Links for Mathematical Writing:

 

 

Links for Mathematical Writing: 

The prerequisite for good mathematical writing is good English style.  My favorite manual of style is available on line

http://www.bartleby.com/141/.  This book, The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, contains not only the rules of correct grammar but savvy advice about direct writing.

Here is a brief description of the distinction between active and passive voice.

Here is a reference on English grammar, especially verb forms.


This English 126 sitewritten by Daniel Kies of the College Dupage has two notable features: a terriffic group of links to style sheets and grammar references (clear at the end of the site) and an interesting review of grammar checking by the leading commerical grammar checkers. Theanalysis shows that such grammar checking may help but too many errors are missed for anyone to rely on it. My impression is that the grammar checkers are helpful with small carelesserrors but miss serious structural problems. However, study of this site may be useful to identify and correct grammatical errors.

 

Grammar Reference includes a number of interactive quizzes to brush up on grammar. Can you recognize a comma splice?

Here is an interesting take on plagiarism by Judge Richard Posner

The preferred language for writing mathematics is TeX.  At http://www.tug.org/interest.html you can find a description of TeX and sites to obtain it either as freeware or shareware or payware. It is available in the university laboratories. We will discuss in class the benefits and disadvantages of TeX versus `what you see is all you get’.[1]

 

 

 

Here is a short book on latex. It contains much, much, more than you need to know. But pages 15-29 will be very helpful. The not so short guide to Latex (132 pages) .

The Latex home page is a good source.

An account of convergent and divergent series culminating in finding the exact value of the sum of 1/n^2 can be found at: Euler


The following description of the writing technique of a famousAmerican writer by his daughter is instructive. Mahan's method (html)




[1]  See various works of Leslie Lamport –- the creator of LaTex.