[PRL] Wadler's Blog: Three ways to improve your writing

[Matthias Felleisen]

1. I used to distribut Knuth to the students that work with me. I  
believe my current copy is with Ryan and/or Christine.

2. Dan made me read S&W when I wrote the first paper, and he was  
right back then. My resource page contains a link to the 3rd edition.  
I occasionally read S&W again.

3. And by golly everyone who writes a paper with me knows about the  
'verb' in the first sentence :-]

-- Matthias




On May 4, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Mitchell Wand wrote:

> http://wadler.blogspot.com/2007/03/three-ways-to-improve-your- 
> writing.html
>
> Knuth's notes, in particular, look very useful (at least the few  
> pages that I read).
>
> --Mitch
>
> Three ways to improve your writing Read these three texts. Each is  
> short, but the benefits will last a long time. Heeding their advice  
> will improve your life. It will improve mine too, if I ever read  
> what you write.
> Minicourse on Technical Writing by Donald Knuth. When I was an  
> undergraduate, I had the great fortune to take Knuth's course on  
> algorithms, which included a couple of lectures on technical  
> writing. If my writing is readable, that owes a great deal to that  
> minicourse. Later, Knuth ran a semester-long seminar on the  
> subject, which you'll find at the end of this link. The first three  
> sections are the minicourse, and worth their weight in gold.
>
> I endorse all of the advice, except that in Section 1, Point 24, I  
> think that even the 'good' examples are bad. Much better to think  
> of a vigorous verb to use for the vital first sentence, rather than  
> dull 'is' or 'are'.
>
> Politics and the English Language by George Orwell. The predecessor  
> of Haskell was named Orwell, and the user manual began with this  
> quotation from the essay:
> A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure,  
> and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is  
> rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It  
> becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but  
> the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have  
> foolish thoughts.Orwell explains why you cannot think clearly  
> unless you express yourself clearly, and gives rules of thumb to  
> help ensure the latter.
>
> The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E. B. White. The  
> book is 105 pages and costs under five pounds (and if you buy it  
> through this link, 5% of the cost goes to James Gillespie's Primary  
> School PTA). It could be the best five pounds you ever spent.
>
> If you're too cheap to buy the book, Bartelby has an online version  
> of the first edition, Strunk before White.
> Read, enjoy, and write better!
>
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