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Writing and Speaking

paulgraham.com

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Re: Writing and Speaking

#81

Post by pg »

apl wrote: post #56
pg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me the sentence where I claimed that?

You don't claim that, of course, but something of similar intent is implied in this paragraph: > A few years later I heard a talk by someone who > was not merely a better speaker than me, but > a famous speaker. Boy was he good. So I > decided I'd pay close attention to what he > said, to learn how he did it. After about ten > sentences I found myself thinking "I don't > want to be a good speaker." A charitable readi…

I don't see how you think that passage implies "people who speak [well] cannot think." All I'm saying is that speaking well depends little on having good ideas. That doesn't imply people who speak well can't have good ideas, just that they don't need to.

Playing soccer well depends little on having good ideas. Is someone who says that saying "clarity of thought or soccer ability, pick one?"

Re: Writing and Speaking

#82

Post by mbateman »

pg wrote: post #64
apl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two key passages: > Having good ideas is most of writing well. Disagreed. Written style matters, and whenever it doesn't matter, neither would it matter in spoken form. Your writing style happens to be lean, concise, reduced. But that doesn't just happen -- or are all your essays first drafts? Would they work as well in flowery prose? > (...) it was a revelation to me how much less ideas mattered > in speaking than w…

See what a useful exercise it is to look at the actual sentences I wrote? Gone are the claims that I consider the extra things you can do in a talk "mere baggage" (I said the opposite in the last paragraph) and that "essays are baggage-free" (I said the opposite in the 8th paragraph). Now all I'm being accused of is claiming that having good ideas is most of writing well, and that it is a smaller component of speakin…

Are those really commonplaces? Because they are both false. Having good ideas is equally important for speaking and writing well. And you can be snowed in multiple media.

Your #1, at least, applies to both speaking and writing. In fact I'd think it applies more to speaking. Think of teachers and lecturers who can explain things with analogies on the fly, vs. those who just repeat things at the same level.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#83

Post by rshe »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #46

False modesty aside, I am a very good public speaker. Doing debate in high school, I had an undefeated regular season, as in not losing a single round. I say this just to point out that I'm not a mediocre public speaker championing the written word. Paul Graham is right, but it depends more on context than he suggests: Speaking about a technical subject, you want to communicate the ideas themselves. The emotional con…

This may be particular to the field of biology, but I find biology talks to be much more interesting than papers. One contributing factor is that important papers in Science and Nature are subject to stringent length limitations. This limits the writer's ability to unfurl a coherent narrative. Oftentimes, years of research are condensed into a handful of figures and sentences that cannot convey the more subtle points of the argument (for that the reader is directed to the supplementary information, which is often many times longer than the actual paper).

On a more macroscopic scale, talks also allow scientists to highlight deeper themes that are often lost in the minutiae of a technical paper. This is especially important in biology because we want to find universal paradigms from experiments done on model organisms. A talented speaker can distill the most important themes from a body of research in a way that writing rarely achieves.

In summary, talks are a great medium for conveying conceptual narratives. In biology talks, the important assertions are almost always backed up by a slide that shows real data. However, if I am an expert in a particular subfield and really want to get into the details, of course I'll go read the paper.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#84

Post by Tycho »

One added benefit of seeing a speaker rather than just reading an essay is that you can better judge the conviction in their statements. Lots of people trim their essays/articles to a state of dry assertiveness, because it's the expected style. But in person they're more likely to add things like 'and i spent a long time trying to work this out, and to be honest I'm not sure I've got it right, but my working conclusion is that...'

Re: Writing and Speaking

#85

Post by ahoyhere »

The whole thesis behind this essay is overly facile. A person who is a bad public speaker -- and admits it -- propounding on The Meaning of Public Speaking, its worth, and comparing it to acting (when he presumably is not, and has never been, an actor), and making all sorts of broad sweeping statements which seem to make sense in the moment the sentence passes into your brain but which, if examined for a moment, do not hold up to rational inspection whatsoever.

No citations. No references to other writers, speakers, or thinkers. Just pure, bald, superficial statement.

