Notebooks

On Writing (and Some Examples)

Recommendations and resources on academic and non-fiction writing.

Recommended Advice/Guide

Williams, J. M. (2000). Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace (6. ed). Longman.
Schimel, J. (2011). Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded. Oxford University Press.: Practical, actionable.
Neelakantan, A. (2021). Write because it makes you think or feel. the Record.
Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language; George Orwell. Horizon.: Orwell gives five rules for good writing and adds a sixth: "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."
McPhee J. (2015) The Art of Omission. The New Yorker.: Writing is emotional: it's hard to remove unnecessary sentences that you've written. McPhees shares some personal stories.
Gaitskill M. (2022) The deracination of literature. Unheard.: Why read fiction? And does good writing matter?

Writing in the Sciences by Kristin Sainani.: If you're just starting to write scientific prose, watch the series
The Writer's workshop
Writing Style—An Online Guide: Good introduction to English grammar and writing beyond simple definitions.
Grammar and Stylistics: Writing Clearly by Randall Eggert from University of Utah.: Excellent! See, for example, the one on tense and aspect.

Kolln, M. J., & Gray, L. S. (2015). Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. Pearson Education.

Here is New York; E. B. White (1949); Reprinted in Essays of E B White (2016).: Possibly the most famous essay on NYC—for good reasons.
What Is a Particle?; Natalie Wolchover; Quanta (2020).: Wolchover has an uncanny ability to phrase difficult ideas in popular language; this essay shows that once again.
America Is Not Ready for Omicron; Ed Yong; The Atlantic (2021).: Ed Yong shows once again that one can write a good essay only when one deeply cares about the topic.
Smith Z. (2023), On Killing Charles DickensThe New Yorker.: Zadie Smith tries—and fails—to ignore Dickens while writing a nineteenth-century historical fiction.
All the Carcinogens We Cannot See; Siddhartha Mukherjee; The New Yorker (2023)
One Reason Hybrid Work Makes Employees Miserable. And how to fix it.; Cal Newport; The Atlantic (2024)