8 ms·

How to say nothing in 500 words

132 points by irahul 14y ago

latortuga 14y ago
This article reminded me of "Thank You For Smoking" where the young kid asks his dad what he should write about on the topic of "Why is the American government the best government in the world". Aaron Eckhart's character ends up explaining that the question is ridiculous because it carries implicit assumptions (America is the best government in the world, 'best' can somehow be measured) without explaining them. He follows that with an explanation that this is basically an invitation to write whatever you want - write about tariffs, write about executing felons, write about our appeal system. It's not about the question, it's about the writing.
irahul 14y ago
Hey folks. There is currently a flame war going on about using grammar as litmus test for hiring. I thought it's a good time to re-post this. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1904584 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1904584 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008246 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008246 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=239147 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=239147 Sorry about the archive link. The original post is gone.
- throwaway54-762 14y ago
  This was wonderful. Thank you.
- corkeh 14y ago
  Original post is here: http://apostate.com/how-to-say-nothing-in-500-words http://apostate.com/how-to-say-nothing-in-500-words Looks like the URLs changed when they switched from Drupal to Wordpress.
pizza 14y ago
Just read Strunk and White's Elements of Style.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  Just discovered that this is available free of charge on Kindle [1]. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-of-Style-ebook/dp/B005IT0V8O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342806430&sr=1-1&keywords=elements+of+style http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-of-Style-ebook/dp/B005IT0...
  - Simucal 14y ago
    That isn't Strunk and White. That is just Strunk and is an earlier edition of the work long before White came on.
    - decklin 14y ago
      And in case anyone is not familiar with just how long "long before" was: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001604.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001604.h...
      - hkmurakami 14y ago
        Thanks for the corrections!
- lambda 14y ago
  I found this article more informative than Elements of Style. Elements of Style is full of poorly thought out grammatical "rules" which are flat out incorrect, or over-generalizations without much guidance on how to properly apply them, and even the authors of Elements of Style don't actually follow most of their own "rules." If you actually tried following Strunk and White's rules, your writing would come out sounding bizarre and stilted.
- sopooneo 14y ago
  I love that book and find it both useful and actually funny. (It's meant to be in parts). But it is over prescribed. The forward clearly states that its original intent was to be remedial and correct college freshmen's bad habits. It isn't exhaustive. So I'm with you except for "Just".
moron 14y ago
This strikes me as good advice, but it also matches a lot of the advice I have gleaned over the years, so it may just be my bias talking. Getting rid of mush-mouthed "in my opinion" stuff and cliche phrases, moving from the general to the specific, all good advice.
samdk 14y ago
This advice, as with much other good advice, should be taken and understood in context. It is an essay about how to write a good essay, and there are times when you want to break some of these rules. As one example, expressions like "I think that" and "in my opinion" can be useful if used purposefully. When reading an argument, we have a tendency to fixate on the points that we take issue with personally. By saying "I think X is true" instead of just "X is true", you make it easier for someone to disagree with your specific point rather than your entire argument. In some contexts (like HN comments), this can help to reduce animosity and get much more of your point across to people who don't fully agree with you.
- scott_s 14y ago
  I use "I think" it to distinguish widely agreed upon facts from my own conclusions.
  - klochner 14y ago
    [I think] That just makes it sound like you lack confidence.
    - scott_s 14y ago
      That's the point. If something is an established fact, I simply state it. Often these are uncontroversial things that have been demonstrated in some way. If I qualify my statement, that's because it deserves qualification. "I think" implies "I believe this to be true, but I do not know it to be true." So, yes, I lack total confidence in such statements. It's also a way to differentiate objective statements from subjective statements: I think Metallica is a great band.
      - pizza 14y ago
        When you're writing about subjectives, the "I think" is always implied: why state it explicitly?
        14y ago
wccrawford 14y ago
I guess I had really good English teachers, then, because I never worried about using unique arguments. I simply wrote the most obvious thoughts on the subject and called it a day. And I always got good grades. However, I did follow a lot of advice from the post without knowing it, other than the 'don't be obvious' bit. For instance, I didn't use a lot of filler words. I simply wrote out my ideas, explained them, and then opened and closed it with a summary paragraph, as we were taught repeatedly. 5-3-5 and all that. It never failed to get a good grade. If I was short of my 500 (or however many) words, I didn't start adding useless words. I added more content. Obviously it wasn't a good argument if I didn't say enough to meet that requirement yet. However, I think this only happened a few times. I was more likely to go over the maximum number instead, if there was one. College's basic courses were simple if you knew the rules and followed them. I found out later that they were harder for others because they didn't know the rules, like the 5-3-5 pattern. Everyone that I have introduced that to has loved it and it helped them tremendously. Why isn't that taught everywhere? It seems awful obvious in retrospect.
- UnFleshedOne 14y ago
  I went through hight school and university without using that pattern (not that I wrote many essays, and when I did I made a point of writing against the topic) and was only introduced to it in ESL class I took after immigrating to canada. I'm not a very creative person -- I rather like rigid structures and perfect formatting of my code -- but I hated this immediately. It is probably just me, but somehow the idea of making an "essay" according to the rules of making essays as defined just highlights the utter pointlessness of the process and saps all energy and dispels any delusions about making meaningful arguments I might have had...
  - R_Edward 14y ago
