction....

[2] https://github.com/widberg/fmtk/wiki/Decompilation

[3] https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nd...

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

#65

Post by tehnub »

wintercarver wrote: post #3

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.

Here’s an economics article at least: https://hbr.org/1996/07/increasing-returns-and-the-new-world...

And here’s a short article about his contribution to that article: https://andrewbatson.com/2016/12/13/cormac-mccarthys-contrib...

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

#66

Post by bo1024 »

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,…

Yes, this is just bad advice if your audience is fluent in mathematical notation.

There's another piece of advice that is bad for formal mathematical writing:

> And don’t use the same word repeatedly — it’s boring.

If the word has a formal definition, this is bad advice. For example, in a game theory setting, we might say there are n agents. If we start calling the agents players, people, etc., it can get confusing, especially if there are other entities involved besides the agents (such as a mechanism designer or so on).

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

#67

Post by dhfbshfbu4u3 »

golem14 wrote: post #52
dhfbshfbu4u3 wrote: post #43

[flagged]

Why don't you say clearly what you are seeming to imply? I read the article you quoted, and I'm not sure.

Sure. Cormac groomed a vulnerable 16 year-old girl in a motel when he was 42. He used her and her life countless times in his work. He never gave her credit. Possibly never paid her for the contribution (not that this makes it any better). Seeing his tips at the top of HackerNews is sickening.

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

#68

Post by dhfbshfbu4u3 »

kylemaxwell wrote: post #55
dhfbshfbu4u3 wrote: post #43

[flagged]

He was not a good person. He was one of the great writers of this age. Two things can both be true.

Sure but do we need idolize a pedophile in the pages of Nature? I think not.

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

#69

Post by Eugeleo »

bbminner wrote: post #23
amelius wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read papers I often think: if only the author had the space here to write two sentences instead of one, then perhaps I would immediately understand what they are trying to say.

Oh, that's the only way to write a good paper - first you write 1.5x pages to figure out what you want to say, and then, with this knowledge, you replace entite confusing paragraphs with short sentences focused on exactly that. When i don't know how to express an idea, i ask myself "-so what idea are you trying to communicate? -well, that XYZ holds -if so, just go ahead write literally that!"

FWIW I think this is exactly the opposite of what the OP was trying to say. I think the OP meant that they often wish authors had used more space to explain their ideas, because that would immediately make them more accessible.

And I must agree. I often feel papers are written with an extra 20% over the page budget, then condensed in the last minute to fit the constraints, which hurts the exposition.

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

#70

Post by shakow »

nkrisc wrote: post #51
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.

That's from Saint-Exupéry.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38837/where-does...

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