How to Write Usefully • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Write Usefully

#151

Post by TimPC » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #45

pzqmpzqm wrote: post #34

The first time I read Zero to One by Peter Thiel, I was a bit miffed. Stupid shit stated poorly. The second time, inartful puffery stated overly plainly. The third time, individual brilliance stated clearly. Many replies here would do well to read, re-read, and re-re-read with an introspective mindset. This is perhaps the best quality material I have seen from pg for quite some time. Its clarity is brilliant and the…

The ideas in Zero to One are not new and can be summarized in a few paragraphs. As with basically every other book/essay/speech written by a financially-successful person, it is over-valued simply because its author is good at making money. That said, it is certainly better than your typical business book - but that isn't saying much.

Zero to One was very contrarian at the time it was published. The majority of the start-up world was obsessed with lean and thought ideas were so cheap that you should try giving them away.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#152

Post by caligarn » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

Is Paul unfamiliar with what makes good academic writing? He starts by digging into academic writing, but I am not sure he knows how it functions and what it functions to do. Good and great academic writing pushes the envelope on theories and frameworks and tends to be the repository for new ideas that people like Paul use to make sense of the world. A case in point is Clayton Christensen. It's in the forges of his profession and writing practice that his Innovator's Dilemma was born. Academic writing may not be accessible and easy to read for outsiders, and tends towards a high degree of density. But that's the task of journalists, business people, educators, and essayists etc. to translate and apply it to the real world.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#153

Post by alexandercrohde » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

tl; dr:

1. Sets the topic of "What is a good essay?"

2. Asserts that correctness is necessary, but not sufficient condition for a good essay.

3. Illustrates 2 by pointing out that by increasing vagueness, complete correctness is always possible. Characterizes correctness/precision as opposing forces.

4. Adds two more criteria for a good essay - telling people something important, and that they don't know

5. Adds the essential caveat that things we know subconsciously may be worth restating [crucially, as points 1-5 we all certainly subconsciously knew]

6. Adds a fourth dimension to a good essay: "as unequivocal as possible" [aka strength]

7. Highlights the inherent tradeoffs in satisfying these conditions. Increasing one dimension may reduce audience size.

8. Details an simple algorithm for only writing important/true things -- reviewing/revising one's own ideas heavily before publishing (up to 100 times)

9. Proposes a technique to find important topics: by examining the pool topics one cares about

10. Proposes a technique to find novel topics: By examining topics that you've thought about a lot [and surprised yourself with when you found a connection]

11. Suggests "strength" [6] comes from thinking well and skillful use of qualifiers.

12. Adds another quality to what makes a good essay -- simplicity

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13. Proposes that good essays (by this formula) are particularly likely to make people mad

14. Identifies one cause of anger is that some widely-held incorrect beliefs an essay calls out are likely to be cherished beliefs

15. Mentions the strength component of very precise writing (as well as brevity) can come across as incredibly confident, and exacerbate the ruffling of feathers

16. Proposes that being misrepresented is particularly likely with this essay style, and isn't avoidable generally, but doesn't think one should worry too much about disingenuous misinterpretation.

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17. Advises aspiring essayists to relax the constraint of breadth-of-audience/topics. Suggests publication isn't a necessity.

18. Provides some hopeful thoughts on the future of essays

Re: How to Write Usefully

#154

Post by wellpast » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

> How can you ensure that the things you say are true and novel and important? Believe it or not, there is a trick for doing this ... ... trick is not to say anything unless he's sure it's worth hearing. This makes it hard to get opinions out of him, but when you do, they're usually right.

I wish I could do this.

I have to vocalize bad ideas at times & almost with surety to draw out all of the opposition so as to whittle the idea down to sharp and solid -- and to make it robust against the array of slings it could possibly face.

I do not know how people can go through a dialectic process like this in their own silent mind. Or if anyone truly does. Or if they do, if this process trends toward "safe-ish" ideas only.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#155

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:04 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.

