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How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly (2006)
- tikhonj 10y agoThe article provides four categories of essays: argument, explanation, definition, description. Personally, I've found it useful to think of almost everything I write as a variation on "argument". Perhaps I'm also describing, defining or explaining something, but there's always a core substrate of persuading. A integral part of defining something well, for example, is to simultaneously argue for why the defined idea is interesting and useful; without that, it's all too easy to descend into abstract nonsense. My approach isn't universally applicable—it leads to a particular writing style—but it certainly helped me in organizing my writing and organizing my thoughts. Whenever I write I'm always making a point even if I wouldn't classically think of it as a "persuasive" essay.
- mastercoder82 10y agoThe key idea is to give your articles/essays some structure before publishing them. That structure will generally be a nested form of constructs like arguments/ definitions/ explanations. I think following two basic things helps: - Give your article a structure. - Make it easy for reader to navigate that structure. It works best when that structure is simple. If it gets much complex, divide it into multiple articles and publish as series/book. If it gets complicated, give it some more thought till it fits into some structure.
- qznc 10y agoI see a fundamental conflict for writing between persuasion and logical argumentation. Persuasive writing means I want to reader to get into an agreement habit. Start with something uncontroversial and work towards your core point. Avoid detours. Avoid negative triggers. In contrast, for a logical argument you should include objections and address them. Persuasion works on a more psychological level and logic is not that relevant. As long as you don't trigger too many bullshit detectors in your audience, you are fine without logic.
- GavinMcG 10y agoI think there's clearly a dimension of persuasion that falls outside strictly logical argumentation. That said, if you're writing something, it had better be something you want others to believe. There needn't be a fundamental difference, in my view. You can structure and describe true premises and relations persuasively without manipulating your reader.
- vonnik 10y agoAccording to Aristotle, persuasion has three parts - logos, pathos and ethos. Your logical argumentation is logos, a powerful tool but not the only way to persuade. Pathos is the appeal to feeling (avoid triggers), and ethos is the establishment of trust, authority, credentials, character. Different persuasive tactics work with different audiences. On HN, logos can work. In US elections, pathos tends to work.
- joe_the_user 10y agoI suspect that any of the four styles is actually broad to be used for any piece of writing someone might do. So everything can be an argument (or an explanation etc). Still, if you see everything you write as argument, perhaps you consider branching out a bit. Everything has a persuasive aspect but letting that persuasive aspect be implicit/toned-down come sometimes makes it stronger - a simple description of a war zone can be a stronger argument against war than a series of logical claims, or oppositely, an explanation of how to use a particular power tool may include an argument that person should use that tool safely but it's not something that needs to be pushed too hard.
- joshmn 10y agoI really like stuff like this. You know, where it's laid out in a straightforward, no-noise formula for doing something. Does anyone have any more of these types of things? Social interactions, design patterns, anything. I love them.
- idlewords 10y agoThe best guide I've ever read to writing nonfiction is William Zinsser's "On Writing Well". If you do any writing for work or pleasure, his advice is indispensable: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548 https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...
- krmmalik 10y agoCompletely agree. I learned more in 2 weeks of reading Zinsser than I did in 3 yrs of English at high school.
- combatentropy 10y agoCompletely agree. However I first read the Elements of Style. In 2 days of reading Strunk & White I unlearned 3 years of high school English. Later I read Zinsser and found him to be saying the same things. But a lot of people say that Zinsser's take is easier to read.
- chatmasta 10y agoOn Writing Well and Elements of Style were required reading in almost every English class I took. Sounds like you had some bad teachers.
- krmmalik 10y agoIt's not a part of our curriculum in the UK. I, and many others like me, had never heard of him before.
- igravious 10y agoThe 1-star reviews are more than a mite worrying. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/product-reviews/0060891548/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_srt?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=recent&pageNumber=1 https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction... I tend to rely more on 1-star reviews than 5-star ones. I find them to be more reliable guides. May I suggest that you write well in spite of the advice given here rather than because of it. :)
- tunesmith 10y agoI think about presenting arguments a lot. Arguments are best represented in DAG form; mostly a tree structure, although some premises might support multiple conclusions so it's inherently graph-based (graphical data structure). Because some conclusions are often lemmas supporting further conclusions, arguments can go several levels deep. I like envisioning them with the conclusion on the top and the premises on the bottom, although people often visualize them flipped in another direction. But the trick comes in presenting the argument to someone else, verbally, in a presentation, or through writing. What is the best way to do it? Because your goal isn't just to impart information; it's also to be convincing and to hope that your counterparts get invested in the conclusion. I find that if the conclusion is counterintuitive, then starting with the conclusion can create resistance. People love to interrupt and argue against something they disagree with even if they haven't thought it through. On the other hand, starting with a bunch of premises devoid of context can just feel unrooted. I guess I generally try to analyze the argument to find the highest (closest to conclusion) points that are not controversial, start with those, and then try to talk about the surprising conclusion that they imply. It can be a real workout, though, trying to anticipate responses, being open to feedback while still working towards your conclusion. I wonder if this sort of thing is related to any algorithmic concepts, like most efficient ways to walk a DAG.
