Ask HN: I'm poor at explaining things, how can I fix that?

I don’t think that there is a quick fix, but I have found the following useful;

1. Think in billboards (Construct your explanation in less than 16 words)

2. Increase your vocabulary. Try wordthink.com daily.

3. Hold off. Don’t speak just yet. Seek to compact your explanation.

4. Reframe it as an analogy or metaphor

5. Even if your audience isn’t a 5 year old, try to describe your idea in a way that they would understand.

Good luck!

> Today was the tipping when I was trying to explain some basic mathematics to my daughter, and managed to lost here, making her more confused than before.

How many questions do you ask during your explanations?

I ask because it's very easy to get wrapped up in your own words, ignoring the blooming confusion in the person you're talking with.

You might try some experiments around asking questions. For example, when you give analogies about math you think your daughter would understand, ask her to explain it back to you - before you're done. Or - after a few sentences, ask her what she thinks will come next.

On the topic of actually explaining things, you might consider doing the "tap test" with your daughter.

Pick a song you're certain she'll be able to recognize, just from the rhythm you tap on a tabletop. Then tap it out. And watch in bewilderment as she has no idea what you're tapping.

Turn it around and ask her to tap a song she's certain you'll recognize. It's a lot of fun and a very good way to understand just how hard it can be to teach anything. Works great with any friend or family member as well.

To be explicit, the outcome of the tap test is surprising because as we tap, we're hearing the rest of the music in our own heads. But the other person can't, of course. That's what happens to a lot of people when they explain things. They hear the parts they're not actually saying, but the other person can't. Understanding this phenomenon is the first step to doing something about it.

You can read more about the tap test in the book "Made to Stick," which is about explaining things in general and is a great read.

I think this is something most people struggle with. In my personal opinion, when I find it hard to explain things it's often related to one of the following:

1. I honestly don't know it as well as I think. This is a hard pill to swallow, but most of the time it's the reason why we struggle to explain things in clear terms.

2. We are often conditioned to use terms that the audience doesn't fully understand. e.g., Industry terms.

3. I haven't given it enough thought before trying to explain it.

Find someone who is willing to listen to you speak. Hopefully they'll be patient enough to listen to you when you repeat yourself in different ways.

Lastly, I found that sometimes I struggle with trying to over explain things. There's a tipping point where you're audience is "comfortable" with what you explained, but once you go beyond that, it's like dragging them into deep waters.

Learn to be comfortable with not being fully "correct". Meaning, explain enough so they have a good idea of what you're saying. It's a starting point for the next thing they will need/want to know.

Before I got into tech, I worked as a full-time tutor with high school and middle school students for a few years. That was the best practice for improving my ability to explain things. I usually think about the meta-game of improving in roughly three different ways:

1. Explaining many things to many people: you really get good at thinking on your feet, reading how well different people understand things, and coming up with new ways of explaining things. It forces you to be flexible, and you can build a general framework for walking through something new.

2. Explaining many things to one person: you learn to see how that person learns. What kind of prior knowledge do they have, and how do they like to work through understanding something new? You can tailor your explanations to them, and since explaining requires a lot of active listening to make sure the person is with you, you can get much better at identifying when they're lost so you can circle back.

3. Explaining the same thing to many people: you hone your explanation skill for that one thing. Once you've explained the concept to multiple people, you can see what works and what doesn't work. You understand the sticking points, the easy parts, the analogies that work, and the ones that don't. Having multiple students working on the same concept at the same time would be great! I'd have to work harder for the first student, but by the end of the week I'd have it down pat.

For me, it came down to practice, repetition, and really knowing the material. Striking the balance between explaining and active listening for ~8 hours a day was a fantastic way to get better, and I don't think I'll ever forget how to walk someone through the tricky parts of AP Calculus. Now that I'm far from the tutoring world, I try to practice by writing and will try to keep that part of my brain active in the future through some sort of teaching.

I'd recommend practicing as much as you can. Keep practicing your explanations and active listening with your daughter. As another user said, make sure you know the material. Walk through it yourself, and try a dry run of explaining some math. I recommend explaining to a pet, which is the equivalent of rubber duck debugging. You won't get the feedback, but you'll be able to think it through first, which absolutely helps. Writing also doesn't offer you a similar feedback loop, but it does force you to walk through your thoughts and identify any missing parts of your own understanding.

Disclaimer: I mostly worked 1:1 with students. Managing an entire classroom is an entirely different beast!