Best Written Paper by Michael Mitzenmacher.
From the post:
Daniel Lemire pointed to an article on bad writing in science (here if you care to see, not CS-specific), which got me to thinking: do we (in whatever subcommunity you think of yourself being in) value good writing? Should we?
One question is what qualifies as good writing in science. I’m not sure there’s any consensus here — although that’s true for writing more generally as well. While colorful word choice and usage can garner some attention* (and, generally, wouldn’t hurt), unlike what some people may think, good writing in science is not a vocabulary exercise. I find that two key features cover most of what I mean by good writing:
- Be clear.
- Tell a story.
Those two points cover “good writing” for all types of writing.