Good writing is a joy to read. No one likes to read something that isn't clear. Thesis supervisors don't like it, grant reviewers don't like it, referees of journal articles don't like it.

Writing something well is hard work, involving many revisions and a lot of thought. But the more you edit your writing, the better you will be at writing it well with fewer revisions.

English technical writing has a very specific style. It is direct. Sentences are often short, to allow the reader time to process information before moving on the the next sentence. The resources below may help you improve your writing. You should also solicit advice from faculty and colleagues. Someone else's comments on your written work are very helpful.

An article on scientific writing
by Gopen and Swan, originally published in American Scientist, in pdf file

A writing checklist
I made this checklist, based on my experience with my own students. Additions, comments welcome. It's in draft form.

Scientific journal styles
Scientific journals have guidelines for style for papers submitted for publication. While some of the guidelines are particular to the journal, many are common to all good technical writing. For instance, type-setting guidelines do not vary too much from journal to journal. As an example, fractions in the text should appear as, e.g., 1/4, not as \frac{1}{4}.

Some journal guidelines are structural. For instance, guidelines state how long the abstract should be, how section numbering should be done, where acknowledgements (e.g. to grants that supported you) should appear. To find the guidelines for a particular journal, go to the journal's website and look for something like "information for authors". Often, you will be pointed to a latex template for articles in the journal. The template may contain specific type-setting guidelines.

Here is an example, for submitting papers to the Journal of the American Statistical Association (Scroll down to "Preparing your Paper".)

(Possibly) Useful links

Nice info from Waterloo

Information on passive voice and other things Typically, scientific writers avoid passive voice, since it's indirect and wordy.

Here is a site with many nice links, not just for writing: Carnegie Mellon advice