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How to Write Usefully

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Write Usefully

#31

Post by strongbond »

Traster wrote: post #26

>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. I learned it from my friend Robert Morris, who has a horror of saying anything dumb. His 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. How is this useful? How do I say things that are…

I know several people who keep silent until they can say something clever, and frankly, in most group situations they stand out as being slightly weird. Keeping your intellectual powder dry is just not a socially 'giving' behaviour. What's wrong with saying something that's not clever? Within a group, it might send the conversation off in a delightfully unanticipated direction. There's more to it all than always being right. Or clever.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#32

Post by jstimpfle »

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #21
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?

The model of precision and correctness being opposing forces that increase in strength the more you hone in on one is useful for me and something that I had never put into words before.

Same. It isn't a revelation but I still liked the way the idea was put in words. Most articles I've read have less to takeaway.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#33

Post by mochialex »

Ditto for correctness, importance, and strength. In effect the four components are like numbers you can multiply together to get a score for usefulness.

What is the fourth component?

Re: How to Write Usefully

#34

Post by pzqmpzqm »

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 thing I liked most was the second, and to me unexpected section, full of the reasons haters gonna hate.

I speak only for myself, and this is a throwaway, so nothing personal is at stake. This is a very lucid and precise examination of the fine controls at stake in writing. Their natural tension, the details of qualification. In my opinion, which may be trash, who knows, this will be cited for years to come because it is, in fact, true.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#35

Post by jstummbillig »

hnhg wrote: post #3

I'll say it again, it's a piece of writing that wouldn't warrant any attention if it weren't for the author's status here. I'm halfway through and my brain is stunned by the effort of forcing it down. PG needs a break from writing for a while. I enjoyed his early stuff and I hope he gets a return to form. [edit: it's like he's the George Lucas of writing useful articles for hackers: the early ones were classics but h…

This is incredibly lazy criticism. You add no analysis, reasoning or anything of value.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#36

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #20
_Nat_ wrote: post #15

> What should an essay be? Many people would say persuasive. That's what a lot of us were taught essays should be. Yeah, essays written for a class on persuasive writing should be persuasive. Because that's what the class is about -- students are supposed to be learning how to express their ideas about how things should be done to, e.g., their boss, coworkers, clients, potential investors, etc.. However, I hope no on…

> Yeah, essays written in a class that's focusing on persuasive writing should be persuasive. Because that's what the class is about The five paragraph essay which is typically taught as a foundational expository/analytical writing tool is actually quite poor for analytical writing, and not great for expository writing, but heavily leans on the rule of threes which is a guideline for persuasive communication. > Schoo…

[deleted]

Re: How to Write Usefully

#37

Post by netcan »

gandutraveler wrote: post #14

The other day I was helping friend with an essay and i realized how 12 years in software programming has changed my writing style. Now it seems very awkward to think and write in long paragraphs. It feels more natural to use bullet points for everything.

I think this is a very modern thing... because internet.

"The medium is the message" applies to writing more than anything. The medium has been rapidly evolving.

Average people wrote very little pre-PC, and the contexts are totally different. Much higher rates of output, frequency, etc. Bullet point style is good for information dense messages, provided they are short enough. We do a lot of this now, it's how we "talk" at work.

The style isn't new, it's just that many more of us have a use for it today. In the past, it was common in a military context, for example..

Re: How to Write Usefully

#38

Post by rimliu »

meekstro wrote: post #16
hnhg wrote: post #3

I'll say it again, it's a piece of writing that wouldn't warrant any attention if it weren't for the author's status here. I'm halfway through and my brain is stunned by the effort of forcing it down. PG needs a break from writing for a while. I enjoyed his early stuff and I hope he gets a return to form. [edit: it's like he's the George Lucas of writing useful articles for hackers: the early ones were classics but h…

Would you be kind enough to share any links to your own writing and some of the key factors that improved it. I wish to improve my communication and appreciate that Paul Graham thought hard then freely shared his insights on such a difficult topic for a great deal of people. I've always wondered how and why Geoff Bezos ran Amazon with six page essays and now I think I'm a bit closer to understanding.

Do you also ask cinema critics to show their own movies, food critics to provide their own food, etc.? One does not necessarily need to be able to _make_ something to be able to _tell_ whether something is good or not.

Re: How to Write Usefully

#39

Post by deelly »

jstummbillig wrote: post #35
hnhg wrote: post #3

I'll say it again, it's a piece of writing that wouldn't warrant any attention if it weren't for the author's status here. I'm halfway through and my brain is stunned by the effort of forcing it down. PG needs a break from writing for a while. I enjoyed his early stuff and I hope he gets a return to form. [edit: it's like he's the George Lucas of writing useful articles for hackers: the early ones were classics but h…

This is incredibly lazy criticism. You add no analysis, reasoning or anything of value.

Recursive sarcasm?

Re: How to Write Usefully

#40

Post by rimliu »

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…

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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