    While it is somewhat arbitrary and specious to presume that any given argument can be boiled down to an arguable thesis, three supporting points, and a restatement, I think the value of the exercise of writing a formal essay is not so much in slavishly adhering to the form, but in using the form to help you build your case. If I only had one or two points in support of my thesis, I recognized that I was not yet fully prepared to write the essay: either I needed to dig out more distinct points in support of my position, or find a way to split a point into two, or simply devise a new thesis. If I had more than three points, this could mean that my thesis was too broad, or that I was digging too deeply into the material, and needed to find a level of abstraction that worked better. And, occasionally, I assumed the risk of writing an essay that did not observe convention. Sometimes you only need two really strong points to support an argument, and adding a weaker point just for the sake of the formalism detracts from the argument. Sometimes you have four points, and simply cannot remove any one of them without feeling like you've weakened your argument considerably. So you roll the dice, go with what you have, and trust that your grader will honor your choices.
Cyranix 14y ago
If I ever go back to language teaching, I think I've just come up with an engaging and rewarding lesson: * assign students the task of writing an N-word or -page paper and explicitly instruct them to use as much fluff as possible (creatively, i.e. not using "really" x100) * allow them to read each other's papers and vote on the most vapid essays * assign a follow-up task to ruthlessly edit a partner's paper to distill the real content * never attach a word or page count to any future assignment, preferring complete coverage of assigned topic, and hold students accountable for use of fluff Hands-on experience is a great learning aid. A frank acknowledgement and analysis of filler content (instead of just discouraging it in the abstract) coupled with an educator's willingness to forgo artificial targets or limits could go a long way in improving this aspect of writing style.
- Ralith 14y ago
  It will be neither engaging nor rewarding for the person publicly voted "most vapid."
  - scott_s 14y ago
    I don't see a problem with it: being vapid is the stated purpose of the exercise. Cyranix did not propose blindsiding the students with this exercise by applying this criteria to essays the students wrote in earnest.
    - Ralith 14y ago
      Oh, I see that I missed that. That's a pretty good idea, then!
  - Cyranix 14y ago
    As mentioned in the other reply, it's not about humiliation; succeeding in the overt task of writing badly doesn't directly imply failure in the task of writing well. In fact, I would expect some of the brightest students -- especially the ones who are already adept in gaming the essay-writing system -- to be ranked highly if previous academic courses implicitly rewarded fluff. Students with a simple, clear writing style, on the other hand, may find writing intentionally overwrought language to be a challenge; because past assignments with artificial word or page counts may have punished them for their clarity (as the article suggests), they may find it refreshing to score low. Getting the incentives framed properly would be crucial but far from impossible.
bicknergseng 14y ago
I'd like all newspaper editors to read Mr. Roberts' article. I've been working on blogging for a while. Mostly thinking about it, some writing, no publishing to the internet. I would draw a line from undertones in this article to my hesitancy to hit the "post" button. At the risk of sounding ignorant, arrogant, or both, I'm going to make sweeping generalities. The problem as I see it is that most low hanging blog topic fruit falls under the category of "Obvious Content." If you're writing about hiring, as HN articles are wont, I promise you someone has written the same point argued the same way before. I could head up the same topic from the "Less Usual Side," but I have no personal interest in playing devil's advocate and choosing to argue for something I don't believe to be true. There's a place for that, and I'm not arguing that original thought can come out of debate or rebuttal. Unless you're publishing some kind of original research, what I have to say has probably been said already more eloquently than I could say it myself. I'm afraid I would simply be adding to the noise. My interesting HN social experiment of the day: I would like to challenge every one to only post truly original thought. I suppose posting a unique argument to an existing topic is OK, but I'd shoot for completely untouched topics to expand the reaches of our collective thinking.
- primatology 14y ago
  I claim there is no original thought. We're too shaped by our experiences. I think you'll find most "original thoughts" are a) reversals of commonly accepted arguments for the sake of being contrary or b) bad ideas. Hence why most of us tend to held unoriginal thoughts—because the common beliefs are [often] the least-bad. Only occasionally does someone strike gold. Then again, increasing the attempts at original thoughts should increase the quantity of good original thoughts, if not the proportion. I'm rather intrigued.
  - bicknergseng 14y ago
    Cue Inception music.
brittohalloran 14y ago
There are some really good gems in there: "Decide what you want to say and say it as vigorously as possible, without apology and in plain words."
gmac 14y ago
This is fine as far as it goes, but -- ironically, given its subject -- I found it a little vapid. Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" is my preferred commentary on English writing style: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272608
- pizza 14y ago
  I love his 'all writing is political' idea. On many occasions have I asked myself "Why am I writing this?" and surprised myself with my answer.
sp332 14y ago
If these are the points that leap to your mind, they will leap to everyone else's too, and whether you get a "C" or a "D" may depend on whether the instructor reads your paper early when he is fresh and tolerant or late I don't think this is true. If a teacher asks 100 students for a paper on an assigned topic, they're not looking for originality. They just want to see if you can write or not. I always had felt that I should write something original and was worried constantly that I was re-hashing an idea the teacher had already seen dozens of times. But then I asked several teachers about it and they said they weren't looking for originality. After all you can't expect thousands of students of the same age in the same class at the same school with the same teacher to think very differently from one another.
- nocipher 14y ago
  Of course they aren't looking for originality. It can't be expected. When you give students a really difficult test, you don't expect everyone to make an "A". You expect some to fail ("D") and many to be just average ("C"). Some select few, however, will defy the norm and manage an "A". The situation with assigned writing is the same. Some will elegantly write many droll, boring statements and back them up with some personal anecdotes or stories they came across while doing research. Those will stand out against the poorly written droll, boring statements. They'll get higher scores. The few that break the mold and do something completely unexpected will definitely stand out. If they can back up their originality with half decent ability, they'll stand out even more than the "standard excellence". Those people will definitely get an A. The conclusion is sound. If you beat the expectations people have of you, good things will likely happen.
ctdonath 14y ago
"All subjects, except sex, are dull until somebody makes them interesting." I respectfully submit Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

132 points by irahul 14y ago

This article reminded me of "Thank You For Smoking" where the young kid asks his dad what he should write about on the topic of "Why is the American government the best government in the world". Aaron Eckhart's character ends up explaining that the question is ridiculous because it carries implicit assumptions (America is the best government in the world, 'best' can somehow be measured) without explaining them. He follows that with an explanation that this is basically an invitation to write whatever you want - write about tariffs, write about executing felons, write about our appeal system. It's not about the question, it's about the writing.

irahul 14y ago

Hey folks. There is currently a flame war going on about using grammar as litmus test for hiring. I thought it's a good time to re-post this. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1904584 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1904584 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008246 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008246 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=239147 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=239147 Sorry about the archive link. The original post is gone.

throwaway54-762 14y ago
This was wonderful. Thank you.
corkeh 14y ago
Original post is here: http://apostate.com/how-to-say-nothing-in-500-words http://apostate.com/how-to-say-nothing-in-500-words Looks like the URLs changed when they switched from Drupal to Wordpress.

pizza 14y ago

Just read Strunk and White's Elements of Style.

hkmurakami 14y ago
Just discovered that this is available free of charge on Kindle [1]. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-of-Style-ebook/dp/B005IT0V8O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342806430&sr=1-1&keywords=elements+of+style http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-of-Style-ebook/dp/B005IT0...
- Simucal 14y ago
  That isn't Strunk and White. That is just Strunk and is an earlier edition of the work long before White came on.
  - decklin 14y ago
    And in case anyone is not familiar with just how long "long before" was: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001604.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001604.h...
    - hkmurakami 14y ago
      Thanks for the corrections!
lambda 14y ago
I found this article more informative than Elements of Style. Elements of Style is full of poorly thought out grammatical "rules" which are flat out incorrect, or over-generalizations without much guidance on how to properly apply them, and even the authors of Elements of Style don't actually follow most of their own "rules." If you actually tried following Strunk and White's rules, your writing would come out sounding bizarre and stilted.
sopooneo 14y ago
I love that book and find it both useful and actually funny. (It's meant to be in parts). But it is over prescribed. The forward clearly states that its original intent was to be remedial and correct college freshmen's bad habits. It isn't exhaustive. So I'm with you except for "Just".

