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"Your words are expensive." Said to me by my graduate advisor when he said I had not stated something, and I pointed out I had, once, in an earlier section. My

"Your words are expensive." Said to me by my graduate advisor when he said I had not stated something, and I pointed out I had, once, in an earlier section. My writing style, even my academic writing style, is a result of how I was trained as a writer: as a journalist, from spending so much time on my high school newspaper. I have long felt this was an advantage. I was trained as a writer to write straight-forward prose. And I was trained as an editor to eliminate unnecessary words and try to find the simplest way to say something. My advisor was right, of course. Academic writing is not journalistic writing. I still try to keep my prose as simple as possible, but now I will repeat important sentiments throughout the paper. People don't read academic papers the same as news stories; readers expect to be able to read sections in relative isolation. If something is important, repeat it! But repeat it simply.

exo-pla-net 5y ago
You represent a small intersect of people who are both good writers and academics, so your advice is rare and valuable to people seeking to follow in your footsteps. Any other tips or strange adaptations you've had to make, in order to make good writing work in academia?
- scott_s 5y ago
  I don't think of it as making good writing work in academia. Good writing is an advantage in academia. Reviewers are more likely to accept your paper, and readers are more likely to read more.
  - exo-pla-net 5y ago
    I understand your distinction. Nevertheless, you've brought up two habits that a traditionally good writer might erroneously bring with them when writing an academic paper. Namely, their reluctance to repeat themselves and their inclination to build up to a big reveal. Have you had to make any other modifications? Do you have any other tips for a starting academic with a passion for writing?
    - scott_s 5y ago
      I'm not sure if it's a habit from a "good" writer, but most new academic writers are reluctant to make themselves the subject of sentences. This leads to passive voice and awkward sentences. Who ran the experiments? We ran the experiments. The experiments were not run. Who proved the theorem? We proved the theorem. We present. We conclude. Our analysis. It not only leads to better, simpler sentences, it's more accurate. We, as human beings who exist in this world, did these things. Also, and this is more of a pet-peeve and may only be a practice from my particular community, but references are not nouns. "Betty White [6] already proved a version of this result" is good. "[6] already proved a version of this result" drives me batty.
      - exo-pla-net 5y ago
        Much appreciated. Passing this on to my SO who is finishing up her postdoc and who is eager for academic writing guidance.
iamcreasy 5y ago
Just to make sure I got it - you advisor is asking you to repeat important stuff in different section even it feels redundant?
- scott_s 5y ago
  Not exactly. My advisor, an experienced researcher who already knew what I was writing about, missed an important thing that I said. That meant I failed to communicate something to a very sympathetic reader. That's a big miss. From that, I learned that if something is important, find multiple ways to say it in multiple places. I only really know academic computer science papers, and even then, papers that tend to have a systems component. Your most important claims, conclusions and results should be stated in your abstract and introduction. Some things are fundamental enough to repeat in your design/analysis and results, and some others will only end up in one of those sections. Don't use the same literal sentence, over-and-over, but reinforce important sentiments. If restating something all over your paper doesn't feel right, then it may not be as important as you think it is. Academic papers are not novels, and they certainly are not mysteries. Don't hold out on a reveal until the end: say the most important stuff upfront. People often will not read your paper end-to-end, and usually only some of the sections. It's not possible to make your sections truly self-contained, but it's worth repeating fundamental things. If your experimental results are confirming your theoretical analysis, restate that theoretical result in your experimental results as context. If your experimental results demonstrate that a particular design decision you made in your system truly does provide better performance, restate that design decision.
  - iamcreasy 5y ago
    Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. Do you have any paper that demonstrates this approach?
    - scott_s 5y ago
      This is the approach I take when I write, so this is how I try to write. I hope it is reflected in my first-author papers. Three papers from the past several years: https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/middleware2016_loadbalancing.pdf https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/middleware2016_loadbalancing..., https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/pldi2017_lf_elastic_scheduling.pdf https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/pldi2017_lf_elastic_scheduli..., https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.00064.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.00064.pdf.
psychomugs 5y ago
As a student of a former journalist and journalist myself (mainly photojournalism for the independent student paper, but I wrote for the high school paper), I don't agree with the sentiment that they are dissimilar, specifically because of their mutual emphasis on clarity and efficiency. Can the reader still understand the contribution from the abstract or first sentence of every paragraph? What if they just skimmed over the figures and captions? Does the title reflect the content of the work? I have this same attitude as a photojournalist: could a reader understand the event if they were to look at an uncaptioned image?

