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  • CAREER COLUMN

Novelist Cormac McCarthy’s tips on how to write a great science paper

The Pulitzer prizewinner shares his advice for pleasing readers, editors and yourself.
By
  1. Van Savage

    1. Van Savage is a theoretical biologist and ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, USA.

  2. Pamela Yeh

    1. Pamela Yeh is an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, USA.

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For the past two decades, Cormac McCarthy — whose ten novels include The Road, No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian — has provided extensive editing to numerous faculty members and postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. He has helped to edit works by scientists such as Harvard University’s first tenured female theoretical physicist, Lisa Randall, and physicist Geoffrey West, who authored the popular-science book Scale.

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Nature 574, 441-442 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02918-5

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged. You can get in touch with the editor at naturecareerseditor@nature.com.

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