General Advice
on Writing
Writing is a vital way of academia: course reports, thesis, research papers. There are a range of guidelines to improve your writing.
Intended for: BSc, MSc, PhD
Structure
1. Structure: Follow the standard structure for your type of report, so your reader knows where to look for certain information. See:
High-level story
2. Streamline: A big mistake is that you want to fit too much material into your story, and your reader loses overview and/or interest.
Therefore, streamline your story. A big part of writing is your ability to delete sections. Keep it compact. What is the main message you try to get across?
For research papers the general rule is: one paper, one main idea (and not three separate ideas cramped into a single paper).
3. Guide: It is your job to guide your reader through your text, tell them where they are in the bigger picture, keep them interested.
Therefore, throughout reading, continuously remind your reader (briefly) of your sub-conclusions, and the logical next steps. Where are we in the bigger story now?
If necessary, indicate the structure of your document somewhere at the end of the Introduction.
Remind your reader what something meant if you introduced it long ago in the text. Point back if necessary. Make their reading experience as easy as possible.
4. Explain: What seems obvious to you is usually not obvious to the reader (you have been working on this topic for a long time). This is a common trap.
Try to imagine what you knew before you started the project, and write the report/paper for this older version of yourself. Try to continuously explain your reasoning, conclusions and next steps: don't make too big reasoning jumps (or completely omit the reasoning) in your text.
Paragraphs & sentences
5. One paragraph, one topic: Write your text in paragraphs, where each paragraph covers a single topic.
Try to introduce the topic in the first sentences, work out your argument in the next lines, and conclude/summarize your point in the last sentence.
You do not have to force this structure, but it usually naturally appears in a well-written paragraph (check this in the paper you currently read!).
6. Connect: The biggest mistake in writing is that your sentences and paragraphs do not connect.
Every sentences should naturally follow from the previous one (in content). Use indicator words to express the connection between sentences, such as "However", "Therefore", "Because", "Since", etc.
7. Keep sentences compact: We tend to write overly long sentences. Often you can cross off many excess words.
So reread your text and do this!
Lay-out
7. Grammar: When English is you non-native language, consider using grammar correction software, such as Grammarly.
You get direct feedback on your writing, which will strongly increase your learning curve.
Unfortunately, when you make a lot of writing mistakes, your reader will usually take your work less seriously (not fair, but true). Therefore, it is really worth your time to invest in your English language skills.
8. Typesetting: Put effort into your lay-out. If your lay-out is off, your reader will not take your work seriously.
Always write your document in LaTeX to ensure clean typesetting (absolutely necessary for equations).
Take care with the positioning of your figures and tables. Don't have empty pages, or near empty pages with only a small float in the corner. Keep your fonts and fontsize consistent. Make all text readable (in size).
Look at your document and check whether you would want to read it yourself (whether it shows the writer put effort into it).
Figures, Tables, Equations
9. Equations: Equations are crucial to properly explain your method. See Equations for details on writing equations themselves. In the bigger picture:
Equations (also inline equations) are part of the sentence, i.e., put a dot or comma behind them when appropriate, etc.
Explain every equation you give in words, provide their intuition.
10. Captions: Figure and table captions should be self-contained.
See Captions section in Figures & Tables.
Process
11. Rewrite, restructure, rewrite: Don't write to directly produce a final product, it's impossible.
See your initial writing as 1) a way to structure your thoughts, and 2) an iterative process.
Therefore, initially just push out words on paper, about all things your consider relevant.
Then, start rewrite and reorganizing. Shift sections around, find new connections, better ways to streamline your story. This will be way more effective than sitting in a writer's block because your first sentence needs to be perfect. Often you only find out at the end what the proper introduction should look like. Rewrite, restructure, rewrite, ....