by Justin Zobel

isbn: 9813083220
subject: Nonfiction, Computing, Writing
finished: 8/19/2000

I almost didn't read this book because I thought that computer science and writing were independent enough that there couldn't be anything meaningful to say about the specific kinds of writing that computer scientists do. It turns out that I was wrong, and that this is a really good book. It's short and to the point, and while it's certainly not a replacement for any of the good books on writing in general, it provides good coverage of the issues related to writing a conference or journal paper, including topics such as writing about mathematics, describing algorithms, and the design and presentation of experiments. It also has a good overview of how to review a paper and how to give a short talk using overhead transparencies. I would highly recommend this book to grad students in computer science.