Tasty » Adam Sampson's writing bookmarks

How to write a scientific abstract in six easy steps | Serendipity edit / delete

"The first sentence of an abstract should clearly introduce the topic of the paper so that readers can relate it to other work they are familiar with. However, an analysis of abstracts across a range of fields show that few follow this advice, nor do they take the opportunity to summarize previous work in their second sentence. A central issue is the lack of structure in standard advice on abstract writing, so most authors don’t realize the third sentence should point out the deficiencies of this existing research. To solve this problem, we describe a technique that structures the entire abstract around a set of six sentences, each of which has a specific role, so that by the end of the first four sentences you have introduced the idea fully. This structure then allows you to use the fifth sentence to elaborate a little on the research, explain how it works, and talk about the various ways that you have applied it, for example to teach generations of new graduate students how to write clearly. This technique is helpful because it clarifies your thinking and leads to a final sentence that summarizes why your research matters."

to abstract academia honours research writing ... on 11 October 2016

Turkey City Lexicon - A Primer for SF Workshops - SFWA edit / delete

to amusements sf writing ... on 31 December 2015

demosthenes.info – css edit / delete

How to do various things with CSS. I found the earlier articles more generally useful (i.e. relying less on features only found in modern browsers).

to css graphics style web-design writing ... on 20 January 2015

ESL (JBR i18n) edit / delete

Tips on writing technical documentation (specifically, for Debian) for people who've learned English as a second language. This has a nice list of common pitfalls for translators, and some notes on English grammar rules you might have been taught that don't actually match real usage.

to ag0700 debian documentation english i18n language technical translation writing ... on 28 August 2014

Academic urban legends edit / delete

"Many of the messages presented in respectable scientific publications are, in fact, based on various forms of rumors. [...] To illustrate this phenomenon, I draw upon a remarkable case in which a decimal point error appears to have misled millions into believing that spinach is a good nutritional source of iron." It's more complicated than it sounds. Recommended reading for students who wonder why we complain about inadequate references -- and for seasoned researchers who may well have exactly the same problems...

to academia ag0700 citation nutrition referencing research spinach writing ... on 24 August 2014

Jane Austen Fiction Manuscripts: Home edit / delete

"The Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition gathers together in the virtual space of the web some 1100 pages of fiction written in Jane Austen’s own hand." I'm not really very interested in Jane Austen's fiction itself, but the details of how the manuscripts were preserved and digitised are really interesting.

to etext fiction history jane-austen language manuscript preservation writing ... on 24 August 2014

Using Emacs, Org-mode and R for Research Writing in Social Sciences: A Toolkit for Writing Reproducible Research Papers and Monographs edit / delete

Writing using org-mode as an outliner, and embedding analysis.

to academia org outliner research typesetting writing ... on 26 July 2014

Open Competitive Intelligence Resources - SCIP edit / delete

("Competitive intelligence" is what the CIA does.) "Analytic Thinking and Presentation for Intelligence Producers" is interesting as an introductory guide to research writing; students may like to read the advice on structuring an argument, editing for succinctness, and giving good presentations.

to ag0700 editing intelligence presentation research writing ... on 30 November 2013

The HoTT book « Mathematics and Computation edit / delete

Evangelising the use of proper version control for collaborative writing. (Which seems kind of obvious to me, but it's surprisingly hard to persuade people about.)

to academia git scm tex writing ... on 11 July 2013

Copy, Shake, and Paste: A good definition of plagiarism edit / delete

As it says. One to add to the 0700 lecture (and project intros). The blog as a whole is quite interesting.

to academia ag0700 plagiarism writing ... on 24 March 2013