- jarmitage 10y agoI conceptualise arguments in the same way. I think the requirement of serialising arguments and evidence is bogus for the age we live in and would much rather just give the whole graph to an audience to play with, and then elaborate and discuss as needed. Or heaven forbid the reader could have write access!
- philelly 10y agothis essay's style seems endemic in tech writing: logorrheic and trafficking in technical details/protocols in place of the underlying principles (cogency, brevity, a single unifying argument that can be simply stated). i appreciate any tips to aid my writing, but i think very few match the tried and true approach of reading masters of the craft and revising one's writing, again and again, for brevity. i suspect that the blog format discourages the latter.
- pcrh 10y agoI somewhat agree with you here. In fact, as soon as the article starting drifting into lists, I stopped reading and scanned the rest.
- mthoms 10y agoI also agree. But it occurred to me that the authors intent was probably to create a sort of reference guide that could be referred to over and over in order to apply the techniques discussed. In that context, the use of lists makes a lot more sense. What's interesting is that the article also seems to be written in conversational style while at the same time intending to be a re-usable reference. At least, that's my take on it.
- crdb 10y agoThis is because there are two families of tech writing, one is concise and detail oriented, the other is long form because it contains complex ideas that cannot be summarised in bullets. Take as an example most of Dijkstra's output. Could you reduce "On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science" [1] into bullets and still retain its message? [1] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/E...
- kayamon 10y agoUsing bullets is not the same as being succinct.
- 10y ago
- lutusp 10y agoWhy am I not surprised at the poor quality of this writer's prose? An uncontroversial observation that's made worse by its intent -- to teach others how to write. Even the title -- "How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly" -- contains a contradiction: by definition, an expert doesn't require tutorial instruction (expertise is not a transferable consumer product). The essay goes quickly downhill from there. One more example: "But part of it is a simple strategy for writing your essays and articles quickly and expertly, a strategy that allows you to plan your entire essay as you write it, and thus to allow you to make your first draft your final draft." The observation this sentence makes is self-falsifying. The sentence is too long and meandering and cries out for the compassionate intervention of an editor.
- coldshower 10y agoThe article is a mind dump from his blog Half an Hour. The tagline should explain it all: A place to write, half an hour, every day, just for me. URL: http://halfanhour.blogspot.ca/ http://halfanhour.blogspot.ca/
- acagle 10y agoI was turned off by the non-conversational tone of his writing and didn't get beyond the first three or four paragraphs. The sentences are long and pausing constantly with unnecessary commas. This is exactly the kind of writing I am trying to get away from, so I'm not interested in taking advice from someone who does this.
- curried_haskell 10y agoCouldn't even get through the first paragraph, so much for a prolific writer. He can't even wait to jack himself off.
- sctb 10y agoWe don't need comments like this on Hacker News. We ask that you post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
- Spooky23 10y agoIf you focus on the basics, writing descriptive text is really easy. Structure is important. First, be direct and make whatever assertion of statement that you are going to make. Next provide arguments, facts or other narrative that support the assertion. Finally close the narrative. Avoid trying to be too clever. An essay isn't a conversation, and introducing conversational tone is confusing to the reader. Don't be funny. Edit mercilessly. Finally, before you start writing, have a plan about what you are going to say, either in your head or in an outline. Don't let the mechanics of writing get in your way -- if you know what you are going to say, it will be easier to say it.
- bikamonki 10y agoYou cannot fake expert. You cannot rush expert.
- nice1 10y agoThe real mystery is: who is upvoting this? Why?
- nwatson 10y agoPragmatics ... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
- osteele 10y agoCf. Paul Graham's “The Age of the Essay” (2004) http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html Graham's essay is and describes a fifth category of essay. Graham calls this approach “meandering”; it might also be called “exploratory”.
- idlewords 10y ago"An army of words escorting a corporal of thought."
- personlurking 10y agoThanks. I hadn't read that one yet (and it did its job - it surprised me). It was only about 1000x better than the article being discussed here in the comments.
- dredmorbius 10y agoI hadn't read that for a while, and as another comment notes, that's a much better discussion of how to write an essay than TFA here. Interesting too that pg picks up on the Trivium and Quadrivium concepts from medieval education. I'd run across these independently myself and found them profoundly interesting. The trivium, for example, is an input, processing, output system: grammar, logic, rhetoric.
- moridinamael 10y ago> "I, of course, aware of the many hours I have idled away doing nothing, demur." Tip #1: don't use garden path sentences.
- bencollier49 10y agotl;dr
- partycoder 10y agoFor some basic tips, I have found the site "foxtype.com" to be very good. It analyses your text for politeness and conciseness it asks you to rephrase text. -- (now, this is the foxtype suggested text) For some basic tips, the site "foxtype.com" to be good. It analyses text for politeness and conciseness and it suggests alternatives to phrases.
