- Writing and Editing
- Using the wrong words hurts
- unprofessional, distracting
- Reduce errors and increase insights / Seeing what others don't
- Writing is
- consistently making good structure
- words / structure / drafting / editing
- as well as time management
- Notes from exercises
- Mechanics: how
- Strategy: why
- Expressive writing can be very valuable to process ideas, events, thoughts; and even deal with pressure
- Resources
- The Craft of Writing Effectively
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM
- Avoid rules for valuable work – focus on readers
- "Expert writers": writing about a subject with expert knowledge
- Writing is helping think up new ideas about the world
- Should change the way they see the world
- Experts write with one pattern, read with another pattern
- If it doesn't match expectations
- Re-read
- Slow down
- Aggravate
- <abandon>
- Writing needs to be
- valuable
- persuasive, organized, clear
- Value lies with the readers
- Don't explain
- No one cares about the inside of your head
- Professional writing is not conveying ideas to your readers
- it's about changing their ideas
- nothing should be accepted until it's been challenged by someone competent to challenge it
- It's not important
- try to explain to make people understand
- new/original is not knowledge
- Knowledge moves with people
- Stuff gets added
- Stuff gets removed
- Certain words communicate value
- particular to the community
- very unlikely to create value or be persuasive without knowing readers
- identify the people in power
- give them what they want
- actually: challenge the community
- but in the terms of the community
- make the individual voice valuable to the readers
- Anything you write should help readers understand something better
- The function of writing is to move the system forward
- Language has several functions
- Mechanics
- but/inconsistent/anomaly/challenge/contradiction/instability
- Structure
- start with the readers' problem
- follow up with a solution
- has to be unstable
- show the readers that the instability poses a cost to them
- "Functional writing"
- Scientific Writing Beyond tips and techniques TODO
- The Science of Strong Business Writing
- https://hbr.org/2021/07/the-science-of-strong-business-writing
- Validate effects of good writing
- Recommendations
- Simplicity: short sentences, familiar words, clean syntax
- People expect simpler explanations to be more likely to be correct
- Cut extraneous words
- Active voice
- Drill down into salient points and skip tangential details
- Specificity: neurons "embody" the words
- Use vivid language
- Memorable shorthand phrase
- Surprise: makes the message stick
- Reward readers with novelty
- Stirring Language: package feeling and thought
- Seductiveness: build anticipation
- Smart thinking: build insight leading to an aha moment
- Social content: reveal traces of yourself
- refer to the reader directly: "you"
- Storytelling
- "Reward readers as you would yourself"