4 ms·
Here's one example of this kind of phenomenon. If you really want to understand a question, write a paper about it. It's easy enough to read five or ten researc
by ionfish 16y ago
Here's one example of this kind of phenomenon. If you really want to understand a question, write a paper about it. It's easy enough to read five or ten research papers in an area, and if you do that thoroughly, and write extensive notes as you do so, you'll start to feel that you understand the area and the issues involved.
However, if the way you learn is much like mine, when you try to start writing you will realise that you haven't grasped it with anything like the fullness that you had thought. Start writing anyway: you have a bibliography, and hopefully you have a rough idea of the thesis you want to defend. Write the literature review sections. Sketch outlines of arguments, and then try to take them apart. Find counterexamples. If your position has any merit, you will eventually figure out some convincing arguments. Flesh them out: write a first draft, as rough as you like. Improve it by smoothing out poor phrasing and removing extravagant, unsupported claims (it may only be obvious once you've written them that this is what they are).
After some time you will have a reasonably presentable paper. More than that, though, you will actually understand the issues: how the various ideas in the field fit together, why you really disagree with some of the papers you've read, and perhaps even what your own take on it is. It's hard work! But writing is what makes the difference. If you just read a lot you can come away with the misapprehension that you understand the field, when in reality you just know a lot about what people have written.
- bartonfink 16y agoI think you're spot on. You don't really understand something unless you can explain it to an interested yet uninformed outsider.
- mahmud 16y agoIf you think writing prose solidifies your understanding of a subject, try formalizing its findings as knowledge .. in code. Most specifications can be turned into a database for some form of Prolog, play with it. At the very least, you might get yourself a type or model checker, or you might get lucky and actually get an expert system out of it.
- arghnoname 16y agoI think the strength comes from being forced to defend your positions. Any paper worth its salt anticipates and defuses most likely objections. It really does force away any areas where one might have hand-waved. I think (as someone else mentioned too) teaching is generally good because one never knows where and when a challenge may present itself, but I'd suspect a paper gives deeper results, whereas teaching gives broader results, and both give more than study with neither.
- ashearer 16y agoThis is what I've found about programming as well. Computers are unforgiving of any gaps in your understanding, so explaining a process to a computer improves both you and the computer. Of course, not all ideas can be so neatly expressed in code. Constructing essays and explanations for people is similar, though it's easier to finesse gaps with rhetorical tricks.
- ojbyrne 16y agoAnother way - if you really want to understand something, teach it. The preparation required to not embarrass yourself in front of students is huge.
- arghnoname 16y agoI never put two and two together, but I have long been amazed at how well I understand how the EU is put together, its history, etc, all just from having to write a 20 page paper on the topic once. This is true of other topics as well. More than once I've gone into it and came out the other side with the opposite opinion I started with. But despite the clear efficacy of this method, it never occurred to me to do it on my own, just to learn something. It's a lot of work and somewhat painful, but I suppose a more complete mastery always is.
- cema 16y agoAnd my experience is: I do not really understand it unless I can program it. To sum up this subthread: we all understand "it" better when we have experience of active involvement with it, not just passive studying.
- csomar 16y agoThat works well, along with teaching; however, it takes extensively huge time and is very tiring (needs lot of efforts and patience).