- mthoms 10y agoUnfortunately, they don't seem to have an API. Can anyone recommend something like this that has a REST API?
- mannykannot 10y agoYou might want to take a closer look at the suggested rewrite (especially the initial not-quite-a-sentence) first...
- partycoder 10y agoIt was my bad not the website.
- jcoffland 10y agoWas anyone else bothered by the numerous type-os? I counted at least 10.
- nxzero 10y agoCiting authoritative sources is easily the easiest way to be seen as an expert. Next is having them cite you as an expert source, which is not as hard as it might seem.
- dredmorbius 10y agoA slight difference of opinion. Citing authoritative sources doesn't convey expertise, but is a courtesy to the reader. If you're going to say or claim something, back it up. I'm also picky about how sources are cited, and for anything more than a brief reference, I prefer the author and work be mentioned at least on the first instance, in the text. I'm reading Vaclav Smil currently, who follows the model of (Smith 2015), which I find ... kind of useless: * It's more invasive than a simple footnote or endnote. * It's less descriptive than "George Smith, A Work of Some Note". Which tells me, without having to turn to the back of the book, what I want to look up. * Footnotes, as opposed to endnotes, allow me to quickly find, on the page what it is that's being referenced. This is quite out of fashion. So am I. (On the other hand, endnotes allow quickly skimming all notes of a book in one place. I don't believe this compensates for their numerous other disadvantages.) Expertise isn't based on citing an expert, but in noting the dimensions of a topic or concept, and in particular, the credibly disagreeing points of view. William Ophuls is an author I respect in this. He's absolutely got a point of view (he writes on applying ecological limits to political concepts). But he also notes his principle critics and exemplars of opposing points of view, and frequently considers their views, data, and arguments. This increases my consideration of him greatly.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoWhat is Stephen Downes primary job? He describes himself as a senior researcher and makes bold claims of pioneering and important work in the field of e-learning. Maybe I'm missing his peer reviewed research, I don't see any. I read one unreviewed paper on "Learning Objects" and it had so much fluff it bordered on crankery. Best I can tell he writes blog posts and articles for web sites.
- sopooneo 10y agoYour assessment of Downes may be correct. But I can tell you, that even in actual academic journals, "education research" is a level of self-sustaining garbage like nothing else you have ever encountered. I say this as someone that completed a MEd among some others that went on to be absolute magicians in the classroom. But 90% of the reading assigned for that degree could have passed for parody.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoWow, I had no idea thanks for explaining that.
- dredmorbius 10y agohttp://www.downes.ca/me/index.htm http://www.downes.ca/me/index.htm
- MistahKoala 10y agoHe's a somewhat well-known academic in the field of edtech - 'true' MOOCs in particular. That's not a defence of him, by the way.
- dredmorbius 10y agoThis essay is a counterexample to its own argument. It's poorly written, verbose, poorly organised, self-serving, and offers little in the way of solid advice. An expert essay should have a point and purpose, and execute it with competence. This means a few things, but among others, it means having a grasp of your subject, an understanding of others' understanding or lack of it, a firm grasp of the boundaries of your subject, if those are salient, and the capacity to communicate clearly and with interest. Recognising that all writing is a favour to the reader and not the author is also key. I'm contrasting this essay and its glib advice to Neal Stephenson's "Why I am a Poor Correspondent", in which Stephenson excuses his infrequent presence in email, online discussions and social media, and on interviews and conference panels: he requires long blocks of time, and days of them on end, to be able to produce his primary product, long and complex novels. I've occasionally spilled out long essays in a single continuous pour with little further major revision necessary (though numerous fixes, corrections, and tweaks are virtually always needed). The experience is an exception, and almost always happens only on material I've been thinking over for a long time -- weeks, months, years. I'm sitting on at least a half-dozen essays and reviews right now that I've been kicking around for most of the year, so nine months, simply because I've not had the time and space to organise my thoughts and secure uninterrupted keyboard time in front of a system at which I can call up and incorporate references, and do the topics in mind proper justice. It's frustrating, but as with David Byrne, when I've nothing to say, my lips are sealed. Or at least that's my goal. There's a difference between firehosing words onto a page or into an edit-buffer, and actually writing a coherent, cogent, intelligent piece. This piece fails at that, and fails (other than by contradiction) to show how.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoAgreed. In fact, I can't understand why this repost from 2006 is popular enough to linger on the first page.
- mgalka 10y agoWhat a great post! Very clear and practically helpful. Thanks for posting.
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- banusaur 10y agoThis article is bad advice. Any fool can string a few words together. Truly writing means re-writing. Your first draft is always going to be ugly, raw data. Writing as a craft means taking that given set of words and processing it until it's concise and clear. Cut and replace until your argument is airtight. And another thing: all writing is argument. There are so many great essays about writing that are infinitely better than this - I'm surprised this gained so much traction on HN. Here's one of my favorites by George Orwell: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/ http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit...