On Writing Well

Writing is nature’s way of letting you know
how sloppy your thinking is.
-- Guindon

I struggle with writing and lack in explaining my work to the general computer science audience. Not so long ago, I considered good writing (or good communication for that matter) a frivolous part of academia. But having a paper rejected 5 times, changed my view on this.
This was not because reviewers were lazy, but to the contrary, some reviewers laboured through the prolonged arguments and cumbersome notation and found the gaping errors. These errors missed my attention, as my writing was far from clear.

[8th February 2023] Six months later, things have improved, concentrated efforts do pay off. But I am far from being good at writing. It is time to take things to the next level. A good addition to my arsenal has been Leslie Lamport. Specially, in his lecture on writing, the revisit to the statement-reason proof structure is quite valuable for writing first drafts of the proofs.
The general feeling this time around is that I need to re-read what I already read, i.e. Igor Pak's small tutorial and William Zinsser's book. And then some more, i.e. Leslie's work and T.S. Eliot.

Hence, I am working to improve my writing skills. Not just to better communicate my work, but rather to better understand it.

Recommended:
• How to write a clear paper by Igor Pak. A nice and brief introduction to some guiding principles for writing well. It is short, does not overwhelm you and yet provides non-trivial actionable ideas.
• On writing well:The Classic Guide To Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser. It is recommended in the article above by Igor Pak. This book is just a marvel of writing, I would read it even if I did not have to improve my writing. Zinsser's command on taking simple english and making it clear and yet poetic cannot be overstated.
  

To Read:
• Mathematical Writing by Donald E. Knuth, Tracy Larrabee, and Paul M. Roberts. This is probably the most popular writing guide in computer science. If you are already quite a good writer and your only struggle is mathematical presentation, then go for it. But I don't see it as a first read for a fresh (or even slightly experienced) graduate student with minimal experience in formal academic writing.