> He begins sentences with the preposition, "But".

But “but”, in the use in question, is a conjunction. With which one should be less concerned about starting a sentence than one would be about a preposition.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#156

Post by rdlecler1 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

caligarn wrote: post #152

Is Paul unfamiliar with what makes good academic writing? He starts by digging into academic writing, but I am not sure he knows how it functions and what it functions to do. Good and great academic writing pushes the envelope on theories and frameworks and tends to be the repository for new ideas that people like Paul use to make sense of the world. A case in point is Clayton Christensen. It's in the forges of his p…

Former academic here. I disagree. Academic writing has evolved to demonstrate that you are (1) an insider and (2) to obfuscate your ideas so that peer reviewers are less likely to challenge you.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#157

Post by friendlybus » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

injb wrote: post #125

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,…

" if you never speak it because you're afraid to say something wrong, you'll never learn" If you're afraid to say your idea because you know (or suspect) that it's wrong, then you have already learned the hardest part of the lesson. Of course, it still remains to find out what the right idea is, but voicing one that you know to be wrong is hardly going to help with that.

Hitting the ball wrong in tennis can be answered by the high school kid with one technique, and by Novak Djokovic with another technique. Novak will have a far more complete, in depth and transcendent answer than someone else, but both are "correct" in that they solve the problem of hitting the ball wrong.

Knowing you're wrong is the threshold guardian to the adventure of hitting the mark correctly. I don't know how you embark on that journey without voicing it multiple times to multiple people.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#158

Post by brlewis » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #68

rmason wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced the same thing with English teachers. But I had a friend point out that Hemingway (whom we both adored) wrote sentences that were 7 words shorter than normal. Writing short punchy sentences without a single spare word. Steinbeck wrote that way and so did Elmore Leonard. Leonard said he'd get down a first draft and then go back a second time taking words out that weren't necessary. https://www.litcharts.…

Essayists may believe that what they're writing is true, but they're not best placed to judge that. Truth requires objective testing and replication, and essays aren't the right tool for that. So it's useful to remember that the point of an essay is persuasion, not truth. Short sentences and clear points are more persuasive even if they're nonsense. The longer your sentences, the more you'll filter out readers with s…

> The longer your sentences, the more you'll filter out readers with short attentions spans and limited literacy.

And readers who have not yet been persuaded that your writing is worth their time. If long sentences are essential to a point you're making in a persuasive essay for a non-captive audience, use inverted pyramid style and push the long sentences down.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#159

Post by jfarmer » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

alexandercrohde wrote: post #153

tl; dr: 1. Sets the topic of "What is a good essay?" 2. Asserts that correctness is necessary, but not sufficient condition for a good essay. 3. Illustrates 2 by pointing out that by increasing vagueness, complete correctness is always possible. Characterizes correctness/precision as opposing forces. 4. Adds two more criteria for a good essay - telling people something important, and that they don't know 5. Adds the…

we all spinoza now

Re: How to Write Usefully

#160

Post by contingencies » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

soneca wrote: post #140

contingencies wrote: post #85

Niven's First Law of Writing: Writers who write for other writers should write letters. - Larry Niven, science fiction author (1989) Blind monkey at the typewriter. - Robert Burnham Jr., Astronomer (1983) We'll need writers who can remember freedom - poets, visionaries - realists of a larger reality. - Ursula K. Le Guin The writer is that person who, embarking upon her task, does not know what to do. - Donald Barthel…

Aren't these quotes about fiction writing? Do you think they apply to essay writing as well? I don't think I got your point with this selection of quotes, if you don't mind explaining.

The article, nominally on 'good (essay format) writing', was an example of #1. We here illustrate #2 wonderfully (a quip on both communicative fallacy and the human condition). #3 is aspirational, but also puts purely functional writing (without art) in its place. #4 concerns perhaps pathfinding as purpose, in creative intellectual work. #5 suggests monodimensionality as a defining quality of poor writers. #6 ties all of the above in its application to programming.