I can't recommend more strongly that you read this essay by Maciej Cegłowski, the founder of Pinboard:

http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

Then this essay on classical style:

http://t.co/EmDMquOx

Re: Writing and Speaking

#86

Post by david927 »

I think it's the same distinction as telling someone something (as in notes) and showing someone something (as in art). When you show someone something, making them experience it empathetically, it can change who they are. They can accept the information viscerally. Sometimes, strangely, just knowing new information isn't enough -- we have to feel it.

A good talk can make someone feel emotional, as if they arrived at the information on their own, and that they "owned" the new knowledge. And that's a very powerful thing.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#87

Post by yequalsx »

pg wrote: post #70
o1iver wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't say that per se, but I felt it in the undertone of the whole essay. See some of these sentences: "As I was doing it I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it was only then I realized he hadn't said very much." "Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction." "But here again there's a…

I try to make the strongest claims I can that are true. If I believed something as extreme as what you claim I said, I'd say it. Which means if I didn't say it, I didn't say it. Though the difference in meaning between what you claim I said and what you're able to quote me as saying may seem small to you, there is a critical difference between them: what you claim I said is false, and the sentences you quote are true…

I don't know you personally. I've read the majority of your essays. Your essays are well thought out and that what you write is purposeful. However, it isn't entirely unreasonable to think that you may[2] you have conveyed something in your writing that you didn't intend. Such a thing must occur occasionally.

I agree with the person you responded to that your essay did come across as having as an undercurrent that good speakers tend not have as much depth in what they say. What you say about spending time on delivery coming at the cost (sometimes!) of content makes sense when I think of politicians and salesmen. I'm don't agree when it comes to more cerebral settings.

[1] edit: Changed "It appears..." to "Your.." because your essays are well thought out and purposeful. It's not just an appearance.

[2] edit: Added the word "may".

Re: Writing and Speaking

#88

Post by drucken »

apl wrote: post #56
pg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me the sentence where I claimed that?

You don't claim that, of course, but something of similar intent is implied in this paragraph: > A few years later I heard a talk by someone who > was not merely a better speaker than me, but > a famous speaker. Boy was he good. So I > decided I'd pay close attention to what he > said, to learn how he did it. After about ten > sentences I found myself thinking "I don't > want to be a good speaker." A charitable readi…

Actually, a far more direct "charitable reading" of that is:

A. regardless of how good someone is at public speaking, it is largely independent of their writing skill.

An additional possible inference from the article is:

B. they may/should find it significantly more efficient to impart those or even more ideas in writing than in speech. That is, some aspect of writing itself is simply more efficient than speech for transfer of idea information.

However, I do agree that pg's article does seem to gloss over,

1. the binding effect of emotion to ideas. Emotion is far easier to impart and create via public speaking due to intonation, pauses, story-telling, comedy, body language etc (not even going to add side channels like slides, though they are likely important). Several studies have shown that, for example, comedy is an extremely strong means to reinforce the transfer of new information or complex ideas due to the body's physical and biochemical response.

2. audience interaction does not have to be negative or neutral, but can often reveal how much is new information or what those participants value the most.

Of course, ultimately, to expect pg to cover even a fraction of the full dynamics of public speech and language writing in one blog article maybe is asking a little too much :)

Re: Writing and Speaking

#89

Post by akg »

In general I agree with the premise that talks are more about conveying a vision, illicit emotion, and are prone to mob reactions. However, I wonder how much of that is changing due to the fact that most talks are now available to view online. Once you can view talks at your own leisure, you can spend more time thinking about the speaker's points (via seeking and pausing) and you are also not susceptible to the reactions of those around you.

I wonder how much the availability of talks in this way affects their content. I would think that talks are moving more in the direction of writing since the speakers words can be heard and thought about without external influences -- which in turn can be used to generate new ideas.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#90

Post by andrewacove »

I find it interesting to contrast this to the requirements for the YC application video:

Please do not recite a script written beforehand. Just talk spontaneously as you would to a friend. People delivering memorized speeches (or worse still, text read off the screen) usually come off as stupid. Unless you're a good enough actor to fake spontaneity, you lose more in the stilted delivery than you gain from a more polished message.

Footnote 2 seems relevant. I'd guess that most YC application videos are also made of spolia.

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