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How to write an article these days: - Find a newly published paper - Assume it’s true - Build clickbait title - Write 2,000 words, make sure to include refe

How to write an article these days: - Find a newly published paper - Assume it’s true - Build clickbait title - Write 2,000 words, make sure to include references to old Greek philosophers - Publish

mananaysiempre 5y ago
Honestly, “[Anything-s]cientists have discovered a phenomenon that they can’t explain” is like the least clickbaity title ever. It’s basically equivalent to “Scientists have had a good day at work”.
- fsckboy 5y ago
  actually, it's "Scientists have a bad day at work." Scientists explaining a phenomenon is a good day at work. but you're right, it's not clickbaity, except for the elephant in the room, there are way more things neuroscientists can't explain than there are things they can explain.
  - mananaysiempre 5y ago
    Well, kind of, finding things you can’t explain (but still feel you should be able to) can be difficult, so I’d say that “skimmng papers all day and walking away feeling you haven’t changed the contents of your brain much” is the bad day. But yes, actively reducing humanity’s or even your own personal ignorance is a much better day, of course.
  - vishnugupta 5y ago
    > actually, it's "Scientists have a bad day at work." I have read/watched quite a few occasions where scientists (mostly physicists) show child like excitement describing a newly encountered phenomenon that they can't fit in the current model. My grasp of contemporary physics is next to nothing but my guess is the scientists get excited because it opens up an unchartered path. It's an opportunity to expand the envelop of knowledge.
    - fsckboy 5y ago
      yes, and people often laugh after a faceplant, but successfully executing a flip is better.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        This is more like tripping yourself over by moving your arm through your torso and knocking your leg out of position. A failure in a sense, but you just did something nobody else knew people could do.
- serf 5y ago
  "Scientists can't explain mechanism behind neurological representational drift" allows for individuals that understand the terminology to skip reading the article. That's not a good headline, i'm not a journalist -- but the concept of withholding information crucial to the story while using hyperbole in a generic enough way to still be factually accurate to attract both experts and laymen alike to read an article (and more importantly to generate ad-revenue, who cares about readership!?) is the definition of clickbait. Here's my own rule of thumb : If I have to read an article to understand the broad premise, the headline failed it's job journalistically; even if it gets all the hits and ad revenue in the world.
  - mananaysiempre 5y ago
    I think that’s the disconnect here: I don’t see the original headline as attractive at all (or hyperbolic, but that’s irrelevant here). It is not only uninformative (no argument about that), it’s uninformative enough that my reflexive reaction is to shrug and move on. (And I’m not immune to clickbait, but it does have to be enticing.)
- billytetrud 5y ago
  No it's not. That it textbook click bait. "You won't believe this secret that is short enough to put in the headline, but we won't do that"
  - mananaysiempre 5y ago
    It seems that the point of my comment failed to get across (I did try to make it more explicit initially, but the result sounded disparaging and I didn’t like it). I get that the headline is constructed as and meant to be clickbait. But it somehow manages to fit that clickbait mold while being completely bland and boring. Something like “You won’t believe this weird thing neuroscientists can’t explain” (which wouldn’t have made it past the Atlantic editors, hopefully) at least makes an effort to convince you the article is interesting by outright telling you it is.
deepstack 5y ago
this can also be an algorithm for an AI news writer.

mananaysiempre 5y ago

Honestly, “[Anything-s]cientists have discovered a phenomenon that they can’t explain” is like the least clickbaity title ever. It’s basically equivalent to “Scientists have had a good day at work”.

fsckboy 5y ago
actually, it's "Scientists have a bad day at work." Scientists explaining a phenomenon is a good day at work. but you're right, it's not clickbaity, except for the elephant in the room, there are way more things neuroscientists can't explain than there are things they can explain.
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  Well, kind of, finding things you can’t explain (but still feel you should be able to) can be difficult, so I’d say that “skimmng papers all day and walking away feeling you haven’t changed the contents of your brain much” is the bad day. But yes, actively reducing humanity’s or even your own personal ignorance is a much better day, of course.
- vishnugupta 5y ago
  > actually, it's "Scientists have a bad day at work." I have read/watched quite a few occasions where scientists (mostly physicists) show child like excitement describing a newly encountered phenomenon that they can't fit in the current model. My grasp of contemporary physics is next to nothing but my guess is the scientists get excited because it opens up an unchartered path. It's an opportunity to expand the envelop of knowledge.
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    yes, and people often laugh after a faceplant, but successfully executing a flip is better.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      This is more like tripping yourself over by moving your arm through your torso and knocking your leg out of position. A failure in a sense, but you just did something nobody else knew people could do.
serf 5y ago
"Scientists can't explain mechanism behind neurological representational drift" allows for individuals that understand the terminology to skip reading the article. That's not a good headline, i'm not a journalist -- but the concept of withholding information crucial to the story while using hyperbole in a generic enough way to still be factually accurate to attract both experts and laymen alike to read an article (and more importantly to generate ad-revenue, who cares about readership!?) is the definition of clickbait. Here's my own rule of thumb : If I have to read an article to understand the broad premise, the headline failed it's job journalistically; even if it gets all the hits and ad revenue in the world.
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  I think that’s the disconnect here: I don’t see the original headline as attractive at all (or hyperbolic, but that’s irrelevant here). It is not only uninformative (no argument about that), it’s uninformative enough that my reflexive reaction is to shrug and move on. (And I’m not immune to clickbait, but it does have to be enticing.)
billytetrud 5y ago
No it's not. That it textbook click bait. "You won't believe this secret that is short enough to put in the headline, but we won't do that"
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  It seems that the point of my comment failed to get across (I did try to make it more explicit initially, but the result sounded disparaging and I didn’t like it). I get that the headline is constructed as and meant to be clickbait. But it somehow manages to fit that clickbait mold while being completely bland and boring. Something like “You won’t believe this weird thing neuroscientists can’t explain” (which wouldn’t have made it past the Atlantic editors, hopefully) at least makes an effort to convince you the article is interesting by outright telling you it is.

deepstack 5y ago

this can also be an algorithm for an AI news writer.