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> Being good at writing helps me transmit knowledge and instructions across time and space to other people, helping them understand faster and better. It also s
by thirdsun 8y ago
> Being good at writing helps me transmit knowledge and instructions across time and space to other people, helping them understand faster and better. It also saves me time; I work with people who genuinely struggle to express precise technical information through the written word, spending large amounts of time producing text that really isn't adequate. Often they write as if they're speaking, which just doesn't work.
I'm very familiar with this situation. Since an ever increasing amount of important communication is handled in written form, via mail, slack, in todo lists and project management tools, I noticed how many smart people reduce their writing to several loose thoughts, if not barely connected nouns, that hardly count as sentences, resemble spoken language and almost always require additional discussion and questions to understand the actual meaning.
I think to many people it just feels too cumbersome to write and explain in detail. However the time saved during writing is, of course, lost when the almost inevitable clarifying discussion afterwards is due.
Writing and reading is critical. Take your time to do it well.
- thrower123 8y agoI generally find that people are no more precise in their verbal language than their written, if you actively listen and don't just let the word-salad wash over you. Very few people can achieve much information density, in any medium, but at least when written down the information is persistent.