写作方法2009research.microsoft.com编辑精选
Simon Peyton Jones：如何写出优秀的学术论文
Simon Peyton Jones: How to write a great research paper
导读
这是 Simon Peyton Jones 关于如何写好研究论文的经典演讲幻灯片。它值得写作者读，是因为它把论文写作当成"讲一个故事"来处理：如何组织问题、动机、贡献和细节，让读者愿意读下去。评论区还就"相关工作"该放在哪里展开了一场颇有启发的争论。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把论文当成一个故事来写：先讲一个有趣的问题，再讲你如何一步步解决它。
- 02
让"这是一个重要且尚未解决的问题"这件事在开头就说清楚，这是读者继续读下去的理由。
- 03
不要为了应付格式而塞一个"相关工作"章节，要让它承担动机和定位的功能。
- 04
论文写不好往往不是研究本身的问题，而是结构没有服务于读者的理解路径。
HN 评论精选
相关工作不是附录式的收尾，而是故事开头用来建立动机和问题重要性的关键部分，应放在前部。
这篇讨论总体不错，但在"相关工作"这一点上完全站不住脚。相关工作的作用表面上有两层：说明有人关心你做的事，以及说明别人还没做出来。但现实里还有第三个理由——帮助讲故事。写论文就是讲故事，讲一个有趣的问题以及你如何解决它。Simon 认为相关工作应该放在论文末尾，读完他的幻灯片我觉得真正的问题是：他不知道拿相关工作怎么办，觉得它是个过时的包袱，只好塞到末尾让人注意不到。他也没意识到相关工作正好能回答他自己故事里"这是个有趣的问题"和"这是个尚未解决的问题"两部分。这说明他大概没写过好的相关工作章节。相关工作就是动机，是故事的一部分，应该放在比较靠前的位置。故事应该是：引言——这是问题；相关工作——别人追过这个问题但没解决或绕过去了，人们在乎它；方法——我如何解决；细节——我做了什么；讨论——……
SeanLuke查看英文原文
An okay discussion, but it falls entirely flat on its face in a very important place: related work. What is the point of related work? Notionally twofold: to argue that there are people that care about what you're doing (because they're asking similar questions), and to argue that people haven't done the work yet. But in reality there's a third reason: to help tell the story. Writing a paper is telling a story. The story of an interesting problem, and how you went about solving it. Simon thinks that related work should go at the end of the paper. Reading his slides makes it clear to me that really the issue is that he doesn't know what to do with related work; it seems to be an anachronism to him that he has to put somewhere so it might as well stick it at the end where no one will notice. He also seems to have missed that related work helps answer the "It's an interesting problem" and "It's an unsolved problem" sections of his story -- both of which he's got thrown up in the "Conveying the idea" slide. This tells me that he's likely not written a good related work section. Related work is motivation. It's part of the story. It should be relatively up front. The story should go like this: - Introduction: Here is a problem - Related Work: Other people have gone after this problem and have failed to figure it out, or danced around it. People care about it. - Approach: Here is how I solve the problem - Details: Here is what I did - Discussion: Here is what the results were - Conclusions and Further Work: Here's what I'm going to do next.
补充推荐一份面向博士生的写作指南，可作为延伸阅读。
经济学家 John Cochrane 给博士生写了一些很好的写作建议（附链接）。
snewe查看英文原文
John Cochrane (economist) has some excellent tips on writing for PhD students: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/phd_paper_writing.pdf
论文写作水平普遍偏低，这类写作指南应成为研究生的必读材料。
应该要求每个一年级研究生都读这篇或类似的东西。写得好的论文和写得差的论文比例实在太低了。
josephruscio查看英文原文
They should require every first year graduate student to read this or something similar. The ratio of well to poorly written papers is far too low.
同类还值得读
被低估的工程技能：把文章写好
Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well
这篇文章讨论为什么“写得好”是被低估的工程能力，以及它如何在团队协作、系统设计和职业发展中持续带来回报。
写作方法2019 · 1,109 分 · 371 评4 条写作要点编辑精选每行只写一句话：让写作和修改都更轻松的排版法
Writing one sentence per line
这是 Derek Sivers 的一篇短文，主张写作时每行只放一个句子，而不是按段落排版。
写作方法2022 · 849 分 · 297 评4 条写作要点编辑精选书面沟通是远程工作的超级能力
Written communication is remote work super power
这篇文章讨论远程工作中书面沟通的价值，评论区则补充了异步与同步沟通的适用场景，并提醒读者：备忘录、结论先行、结构化命令格式等书面沟通传统早已有之。
写作方法2020 · 831 分 · 190 评4 条写作要点编辑精选如何写出有用的文字
How to Write Usefully
保罗·格雷厄姆在这篇文章里给"有用的写作"下了一个可操作的公式：有用≈重要×新颖×正确×清楚，任一项为零，整篇文章就等于零；他还主张敢下确定判断、删掉让自己心虚的句子。
写作方法2020 · 821 分 · 285 评4 条写作要点编辑精选如何写得更清楚、想得更清楚，并学会复杂材料（PDF）
How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]
这份 PDF 讨论如何把文章写清楚、把思路理清楚，并用写作来学习复杂材料。
写作方法2022 · 779 分 · 153 评4 条写作要点编辑精选