4 ms·
Controversial point, but PGs writing is F-. It seems a lot of effort goes into sounding smart, rather then delivering information required. Who learned anythi
by timavr 7y ago
Controversial point, but PGs writing is F-.
It seems a lot of effort goes into sounding smart, rather then delivering information required.
Who learned anything from above?
- AlwaysBCoding 7y agoThe model of precision and correctness being opposing forces that increase in strength the more you hone in on one is useful for me and something that I had never put into words before.
- jstimpfle 7y agoSame. It isn't a revelation but I still liked the way the idea was put in words. Most articles I've read have less to takeaway.
- friendlybus 7y agoIt simply isn't true though, they are rarely required together. His example of the location of a city could have been replaced with gps co-ordinates in the place of a descriptive phrase. NASA deals with strength and precision together all the time, it's rare that they are both needed on the same task at the same level. The requirements for precision and strength to be shared in an essay is to construct sentences that are clear and cannot be interpreted in multiple ways and then fill in the descriptive detailing with precise information. Strength takes from distilling multiple possible interpretations down into one clear and correct direction. Precision is about highlighting the qualitative properties and exact quantities of your subject. They don't conflict. They are rarely needed together.
- TimPC 7y agoReading random GPS coordinates in an essay without a map in a has high precision but terrible understanding. While it's highly accurate, it's almost useless to the typical reader who would have difficulty knowing that the GPS coordinate is within Colorado. GPS coordinates are for maps not essays.
- friendlybus 7y agoI agree. The context of your essay would make clear both whether you need that much precision and what format to use for the precision. Three miles east of the center of South Carolina is almost accurate enough? Who knows, not accurate enough for NASA and accurate enough for giving coworkers the idea of where your farmland is located.
- WA 7y agoTldr to be honest. I kinda clashed right with the premisse: "How to write useful" and "What should an essay be?" are basically conflicting things in some way. Didn't pg also have an essay on what an essay is and came to the conclusion that an essay is meant to explore a topic for oneself? But could also be that I read this somewhere else. So, an essay is for the writer to explore stuff and have interested readers go along. But useful writing is for the reader only. If pg had cut this essay to less than 500 words (and I bet this could've been done without losing information), it'd been a lot more useful, although probably not an "essay" anymore.
- HereBeBeasties 7y agoI found the whole thing to read like a set of bullet points. Fragmented, rather repetitive in terms of ideas and with no flow. Hard to slog through, to be honest. The author seems to have expended great effort on terseness, writing in very short sentences which artificially forced him to start more of them with coordinate conjunctions than feels comfortable to me. It did not make for an easy read and all felt rather too self-conscious. Good writing should focus me on the ideas, not the annoying syntactic structure of the writing. I didn't get on with it.