Five Paragraph Essays • Hacker News Board

Re: Five Paragraph Essays

#71

Post by clauer » Sun, Jan 05, 2014, 2:48 AM UTC

grellas wrote: post #29

A nice post whose essential point is that you should eschew formulaic methods of writing that force you to fit your thoughts into a rigid format and thus hamper your ability to express them in a way that best suits the subject. Writing style most definitely ought to be customized for its subject and context. Some say to write simply. This can be good. You engage your reader. You use active voice. You limit adverbs. Y…

In the craftsman's toolbox I would add Virginia Tufte's lovely and inspiring book "Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style". To write better, one must write better sentences. Start here.

Re: Five Paragraph Essays

#72

Post by ntumlin » Sun, Jan 05, 2014, 4:06 AM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #67

ijk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A nice post whose essential point is that you should eschew formulaic methods of writing that force you to fit your thoughts into a rigid format and thus hamper your ability to express them in a way that best suits the subject. Caveat: rigid formats are de rigueur in some poetry, such as sonnets and haiku. Though if press releases were customarily haikus, I think everyone would be happier.

Though if press releases were customarily haikus, I think everyone would be happier. I'd settle for limericks. For all the perceived annoyances of rigid formats they seem to have the benefit of forcing you to really think about what you want to say. I've done a few Ignite talks, and one talk following the pechakucha format, and they are fairly demanding. I generally start preparing for such talks by writing out an es…

We're releasing a new Macbook Air

Made of metal with the same Apple flair

But if you ask Steve

If it'll play DVD's

You'll be met with a blank 10 yard stare.

Re: Five Paragraph Essays

#73

Post by jerf » Sun, Jan 05, 2014, 4:19 AM UTC

nkarpov wrote: post #70

jerf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem with the 5 paragraph essay, is that it's a rule-of-thumb. It's a good guide, but isn't necessarily appropriate." The problem with the 5 paragraph essay is that it isn't a rule of thumb, it isn't a good guide, and it is never appropriate. Except maybe as a brief skeleton to build a student's understanding of longer-form writing on, to be discarded in the next assignment or two, but to be grading outgoing…

I agree that it's a terrible format but why exactly is it a bad format to be graded on? If you are able to construct a good 5 paragraph essay then you certainly have demonstrated the ability to make a point, come up with arguments to support that point, coherently link them together, and finally to write them down using the language of your choice. You're right - the format doesn't show up outside of school. And if w…

Unfortunately, while in theory you are correct, in practice it seems to be a demonstrable fact that many people who can write the 5-paragraph essay and score very well on such standardized tests can still in fact be incapable of coherently expressing themselves in any other context. I'm not sure I can entirely explain it, but the observation is pretty clear. I'd theorize that it's the same basic story as any other excessively-structured thing we teach our children; we think they're learning X, when in fact they're just learning the structure we poured X into.

(See also our math curriculum's ability to convince people that "=" is not symmetric by the repeated hammering of "1 + 4 = ___"; we think we're teaching them math and using "equals", they're learning that the "=" symbol means something more like "simplify and reduce" and that it has a direction. Grab three random people with the "usual" math education (i.e., not programmers), and see if they will agree that "1 + 3 = 2 + 2" (you may need to put an underline under the 2 + 2); I think you'll find a lot of them insist that is "wrong" and the right hand side "should/must be 4". And that's just one example.)

Re: Five Paragraph Essays

#74

Post by Ma8ee » Sun, Jan 05, 2014, 8:26 AM UTC

raymondduke wrote: post #34

As a copywriter, I know that the better you are at fine writing, the more of a disadvantage you are in. When you write to sell, you want the focus to be on the product - not your smooth talking voice. Imagine a salesperson using poetry to sell you something. Although it would be entertaining, it would not help sell the product. Don't write to entertain. Don't write to make YOU sound better. Write for THEM. The proble…

It's news to me that people with degrees are struggling more than people without. Of course few people gives a shit about my PhD diploma. What they care about is the skills, knowledge and analytic abilities I perfected while training for it.