Penn Professors on Writing in Mathematics
Professor Charles Epstein
About the Professor
Professor Epstein received his SB from MIT and PhD from NYU. He is the Thomas A. Scott Professor of Mathematics at Penn, focusing on mathematical analysis with partial differential equations. He also works on applied mathematics with image analysis, population biology, and magnetic resonance imaging.
For more about Professor Epstein, please visit his Faculty Page.
Writing Tips
Professor Epstein suggests revising at least once as an easy step to improve papers. Many times people simply write down their ideas without thinking them out thoroughly. If students go back over their work once, they can improve it greatly.
Important Criteria for Student Writing
The most important parts of mathematical writing to Professor Epstein are having original ideas and reasoning and evidence. These are at the core of every math paper. Along with this, he believes organization is very important in writing. Finally, good style, grammar, and mechanics are important as he values well-written pieces.
Personal Writing Process
Professor Epstein’s process begins with taking notes. He goes through the literature looking for methods that could be useful and seeing what has already been discovered and published. Once he has enough written down, he begins writing up his paper. The paper then goes through many drafts before he will submit it to be published.
Links
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