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How to Write Usefully

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Write Usefully

#251

Post by HereBeBeasties »

timavr wrote: post #6

Controversial point, but PGs writing is F-. It seems a lot of effort goes into sounding smart, rather then delivering information required. Who learned anything from above?

I found the whole thing to read like a set of bullet points. Fragmented, rather repetitive in terms of ideas and with no flow. Hard to slog through, to be honest.

The author seems to have expended great effort on terseness, writing in very short sentences which artificially forced him to start more of them with coordinate conjunctions than feels comfortable to me. It did not make for an easy read and all felt rather too self-conscious. Good writing should focus me on the ideas, not the annoying syntactic structure of the writing.

I didn't get on with it.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#252

Post by lliamander »

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,…

Writing is hard. for many people, writing anything at all is a struggle. That struggle also can go away with practice. Eventually you get to the point where expressing yourself with the written word becomes very natural.

Of the criteria that Paul suggested (true, important, novel, clear) I would say that novice writers should strive to write with just one of those qualities (which can vary from one piece of writing to another).

As you achieve fluency and words just flow from the pen (or keyboard) and the focus shifts away from being able to express yourself, you add the other criteria to improve the quality of the ideas you express.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#253

Post by lliamander »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #218
Psyladine wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Policing tone is passive aggressive censorship & bias. It's as hideous a concept as 'culture appropriation' or the cult of positivity. https://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977

"Tone policing" is a term made up by rude people in an attempt to excuse themselves for being rude. If someone in your group is yelling "fuck you" at another group, it's never going to help, and it's okay to point that out.

The contrast between your argument and your tone is amusing.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#254

Post by lliamander »

skybrian wrote: post #215
NoodleIncident wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The essay isn't confusing in general just because you were confused when you read it. There isn't a single argument in that essay that depends on which flavor of encrypted email is used, so being specific about that would only weaken the points being made. The essay is also pretty clear in saying that email can be used for stuff that doesn't need to be kept secret, and that it's not fit for anything that does.

So is it saying that big email providers like GMail shouldn't opportunistically encrypt email in transit or at rest? Or that we should avoid email services that do? Clearly not as there is no harm in it, the UI is unchanged, and it prevents certain attacks. You have to know that by "encrypted email" means "end-to-end encrypted email" to make any sense of the essay, otherwise the claim is too broad. It states the clai…

It makes the following claims:

* encryption of email in transit is good because it does provide some security against things like dragnets.

* attempts to bolt end-to-end encryption on email, regardless of what tools you use, are insufficient to provide any real security against the kinds of threats you generally use end-to-end encryption against.

* If you need secure messaging, use Signal

* If you need to send documents securely, use Magic Wormhole or age

EDIT: and if you don't need secure messaging, then continue to use email

Re: How to Write Usefully

#256

Post by tptacek »

lliamander wrote: post #254
skybrian wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it saying that big email providers like GMail shouldn't opportunistically encrypt email in transit or at rest? Or that we should avoid email services that do? Clearly not as there is no harm in it, the UI is unchanged, and it prevents certain attacks. You have to know that by "encrypted email" means "end-to-end encrypted email" to make any sense of the essay, otherwise the claim is too broad. It states the clai…

It makes the following claims: * encryption of email in transit is good because it does provide some security against things like dragnets. * attempts to bolt end-to-end encryption on email, regardless of what tools you use, are insufficient to provide any real security against the kinds of threats you generally use end-to-end encryption against. * If you need secure messaging, use Signal * If you need to send docume…

Not that I want to perpetuate a discussion about my post on this thread, but "use Signal" isn't the claim we make; "use any modern secure messenger, they are all better than email" is the claim we made.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#257

Post by AgentME »

luord wrote: post #128

Interestingly, I saw an example of the phenomenon of people getting mad at the certainty of an essay in this very site, a few days ago. Someone was telling the author that he would achieve more if he phrased his point in a more "polite" way, just because the certainty of the writing made the critic mad. Thankfully, the author was here in the comments responding, and he didn't budge. That interaction was very refreshi…

It's one thing to argue exactly how much politeness is necessary and whether a specific article meets the standard or not, but it seems ridiculous to write off the entire concept of politeness. If someone wrote an article arguing a point and included tons of expletives at anyone who believed otherwise -- even if they're fully right and it's about an important safety issue -- then the article probably isn't going to be good at convincing anyone who came in already believing otherwise. The article will just be cheerleading and a pat on the back for people that believed the article's point to begin with. (Sometimes that's useful to energize people who already believed the article's point, but in that case people should be clear that's the point of the article, and not delude themselves into thinking the article is something they can send to people to win them over.)

Re: How to Write Usefully

#258

Post by heyyyouu »

Edmond wrote: post #58

You can start by not using the word: "Usefully" :)

Not only is it a horrible word it's not even accurate in this context -- it's modifying "To Write" which is the infinitive verb, which really is the action of the writing, not the result, which is what the author actually wants to convey.

Normally this wouldn't bug me so much but on an essay about effective writing....urgh.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#259

Post by clairity »

rmason wrote: post #5
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 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.…

packing a lot into sentences is entirely different from writing short sentences. for instance, pynchon packs a ton into his sentences, yet they're long and winding at the same time (confusingly so, sometimes).

hemingway's sentences are just short, like playing every note in staccato, which in itself can become tiring (i like, but don't love, hemingway).

Re: How to Write Usefully

#260

Post by luord »

AgentME wrote: post #257
luord wrote: post #128

Interestingly, I saw an example of the phenomenon of people getting mad at the certainty of an essay in this very site, a few days ago. Someone was telling the author that he would achieve more if he phrased his point in a more "polite" way, just because the certainty of the writing made the critic mad. Thankfully, the author was here in the comments responding, and he didn't budge. That interaction was very refreshi…

It's one thing to argue exactly how much politeness is necessary and whether a specific article meets the standard or not, but it seems ridiculous to write off the entire concept of politeness. If someone wrote an article arguing a point and included tons of expletives at anyone who believed otherwise -- even if they're fully right and it's about an important safety issue -- then the article probably isn't going to b…

I'm having trouble seeing how anything you said in this comment is relevant to anything I wrote in mine. So much so I am tempted to ask if you accidentally replied to the wrong person.

Among other things, I never "wrote off the entire concept of politeness", the article I was talking about didn't include a ton of expletives, I never commented on how convincing or not the article was and I don't remember the article itself doing so either.

That's actually what made the comments on politeness, and reaching more people that way, even weirder in context (which is why they stuck with me, funny how that works).

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