Richard Gabriel (of Lisp and Lucid fame) noted that for a discipline that has made written communication very commonplace via computers and email, CS people are for the most part terrible writers. He notes that if you spend 25% of your time writing, or if your resume has a list of publications, you are a writer. Might as well get good at it. A thesis or dissertation is a great place to start.
Gabriel suggests the following:
Write something every day if at all possible. It doesn't even have to be anything related to your thesis. Write a poem, a paragraph, anything. This forces the habit.
Read. This usually isn't a problem in CS, but read to learn what is well-written. Read fiction, and poetry if possible. Poets, more than any other group of writers, compress ideas into the shortest, most elegant way possible.
Take classes on writing. He suggests creative writing classes.
Workshop your writing. This is critical. If all possible, get a group of fellow students together and read each others work. This will help a ton.
Two other highly recommended books on writing:
Bugs in Writing, by Lyn Dupre. She is a senior technical editor for the CS wing of Addison Wesley. This is chocked full of great suggestions, and it is very easy to read and use.
Style (Towards Clarity and Grace), by Joesph M. Williams. Get the textbook version if you can, do some of the exercises. Great book on how to develop a effective style, full of examples of how to rewrite and when.
This information is presented by GradSAC so you know that these issues exist. However, GradSAC takes no responsibility for incorrect or out-of-date information.
Last updated July 28, 1999.