How to Write Usefully • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Write Usefully

#111

Post by throwawaylolx » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

osdiab wrote: post #12

While the internet is full of garbage writing, I don't feel like telling people that they shouldn't say anything wrong or potentially unimportant is the right way to go. That's a perfectionist attitude that stifles people's ability to explore, experiment, be wrong, learn, improve, and act. Like learning a language, if you never speak it because you're afraid to say something wrong, you'll never learn. And separately,…

I think an otherwise interesting point is obscured by your construing of a strawman argument:

>I don't feel like telling people that they shouldn't say anything wrong or potentially unimportant is the right way to go. That's a perfectionist attitude that stifles people's ability to explore, experiment, be wrong, learn, improve, and act.

It is dubious to imply that the author is trying to police what people can say and consequently how they can act: he's explicitly talking about _essays_, a literary form typically used for advancing arguments. By reframing his argument as an attempt at "telling people that they shouldn't say anything wrong," you're arguing against a much less interesting argument and sidestepping the central theme of _essays_ altogether.

In other words, I think the claim that good essays must not necessarilly show novelty, correctness, strength, and importance is a much more interesting argument, and, against correctness at least, one can probably find intellectual companionship among early 20th century futurists, dadaists, and later on fascists.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#112

Post by injb » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #69

PG speaks of writing usefully while not writing well. Many of his sentences are phrases. The subject of his sentence is often unclear. He begins sentences with the preposition, "But". Yet, his writing remains useful. I'd rather the latter than the former if I had to choose, but considering the volume that he writes, it's surprising that he hasn't put effort into writing well. He just doesn't care to improve his work.

quote: "...with the preposition, "But". Yet, his writing..."

The word "but" is a conjunction, like "yet". Oh, the ironing!

Re: How to Write Usefully

#113

Post by vasilipupkin » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

seemslegit wrote: post #109

A true test of good writing is the test of time, the following for example was written 15 years ago and remains relevant: https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

Wow, I’m not impressed with this at all It’s obvious to anyone what the ways are in which hackers and painters are completely different. Does anyone really need to write lots of vacuous commentary on this ? On the other hand, the ways in which they are similar are actually interesting to think about.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#114

Post by jackconway » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #69

PG speaks of writing usefully while not writing well. Many of his sentences are phrases. The subject of his sentence is often unclear. He begins sentences with the preposition, "But". Yet, his writing remains useful. I'd rather the latter than the former if I had to choose, but considering the volume that he writes, it's surprising that he hasn't put effort into writing well. He just doesn't care to improve his work.

There's nothing wrong with starting a sentence with "but."

Re: How to Write Usefully

#115

Post by randcraw » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #27

hooande wrote: post #4

The topic of useful writing is important. The ideas in this essay may not be surprising or unexpected, but the author does lay out a clear formula (importance + novelty + correctness + strength) that probably isn't obvious to most. It seems to be correct and the concrete list of usefulness criteria is strong. Everything seems to check out. The focus on correctness in this style of essay writing seems like a function…

The formula is wrong though. To provide a counter-example - Cunningham's Law >the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer. Sometimes saying something wrong, may actually be more useful. Either because you're clarifying a problem or making a connection or drawing a contrast or showing someone else the path by letting them see your chain of logic.

I agree that inviting contrarianism can be a useful way to communicate (though it probably isn't the best way to present a convincing / 'useful' argument).

But the medium for many essays lacks an interactive forum. Reactive comments from the audience is only a recent phenomenon. Before the net/web (~1990), the essay lived strictly in a broadcast-style medium. Then, the message had to live or die on its own merits. Careless or provocateur authors risked quick dismissal by an annoyed readership or eventual decline into insignificance.

And the degenerate devolved form of contrarians, media trolls, didn't yet exist. Halcyon days they were.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#116

Post by sjg007 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #97

daxaxelrod wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. In my opinion, great writing has to be within the context of the time. A lot of us speak in a manner similar to how PG writes. You wouldn't consider great writing from 1890 with the same set of rules as you would something written in 2020.

