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

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

#71

Post by _ddzr »

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 keep things clear and readable: Put the main point of each paragraph in its first sentence

6. Pretend you’re writing a textbook! That’s how I ended up writing so many books...Organizing knowledge Learning is a lot like writing a book

7. I often write the introduction last, after I know what it will introduce!

8. Never draw the reader’s eye to anything that is not the main point

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

#72

Post by BurningFrog »

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.

"Brevity is the soul of wit", and saying what you have to say with as few and simple words as possible is essential for a good writer.

It is, however, far from the only important thing!

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

#73

Post by laszlojamf »

rfrey wrote: post #50
gfodor wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The essence, perhaps... with none of the nuance or shading. If one thinks that is unnecessary, dispensable fluff, Twitter is no doubt sufficient for most writing. And a rhyming dictionary contains all poetry in many fewer pages.

Before twitter it was called aphorisms and Nietzsche was doing it before it was cool.

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

#74

Post by iworshipfaangs2 »

Trasmatta wrote: post #9

Something that's coming to mind while reading this is how much company communication these days happens almost exclusively on Slack, and how antithetical that format can be to writing and thinking clearly.

I don’t understand. Slack is written communication. How could that be antithetical to writing? Every time you use it is an opportunity to practice.

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

#75

Post by nonrandomstring »

This stuck out for me;

> "Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are not a layer of added decoration. They help express the meaning. If you let a computer “correct” them, you may not get what you intend."

The stilted formulations of Grammarly powered student essays is getting obvious to me. Does anyone else feel that assisted writing has every drop of personality wrung out of it?

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

#76

Post by _hcuq »

_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…

What books have you written?

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

#77

Post by k__ »

_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…

1. is not obvious.

For example, if you want to tell a story or go for specific emotions.

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

#78

Post by westcort »

_hcuq wrote: post #76
_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…

What books have you written?

I just wanted to clarify that these are the main points extracted from the PowerPoint linked. I actually do write for a living, but most of what I write is proprietary for closed distribution.

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

#79

Post by chrisweekly »

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…

See also "First, You Write a Sentence" by Joe Moran.

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

#80

Post by westcort »

k__ wrote: post #77
_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…

1. is not obvious. For example, if you want to tell a story or go for specific emotions.

To be clear, this is just a simple summary of the source. I agree with your statement, though. In fact, as Rudolf Flesch said in his book, How To Write Speak And Think More Effectively, "So here we have the secret of plain conversational talk: it is not difficult ideas expressed in easy language, it is rather abstractions embedded in small talk. It is heavy stuff packed with excelsior. If you want to be better understood you don’t have to leave out or change your important ideas; you just use more excelsior. It’s as simple as that." The point his is making that the few clear simple points can be packed with some excelsior to improve clarity.
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