Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

covingtoninnovations.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 159 posts

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#121

Post by brian_cunnie »

gfodor wrote: post #44
photochemsyn wrote: post #31

One useful first step in becoming a better writer - in particular if your subject is complex - is to to delete your Twitter account and never look at another Twitter thread. Character limits kill creativity and complexity. The presentation does leave out one very necessary requirement for becoming a good-to-great writer: you have to do a lot of reading. If you're going to write about a complex scientific or technical…

On the contrary, a person skilled at Twitter could have compressed the essence of what you wrote into 280 characters. I’ve found the best books and essays are similarly compressible, with the rest of the information being about bolstering it as being worthy of the precious few slots in your L1 cache.

I agree: Twitter forces you to be succinct, a useful skill when writing an Executive Summary for a business paper or an Abstract for a paper in a scientific journal.

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#122

Post by brian_cunnie »

This is my writing gem: when you send an email, you either want them to know something or do something, so say that in the first sentence:

Good: "FYI, our etcd cluster is broken, but we're working to fix it."

Bad: "I came in this morning, and while I was going through my emails when I saw a message about one of the nodes in our cluster. So I checked it out, and sure enough it was down, and I went to the console and saw the kernel had panicked, so I ... [much further down] and that's when I realized our etcd cluster was down."

The later is what I call The Narrative: people have a natural inclination to tell a story, but the irony is that usually what's at the end of the story is the thing that should be first ("the cluster is down!").

Similarly when asking for something:

Good: "Could you please get me a new monitor? I'm getting headaches from the current one's constant flickering"

Bad: "I had a headache yesterday, so I had to leave early—I hope that's okay. Anyway, I'm not sure about the purchase requisition process. I think there's a resonating frequency between the 60Hz electric system and my monitor's refresh rate, but I'm not an electrical engineer. By the way, the new chair is great ..."

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#123

Post by iamstupidsimple »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #122

This is my writing gem: when you send an email, you either want them to know something or do something, so say that in the first sentence: Good: "FYI, our etcd cluster is broken, but we're working to fix it." Bad: "I came in this morning, and while I was going through my emails when I saw a message about one of the nodes in our cluster. So I checked it out, and sure enough it was down, and I went to the console and s…

A more generalised approach: structure emails in importance order, top down. So, actionable stuff at top, rationales further down, in descending importance etc...

This becomes more critical when talking to execs.

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#124

Post by MaxBarraclough »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #122

This is my writing gem: when you send an email, you either want them to know something or do something, so say that in the first sentence: Good: "FYI, our etcd cluster is broken, but we're working to fix it." Bad: "I came in this morning, and while I was going through my emails when I saw a message about one of the nodes in our cluster. So I checked it out, and sure enough it was down, and I went to the console and s…

For a masterclass in how not to write, take a look at this BBC article which is narrativised to the point of being downright insulting. [0] It's quite an effort to even figure out what they're talking about. (The article's dishonest clickbait title is just icing.)

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-49012771

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#125

Post by ciphol »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #122

This is my writing gem: when you send an email, you either want them to know something or do something, so say that in the first sentence: Good: "FYI, our etcd cluster is broken, but we're working to fix it." Bad: "I came in this morning, and while I was going through my emails when I saw a message about one of the nodes in our cluster. So I checked it out, and sure enough it was down, and I went to the console and s…

This is how journalists are taught to write. In a "pyramidal" style where the key facts come first, followed by elaboration, followed by more elaborate elaboration.

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#126

Post by douglee650 »

westcort wrote: post #105
enigmatic02 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed with 5, it's too prescriptive. Lots of great writers use progressive disclosure to keep people hooked Being unselfish also helps with building great products. Reminds me of this article, treat your reader like a customer: https://www.productlessons.xyz/article/improve-business-writ...

This is great! Here are my takeaways from that article. 1. Easy writing makes for hard reading; invest in editing and treat your reader like a customer 2. What’s the biggest difference between great writers and all the rest? It’s not talent, it’s treating the process like a product 3. Make it skimmable; expect that your reader is busy 4. Every word should serve a purpose 5. Your points should fit like a jigsaw puzzle…

In the article, author reduces (1.)

From: "One of the best ways to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary"

To: "To improve your writing, cut out unnecessary words."

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#127

Post by MaxBarraclough »

maroonblazer wrote: post #106
enigmatic02 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed with 5, it's too prescriptive. Lots of great writers use progressive disclosure to keep people hooked Being unselfish also helps with building great products. Reminds me of this article, treat your reader like a customer: https://www.productlessons.xyz/article/improve-business-writ...

I don't think progressive disclosure applies in the cases the author is discussing. Slide 8: "Most of the writing in the world is for information." Readers looking for information aren't interested in being teased to keep reading. That's a recipe for 'unhooking' them. They want to know what the author thinks they should know. No pussyfooting.

Agree. Adopting a less helpful structure in the name of manipulating the reader, is surely incompatible with unselfish writing. From the article:

> I’m not going to demand that you put up with my quirks (bad spelling, bad organization, sloppiness). I’m going to package the information so that it enters your heads as easily as possible.

If we were discussing fiction writing, that would be different. Fiction writers aren't aiming for maximally efficient communication.

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#128

Post by [deleted] »

supersrdjan wrote: post #115
_ddzr wrote: post #71

Key takeaways: 1. One of the best ways to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary 2. Stuffy writing is bad writing! It lowers the power of your brain and mine! 3. What words should you never use in writing? Words whose exact meanings you don’t know! Never use a word unless you know EXACTLY what it means 4. If your writing is nonsense, maybe your thoughts are nonsense too! 5. To ke…

Combining #7 and #5 leads to: Often write the first sentence of a paragraph last, after you know what is the paragraph's main point.

[deleted]

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#129

Post by kazinator »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #122

This is my writing gem: when you send an email, you either want them to know something or do something, so say that in the first sentence: Good: "FYI, our etcd cluster is broken, but we're working to fix it." Bad: "I came in this morning, and while I was going through my emails when I saw a message about one of the nodes in our cluster. So I checked it out, and sure enough it was down, and I went to the console and s…

Tell the story if the conclusion is unimportant, but there is a story to be told that is cool. Otherwise skip the story.

If the story and the conclusion are important, give the conclusion and then hey, if anyone is interested, here is a story related to the conclusion.

Re: How to write more clearly, think more clearly, and learn complex material [pdf]

#130

Post by pschuegr »

richardatlarge wrote: post #98
johnqian wrote: post #83

I think this is a great presentation. I've found that learning to write has largely a process of unlearning everything I was taught in secondary school. In school we were conditioned to excrete as much bullshit as we could in a fixed amount of time. Everything we learned--new vocabulary, literary techniques--we were told was for sounding more sophisticated, which we unknowingly interpreted as verbose. I even remember…

Another thing done at all levels of schooling is to ignore the needed process of revision. A paper is written and then graded, but if revision was a focus the student would learn a great lesson: great ideas and writing take re-writing

I never thought about this, but it's true. The value of iteration is woefully undersold.
Post reply on HN