That’s because you have very few exposition to 1890 writing. When I read published book from a hundred years ago (in French), I’m often stroke by how much clearer it is than say, newspaper garbage for instance. No only in style, but also how they write to inform instead of writing to hide facts. It’s even more striking when watching archive videos from the 60’. People speak more slowly, are more composed and use wide…

My hypothesis is that our attention spans have decreased and this is a function of technological improvements. Because we seek out dopamine rewarding experiences we can satisfy that brain circuit by consuming novel content faster. We are basically attention seeking drug addicts. Take for example older movies vs modern movies. Today's special effects speeds up the pacing so that older movies feel boring. The same can be seen in TV shows. Seasame street is almost a case study where you can watch the change in realtime. Also older vs modern cartoons follow the same pattern. You could say it's almost frenetic. The effect holds for older vs modern video games as well although some games are different. YouTube as well.

One interesting thing I've observed is that with games like Minecraft and YouTube that kids are starting to become content creators. Where kids use to put on plays for the family in the living room, they can now effectively do the same but for the whole world. It's really fascinating.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#117

Post by TheRealClassic » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

daxaxelrod wrote: post #95

throwawaylolx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He just doesn't care to improve his work. Alternatively, you may overestimate how objective these rules are and how much they must correlate with some universal metric for good writing.

Agreed. In my opinion, great writing has to be within the context of the time. A lot of us speak in a manner similar to how PG writes. You wouldn't consider great writing from 1890 with the same set of rules as you would something written in 2020.

http://paulgraham.com/talk.html

Re: How to Write Usefully

#118

Post by Lord_Baltimore » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

CaptArmchair wrote: post #96

keiferski wrote: post #13

As a counterpoint, I'd argue that the "mathematical" approach to good writing is inherently flawed. That is, trying to arrive at the formula for the "best" essay via dialectic (argument) is to miss the forest for the trees. Writing is an art, not a science. Formal logic was developed to display arguments, so if you are trying to be as precise and mathematical as possible, use that instead. Instead, I'd suggest readin…

I think the fallacy is in the premise: "An essay should be useful." Well, useful is always in the eye of the beholder. There is no such thing as an absolute truth, after all. And pretending there is, and it's even attainable, is intellectually dishonest. Sure, an essay could be a formal piece that approaches an almost "mathematical" approach. After all, an essay a first and foremost an argument presented by the autho…

>There is no such thing as an absolute truth, after all. And pretending there is, and it's even attainable, is intellectually dishonest.

You seem to be stating this as an absolute truth.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#119

Post by Kye » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

iainmerrick wrote: post #66

r3vrse wrote: post #47

Convey a singular point with intent. Below is first paragraph rewritten. Just my 2¢. --- Essays should be persuasive. But we can aim for something more ambitious: that an essay should be useful. Useful writing makes a strong claim without resorting to falsehoods. It is more useful to say that Pike's Peak is in the center of Colorado than somewhere within. Precision and correctness are like opposing forces. Useful wri…

It is more useful to say that Pike's Peak is in the center of Colorado than somewhere within. This kind of thing is taking terseness too far, I think. If I’m not immediately familiar with Pike’s Peak it takes me a moment to unpack your meaning, but I immediately understood the more verbose explanation in the original.

Yep. People often confuse understanding audience with verbosity. Waffling and context both add word count.

edit: I could reduce this to "Waffling and context both add word count." but then:

1: It's not clear I agree with you

and

2: Triplets--like the three sentences I wrote there--are an artistic device that improve clarity and help prose flow.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#120

Post by pwinnski » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #9

xvector wrote: post #2

My English teachers rewarded flowery, verbose writing. Over time I found this unwieldy and now I find myself re-reading my sentences to see what I can delete. It's satisfying, like deleting unused code in a messy codebase. I envy writers who manage to densely pack information in sentences that are beautiful to read.

I tend to be too terse.

I tend to terse also.