exo-pla-net 5y ago

You represent a small intersect of people who are both good writers and academics, so your advice is rare and valuable to people seeking to follow in your footsteps. Any other tips or strange adaptations you've had to make, in order to make good writing work in academia?

scott_s 5y ago
I don't think of it as making good writing work in academia. Good writing is an advantage in academia. Reviewers are more likely to accept your paper, and readers are more likely to read more.
- exo-pla-net 5y ago
  I understand your distinction. Nevertheless, you've brought up two habits that a traditionally good writer might erroneously bring with them when writing an academic paper. Namely, their reluctance to repeat themselves and their inclination to build up to a big reveal. Have you had to make any other modifications? Do you have any other tips for a starting academic with a passion for writing?
  - scott_s 5y ago
    I'm not sure if it's a habit from a "good" writer, but most new academic writers are reluctant to make themselves the subject of sentences. This leads to passive voice and awkward sentences. Who ran the experiments? We ran the experiments. The experiments were not run. Who proved the theorem? We proved the theorem. We present. We conclude. Our analysis. It not only leads to better, simpler sentences, it's more accurate. We, as human beings who exist in this world, did these things. Also, and this is more of a pet-peeve and may only be a practice from my particular community, but references are not nouns. "Betty White [6] already proved a version of this result" is good. "[6] already proved a version of this result" drives me batty.
    - exo-pla-net 5y ago
      Much appreciated. Passing this on to my SO who is finishing up her postdoc and who is eager for academic writing guidance.

iamcreasy 5y ago

Just to make sure I got it - you advisor is asking you to repeat important stuff in different section even it feels redundant?

scott_s 5y ago
Not exactly. My advisor, an experienced researcher who already knew what I was writing about, missed an important thing that I said. That meant I failed to communicate something to a very sympathetic reader. That's a big miss. From that, I learned that if something is important, find multiple ways to say it in multiple places. I only really know academic computer science papers, and even then, papers that tend to have a systems component. Your most important claims, conclusions and results should be stated in your abstract and introduction. Some things are fundamental enough to repeat in your design/analysis and results, and some others will only end up in one of those sections. Don't use the same literal sentence, over-and-over, but reinforce important sentiments. If restating something all over your paper doesn't feel right, then it may not be as important as you think it is. Academic papers are not novels, and they certainly are not mysteries. Don't hold out on a reveal until the end: say the most important stuff upfront. People often will not read your paper end-to-end, and usually only some of the sections. It's not possible to make your sections truly self-contained, but it's worth repeating fundamental things. If your experimental results are confirming your theoretical analysis, restate that theoretical result in your experimental results as context. If your experimental results demonstrate that a particular design decision you made in your system truly does provide better performance, restate that design decision.
- iamcreasy 5y ago
  Interesting. Thanks for the explanation. Do you have any paper that demonstrates this approach?
  - scott_s 5y ago
    This is the approach I take when I write, so this is how I try to write. I hope it is reflected in my first-author papers. Three papers from the past several years: https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/middleware2016_loadbalancing.pdf https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/middleware2016_loadbalancing..., https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/pldi2017_lf_elastic_scheduling.pdf https://www.scott-a-s.com/files/pldi2017_lf_elastic_scheduli..., https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.00064.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.00064.pdf.

psychomugs 5y ago

As a student of a former journalist and journalist myself (mainly photojournalism for the independent student paper, but I wrote for the high school paper), I don't agree with the sentiment that they are dissimilar, specifically because of their mutual emphasis on clarity and efficiency. Can the reader still understand the contribution from the abstract or first sentence of every paragraph? What if they just skimmed over the figures and captions? Does the title reflect the content of the work? I have this same attitude as a photojournalist: could a reader understand the event if they were to look at an uncaptioned image?