> So I stopped – at random – and read the next sentence very carefully. I can’t remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” I went back and forth over it, and translated. You know what it means? “People read.”
If you take the benefit of the doubt on the part of the author of the verbose sentence, then it could be that each of the abstractions in it is relevant. In that case, beginning with "People read" means you have to bring the reader around to the idea that it's relevant for contrasting individuals with collectives, social communities with non-social communities (?), and visual or symbolic types of learning with other types of learning.
Basically what I'm saying is that starting point of "people read" actually might end up verbose enough that it's equally distracting. If those generalities are relevant to the study then the error of the original writer wasn't that she was too wordy, it's that she was too terse. Essentially it would have all these relevant concepts jammed into one sentence and it takes for granted that the reader is already comfortable working with these concepts.
Of course this is not necessarily an error from the perspective of people in the field--this is all from the perspective of the author of the note.
> If you take the benefit of the doubt on the part of the author of the verbose sentence, then it could be that each of the abstractions in it is relevant.
I get Feynmann's point, but you are absolutely right. I took a sociology class in symbolic interactionism years ago and what that original sentence is trying to stress is that:
* We see symbols whose meaning and interpretation is socially determined.
* Those symbols are visual but not always textual.
The original sentence explains why when a person in a blue outfit with badges on the shoulders and a peaked hat yells, "Get down!" you lay on the ground with your hands over your head, but when a person in a spandex jumpsuit and wraparound shades says the same thing you start dancing. Feymann's sentence loses that meaning.
"Your words are expensive." Said to me by my graduate advisor when he said I had not stated something, and I pointed out I had, once, in an earlier section.
My writing style, even my academic writing style, is a result of how I was trained as a writer: as a journalist, from spending so much time on my high school newspaper. I have long felt this was an advantage. I was trained as a writer to write straight-forward prose. And I was trained as an editor to eliminate unnecessary words and try to find the simplest way to say something.
My advisor was right, of course. Academic writing is not journalistic writing. I still try to keep my prose as simple as possible, but now I will repeat important sentiments throughout the paper. People don't read academic papers the same as news stories; readers expect to be able to read sections in relative isolation. If something is important, repeat it! But repeat it simply.
You represent a small intersect of people who are both good writers and academics, so your advice is rare and valuable to people seeking to follow in your footsteps.
Any other tips or strange adaptations you've had to make, in order to make good writing work in academia?
I don't think of it as making good writing work in academia. Good writing is an advantage in academia. Reviewers are more likely to accept your paper, and readers are more likely to read more.
As a student of a former journalist and journalist myself (mainly photojournalism for the independent student paper, but I wrote for the high school paper), I don't agree with the sentiment that they are dissimilar, specifically because of their mutual emphasis on clarity and efficiency. Can the reader still understand the contribution from the abstract or first sentence of every paragraph? What if they just skimmed over the figures and captions? Does the title reflect the content of the work? I have this same attitude as a photojournalist: could a reader understand the event if they were to look at an uncaptioned image?
Not exactly. My advisor, an experienced researcher who already knew what I was writing about, missed an important thing that I said. That meant I failed to communicate something to a very sympathetic reader. That's a big miss. From that, I learned that if something is important, find multiple ways to say it in multiple places.
I only really know academic computer science papers, and even then, papers that tend to have a systems component. Your most important claims, conclusions and results should be stated in your abstract and introduction. Some things are fundamental enough to repeat in your design/analysis and results, and some others will only end up in one of those sections. Don't use the same literal sentence, over-and-over, but reinforce important sentiments. If restating something all over your paper doesn't feel right, then it may not be as important as you think it is.
Academic papers are not novels, and they certainly are not mysteries. Don't hold out on a reveal until the end: say the most important stuff upfront. People often will not read your paper end-to-end, and usually only some of the sections. It's not possible to make your sections truly self-contained, but it's worth repeating fundamental things. If your experimental results are confirming your theoretical analysis, restate that theoretical result in your experimental results as context. If your experimental results demonstrate that a particular design decision you made in your system truly does provide better performance, restate that design decision.
> why is it that a profession so fundamentally
involved in the business of writing ... pays so little attention to this aspect of its work?
I came to a different conclusion shortly before leaving my humanities graduate program: that the bad writing was covering for an absence of valuable insight. If you don't have anything to say, say a lot of bullshit. Nothing I've seen about the field in the last 15 years has made me reconsider that position.
Treating academia as one homogeneous group isn't helpful. In my field (CS) good authors do use concise and easy to understand language to get their points across. Of course domain specific jargon is included, but that is not surprising, as you can convey much more information this way (as you don't have to explain all known concepts over and over again). The target audience is usually well familiar with the language. Scientific writing is not usually meant to be consumed by readers outside a certain community.
