Links

Writing tips: (Disclaimer: I am no professional writer; the tips are from experience.)

We all spend a significant portion of time in writing — from emails to research papers. Why not spend some time improving our writing skills? Here are three tips:

• Recognize what good/effective writing is: A first step is to differentiate between good writing from bad writing. Whenever you come across a research article, or a textbook, or even an email in which you feel the writing is good, try to understand why is it so. Do not be ashamed of imitating or adopting the writing style you like; remember, life always starts with imitation and evolves to creation.
• Follow a writing style you like and stick to it (be consistent): One can write down the same idea in multiple legitimate ways. By sticking to a particular style of writing, you will gain the confidence of a reader. For more on this, please read Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White (of course there are other good books, please google).
• Writing is about re-writing: No one can write something perfect in a single go.  Read what you write and re-write to improve. When you are in doubt, make sure to check your sentence construction, word usage, etc., by searching for examples from standard sources online. This will take a lot of time, especially when writing your first paper, but writing and then re-writing to improve is the only way for you to become a better writer.

Remember that improving your writing skills is a continuous learning process, and you are not alone in this. Some useful links for writing research papers are below:

• Write a Rapid Prototype First, by Terence Tao
• Ten Simple Rules for Mathematical Writing, by Dimitri Bertsekas
• Videos on writing tips and many other tips for PhD students, ENLIGHT’EM project

Reading tips:

• How to Read a Paper, by S. Keshav
• How to Read Mathematics, by Shai Simonson and Fernando Gouvea

Research advice:

• How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia, by David A. Patterson
• Three golden rules for research, by Dijkstra.
• How to do research: for PhD students and young researchers, by Joerg Widmer
• Research Advice for PhD. Students, by Ness B. Shroff

More useful links:

• Secrets to a Terrific Technical Talk, by Betty Lise Anderson
• Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students, by Phil Agre

I highly recommend joining Toastmasters to anyone looking for improving public speaking and leadership skills.