moron 14y ago

This strikes me as good advice, but it also matches a lot of the advice I have gleaned over the years, so it may just be my bias talking. Getting rid of mush-mouthed "in my opinion" stuff and cliche phrases, moving from the general to the specific, all good advice.

samdk 14y ago

This advice, as with much other good advice, should be taken and understood in context. It is an essay about how to write a good essay, and there are times when you want to break some of these rules. As one example, expressions like "I think that" and "in my opinion" can be useful if used purposefully. When reading an argument, we have a tendency to fixate on the points that we take issue with personally. By saying "I think X is true" instead of just "X is true", you make it easier for someone to disagree with your specific point rather than your entire argument. In some contexts (like HN comments), this can help to reduce animosity and get much more of your point across to people who don't fully agree with you.

scott_s 14y ago
I use "I think" it to distinguish widely agreed upon facts from my own conclusions.
- klochner 14y ago
  [I think] That just makes it sound like you lack confidence.
  - scott_s 14y ago
    That's the point. If something is an established fact, I simply state it. Often these are uncontroversial things that have been demonstrated in some way. If I qualify my statement, that's because it deserves qualification. "I think" implies "I believe this to be true, but I do not know it to be true." So, yes, I lack total confidence in such statements. It's also a way to differentiate objective statements from subjective statements: I think Metallica is a great band.
    - pizza 14y ago
      When you're writing about subjectives, the "I think" is always implied: why state it explicitly?
      - 14y ago

wccrawford 14y ago

I guess I had really good English teachers, then, because I never worried about using unique arguments. I simply wrote the most obvious thoughts on the subject and called it a day. And I always got good grades. However, I did follow a lot of advice from the post without knowing it, other than the 'don't be obvious' bit. For instance, I didn't use a lot of filler words. I simply wrote out my ideas, explained them, and then opened and closed it with a summary paragraph, as we were taught repeatedly. 5-3-5 and all that. It never failed to get a good grade. If I was short of my 500 (or however many) words, I didn't start adding useless words. I added more content. Obviously it wasn't a good argument if I didn't say enough to meet that requirement yet. However, I think this only happened a few times. I was more likely to go over the maximum number instead, if there was one. College's basic courses were simple if you knew the rules and followed them. I found out later that they were harder for others because they didn't know the rules, like the 5-3-5 pattern. Everyone that I have introduced that to has loved it and it helped them tremendously. Why isn't that taught everywhere? It seems awful obvious in retrospect.

UnFleshedOne 14y ago
I went through hight school and university without using that pattern (not that I wrote many essays, and when I did I made a point of writing against the topic) and was only introduced to it in ESL class I took after immigrating to canada. I'm not a very creative person -- I rather like rigid structures and perfect formatting of my code -- but I hated this immediately. It is probably just me, but somehow the idea of making an "essay" according to the rules of making essays as defined just highlights the utter pointlessness of the process and saps all energy and dispels any delusions about making meaningful arguments I might have had...
- R_Edward 14y ago
  While it is somewhat arbitrary and specious to presume that any given argument can be boiled down to an arguable thesis, three supporting points, and a restatement, I think the value of the exercise of writing a formal essay is not so much in slavishly adhering to the form, but in using the form to help you build your case. If I only had one or two points in support of my thesis, I recognized that I was not yet fully prepared to write the essay: either I needed to dig out more distinct points in support of my position, or find a way to split a point into two, or simply devise a new thesis. If I had more than three points, this could mean that my thesis was too broad, or that I was digging too deeply into the material, and needed to find a level of abstraction that worked better. And, occasionally, I assumed the risk of writing an essay that did not observe convention. Sometimes you only need two really strong points to support an argument, and adding a weaker point just for the sake of the formalism detracts from the argument. Sometimes you have four points, and simply cannot remove any one of them without feeling like you've weakened your argument considerably. So you roll the dice, go with what you have, and trust that your grader will honor your choices.

Cyranix 14y ago

If I ever go back to language teaching, I think I've just come up with an engaging and rewarding lesson: * assign students the task of writing an N-word or -page paper and explicitly instruct them to use as much fluff as possible (creatively, i.e. not using "really" x100) * allow them to read each other's papers and vote on the most vapid essays * assign a follow-up task to ruthlessly edit a partner's paper to distill the real content * never attach a word or page count to any future assignment, preferring complete coverage of assigned topic, and hold students accountable for use of fluff Hands-on experience is a great learning aid. A frank acknowledgement and analysis of filler content (instead of just discouraging it in the abstract) coupled with an educator's willingness to forgo artificial targets or limits could go a long way in improving this aspect of writing style.