Do you worry about the effectiveness of your writing style? As emerging scholars, perfecting the craft of writing is an essential component of developing as graduate students, and yet resources for honing these skills are largely under utilized. Larry McEnerney, Director of the University of Chicago's Writing Program, led this session in an effort to communicate helpful rules, skills, and resources that are available to graduate students interested in further developing their writing style.
"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a litte practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"
Here's a quote from the creator of Calvin and Hobbes that's particularly relevant to the above passage:
> Calvin’s vocabulary puzzles some readers but Calvin has never been a literal six-year-old. Besides, I like Calvin’s ability to precisely articulate stupid ideas.
Unsurprisingly, this applies to programming all too well. A computer program is simply a description of an idea, and the ability to write complex code does not a great programmer make. The best programmers are able to come up with simple solutions to complex problems. The worst programmers are those who devise complex solutions to simple problems.
Complex problems often do not admit simple solutions. What I think you are trying to get at is that the best programmers (and writers, etc.) are able to decompose the complexity into digestible chunks, so that each module (or chapter, etc.) can be understood with relative ease.
Yes, the concept of "carving nature at its joints" seems apt. As does the quote "everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler". The ability to distinguish between essential complexity and accidental complexity.
Readit News
> So I stopped – at random – and read the next sentence very carefully. I can’t remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” I went back and forth over it, and translated. You know what it means? “People read.”
https://thedetectiveshandbook.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/feynm...
This is part of a story in the book (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!) and from the book I understand it happened in the 1950s.
Basically what I'm saying is that starting point of "people read" actually might end up verbose enough that it's equally distracting. If those generalities are relevant to the study then the error of the original writer wasn't that she was too wordy, it's that she was too terse. Essentially it would have all these relevant concepts jammed into one sentence and it takes for granted that the reader is already comfortable working with these concepts.
Of course this is not necessarily an error from the perspective of people in the field--this is all from the perspective of the author of the note.
I get Feynmann's point, but you are absolutely right. I took a sociology class in symbolic interactionism years ago and what that original sentence is trying to stress is that:
* We see symbols whose meaning and interpretation is socially determined.
* Those symbols are visual but not always textual.
The original sentence explains why when a person in a blue outfit with badges on the shoulders and a peaked hat yells, "Get down!" you lay on the ground with your hands over your head, but when a person in a spandex jumpsuit and wraparound shades says the same thing you start dancing. Feymann's sentence loses that meaning.
My writing style, even my academic writing style, is a result of how I was trained as a writer: as a journalist, from spending so much time on my high school newspaper. I have long felt this was an advantage. I was trained as a writer to write straight-forward prose. And I was trained as an editor to eliminate unnecessary words and try to find the simplest way to say something.
My advisor was right, of course. Academic writing is not journalistic writing. I still try to keep my prose as simple as possible, but now I will repeat important sentiments throughout the paper. People don't read academic papers the same as news stories; readers expect to be able to read sections in relative isolation. If something is important, repeat it! But repeat it simply.
Any other tips or strange adaptations you've had to make, in order to make good writing work in academia?
I only really know academic computer science papers, and even then, papers that tend to have a systems component. Your most important claims, conclusions and results should be stated in your abstract and introduction. Some things are fundamental enough to repeat in your design/analysis and results, and some others will only end up in one of those sections. Don't use the same literal sentence, over-and-over, but reinforce important sentiments. If restating something all over your paper doesn't feel right, then it may not be as important as you think it is.
Academic papers are not novels, and they certainly are not mysteries. Don't hold out on a reveal until the end: say the most important stuff upfront. People often will not read your paper end-to-end, and usually only some of the sections. It's not possible to make your sections truly self-contained, but it's worth repeating fundamental things. If your experimental results are confirming your theoretical analysis, restate that theoretical result in your experimental results as context. If your experimental results demonstrate that a particular design decision you made in your system truly does provide better performance, restate that design decision.
I came to a different conclusion shortly before leaving my humanities graduate program: that the bad writing was covering for an absence of valuable insight. If you don't have anything to say, say a lot of bullshit. Nothing I've seen about the field in the last 15 years has made me reconsider that position.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM
LEADERSHIP LAB: The Craft of Writing Effectively
Do you worry about the effectiveness of your writing style? As emerging scholars, perfecting the craft of writing is an essential component of developing as graduate students, and yet resources for honing these skills are largely under utilized. Larry McEnerney, Director of the University of Chicago's Writing Program, led this session in an effort to communicate helpful rules, skills, and resources that are available to graduate students interested in further developing their writing style.
A key point in the video is that when you are a student the reader is paid to read your paper.
When you are not a student - the reader pays to read your paper (or book). Is it worth their time or money?
"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a litte practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/02/11
> Calvin’s vocabulary puzzles some readers but Calvin has never been a literal six-year-old. Besides, I like Calvin’s ability to precisely articulate stupid ideas.
- Bill Waterson