By Glen Berseth

Writing is a complex skill. It is also a vital skill for success in research and is a valuable skill in general. I ran a writing workshop in my group (and invited all of Mila, and now everyone else, to join). It focuses on principles for writing clear prose that are easy for readers to understand. In this workshop series, we look at writing from the perspective of mental load (and minimum description length) for the reader and consider that some sentences are easier to process than others. Next, writers should understand how to organize their text to ensure they effectively cover the ideas they want to express, connect ideas together, and avoid confusion throughout the text. Lastly, we will cover some tools to enhance these skills and produce coherent documents quickly, avoid writer’s block, and work collaboratively.

We'll cover the following topics (see page links for slides and recordings):

Session 1: Construct understandable sentences

Session 2: Paragraphs and staying on topic

Session 3: Organization and Collaboration

Section 4: Using clear claims and telling a good story

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Section 5: Collaboration

Section 6: Rebuttal writing

Thank you to the over 100 people that attended the workshop at @Mila_Quebec, and those that helped me create the content.

References:

1. Writing workshop organized by Jacob Steinhardt in 2020
2. Elements of Style
3. https://terrytao.wordpress.com/advice-on-writing-papers/write-a-rapid-prototype-first/
4. Style: Lessons in Clarity Grace