Advice On My Own Writing

Put more specific hook in title

• OK: “How to Get A Paper Accepted”
• Better: “Get Your Paper Accepted by XXX” or “The XXX Method for Getting Paper Accepted”
  • Conveys real information. Label the idea. Pulls in readers who will like it and push away those who won’t.

Don’t overwhelm with formatting

• Overwhelming: H2s, H3s, bold, figures with different weights, figure captions
• Better: Choose fewer of them
• Best: The only bolded text is the ‘list’ structure (e.g., H2s)

Make headings comprehensible

• OK: “Intro: Judgment-Before-Scroll”
• Better: “Optimize Judgment Before They Turn The Page”
• Message gleanable from only reading these

Give thesis upfront

• OK: “I got a paper accepted with one week of revisions.”
• Better: “I got a paper accepted with one week of revisions. All the changes fall into two buckets: (1) get accepted (clarity), and (2) don’t get rejected (completeness).”
• It’s OK that it doesn’t make sense without context / examples
• Helpful as base conceptual scaffolding readers can hold and reference