Ralith 14y ago
It will be neither engaging nor rewarding for the person publicly voted "most vapid."
- scott_s 14y ago
  I don't see a problem with it: being vapid is the stated purpose of the exercise. Cyranix did not propose blindsiding the students with this exercise by applying this criteria to essays the students wrote in earnest.
  - Ralith 14y ago
    Oh, I see that I missed that. That's a pretty good idea, then!
- Cyranix 14y ago
  As mentioned in the other reply, it's not about humiliation; succeeding in the overt task of writing badly doesn't directly imply failure in the task of writing well. In fact, I would expect some of the brightest students -- especially the ones who are already adept in gaming the essay-writing system -- to be ranked highly if previous academic courses implicitly rewarded fluff. Students with a simple, clear writing style, on the other hand, may find writing intentionally overwrought language to be a challenge; because past assignments with artificial word or page counts may have punished them for their clarity (as the article suggests), they may find it refreshing to score low. Getting the incentives framed properly would be crucial but far from impossible.

bicknergseng 14y ago

I'd like all newspaper editors to read Mr. Roberts' article. I've been working on blogging for a while. Mostly thinking about it, some writing, no publishing to the internet. I would draw a line from undertones in this article to my hesitancy to hit the "post" button. At the risk of sounding ignorant, arrogant, or both, I'm going to make sweeping generalities. The problem as I see it is that most low hanging blog topic fruit falls under the category of "Obvious Content." If you're writing about hiring, as HN articles are wont, I promise you someone has written the same point argued the same way before. I could head up the same topic from the "Less Usual Side," but I have no personal interest in playing devil's advocate and choosing to argue for something I don't believe to be true. There's a place for that, and I'm not arguing that original thought can come out of debate or rebuttal. Unless you're publishing some kind of original research, what I have to say has probably been said already more eloquently than I could say it myself. I'm afraid I would simply be adding to the noise. My interesting HN social experiment of the day: I would like to challenge every one to only post truly original thought. I suppose posting a unique argument to an existing topic is OK, but I'd shoot for completely untouched topics to expand the reaches of our collective thinking.

primatology 14y ago
I claim there is no original thought. We're too shaped by our experiences. I think you'll find most "original thoughts" are a) reversals of commonly accepted arguments for the sake of being contrary or b) bad ideas. Hence why most of us tend to held unoriginal thoughts—because the common beliefs are [often] the least-bad. Only occasionally does someone strike gold. Then again, increasing the attempts at original thoughts should increase the quantity of good original thoughts, if not the proportion. I'm rather intrigued.
- bicknergseng 14y ago
  Cue Inception music.

brittohalloran 14y ago

There are some really good gems in there: "Decide what you want to say and say it as vigorously as possible, without apology and in plain words."

gmac 14y ago

This is fine as far as it goes, but -- ironically, given its subject -- I found it a little vapid. Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" is my preferred commentary on English writing style: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272608

pizza 14y ago
I love his 'all writing is political' idea. On many occasions have I asked myself "Why am I writing this?" and surprised myself with my answer.

sp332 14y ago

If these are the points that leap to your mind, they will leap to everyone else's too, and whether you get a "C" or a "D" may depend on whether the instructor reads your paper early when he is fresh and tolerant or late I don't think this is true. If a teacher asks 100 students for a paper on an assigned topic, they're not looking for originality. They just want to see if you can write or not. I always had felt that I should write something original and was worried constantly that I was re-hashing an idea the teacher had already seen dozens of times. But then I asked several teachers about it and they said they weren't looking for originality. After all you can't expect thousands of students of the same age in the same class at the same school with the same teacher to think very differently from one another.

nocipher 14y ago
Of course they aren't looking for originality. It can't be expected. When you give students a really difficult test, you don't expect everyone to make an "A". You expect some to fail ("D") and many to be just average ("C"). Some select few, however, will defy the norm and manage an "A". The situation with assigned writing is the same. Some will elegantly write many droll, boring statements and back them up with some personal anecdotes or stories they came across while doing research. Those will stand out against the poorly written droll, boring statements. They'll get higher scores. The few that break the mold and do something completely unexpected will definitely stand out. If they can back up their originality with half decent ability, they'll stand out even more than the "standard excellence". Those people will definitely get an A. The conclusion is sound. If you beat the expectations people have of you, good things will likely happen.

ctdonath 14y ago

"All subjects, except sex, are dull until somebody makes them interesting." I respectfully submit Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.