I would assume that his suggestions for clarity in "scientific papers" and his literary style don't overlap all that much to infer the former from the later.

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suuuuuuuu 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is certainly the case, but it does make it all the more amusing that the myth

> Commas denote a pause in speaking.... Speak the sentence aloud to find pauses.

made its way into this article. Hard to imagine that this particular point, to which I might attribute many of the comma splices I see in scientific writing, actually came from a professional writer.

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jjmarr 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

McCarthy's books involve unrelenting violence. If he viewed commas as pauses, it makes sense that he would never use them.

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oh_my_goodness 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It goes without saying that you're a better writer than Cormac McCarthy. Tell us something beyond that.

	▲	suuuuuuuu 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The implication was that likely not all of the advice in this article, which was written by biologists, is actually attributable to McCarthy.

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greenie_beans 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> the former from the later

my writing advice:

never use the former and the latter

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mariusor 3 days ago | parent [-]

Does it make me sound pretentious? That's fine, we're debating literary styles after all. :D

	▲	greenie_beans 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		no, it's just a stylistic pet peeve of mine. lacks specificity and always makes me have to think about which is the latter and which is the former, no matter how many times i look it up. scrambles my brain.