What makes writing more readable? • Hacker News Board

Re: What makes writing more readable?

#111

Post by yhoneycomb » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 1:59 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #100

yhoneycomb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I try to break up a document into different types of formatting. Lists, headings, quotes, and image/content sections to make things visually appealing. I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. It's very difficult for me to follow textbooks that have 200 different colors and 5 sidebars per page.

You would probably like law textbooks. They are just prose, mostly with in-line citations rather than footnotes. No colored sections and only only a rare sidebar. They make reading, serious 100+ page each sitting reading, much easier. There is only one voice to follow and your eyes never need to bounce around the page.

Yes! I would absolutely love that. No guesswork as to what train of thought to follow. All textbooks should be like that.

Re: What makes writing more readable?

#112

Post by reacweb » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 8:32 AM UTC

scythmic_waves wrote: post #20

"Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard." - David McCullough I agree with many of the other posts here. Some of the translations highlighted in the article seem to either lose important information or introduce confusing information. The most striking example for me was the translation from > A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Language…

As a non native english speaker, I can clearly understand the first sentence "A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Language". Even if we do not know the meaning of tremor (this french word is not used since long), we can easiliy guess that it is an illness in the hands and not lose much from the understanding of the sentence. For the second sentence, I have to think a lot more to understand the structure of the sentence and to remove the ambiguities. After reading the second sentence, I am far less confident in my understanding than afer reading the first one.

Re: What makes writing more readable?

#113

Post by yhoneycomb » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

iib wrote: post #76

yhoneycomb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - the causal link is very important to note. In terms of born premature vs born early, I understand that premature is the medical term. As a medical student, I also understand that it can be helpful to use more precise words in describing a situation. However, I personally think that a lot of our medical jargon is due for simplification. For example, is there really any benefit to saying "epistaxis" rather th…

From my outside perception, the medical jargon is ripe with greek-latin derived words that are strictly descriptive, adding no causal information whatsoever. My understanding is that the word tachycardia does not give an insight into why the heart beats faster. As for "born early", I think it misses the actual problem. I think "born too early" is a closer-to-the-spirit simplification.

I can get behind that