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It's really hard to achieve. It takes an awful lot of work and being able to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who doesn't know everything you know.

by juancn 1y ago

Retr0id 1y ago
A lot of writing suffers from the problem of "this explanation only makes sense if you already understand it", and I think it's the default - if the author is essentially explaining the problem to themselves, of course it makes sense to someone who already understands it. The problem can be perpetuated when e.g. a lecturer sets recommended reading to students. From the lecturer's perspective the selected reading material has clear explanations (because the lecturer understands the subject well), but the students do not feel the same way. As you say, this takes effort to overcome, both on the author's side and from anyone trying to curate resources - including what we choose to upvote on HN!
- f1shy 1y ago
  Sadly many Universities have lots of professors who just copy books in the blackboard. Those books that asume you already know.
  - rtkwe 1y ago
    Partially because Universities insist on making professors both teach and perform research (for the most part a few do have a real distinction between teaching and research but most still require at least a token class from most of their researchers) which isn't what most people go into a PhD program to do.
    - Someone 1y ago
      > Partially because Universities insist on making professors both teach and perform research That alone would not be problematic. The real problem is that they insist on it, but only evaluate them on their research. That doesn’t create an incentive to spend time on getting better at teaching.
      - rtkwe 1y ago
        That's not universal, it factors in at some points at least at some universities, my wife is going through her reappointment after her first year as a professor at an R2 HBCU and teacher evals are part of it from what I've heard of the process there and she was definitely hired as principally a research oriented professor.
        f1shy 1y ago
        I can speak of Europe, is /mostly/ so (certainly not 100%) Poorer countries, paradoxically, because have less research, people teaching are there for, and like, teaching, explaining.
      - f1shy 1y ago
        And, let me add, “research is (often) broken”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPy3DeMUyI&t=913s&pp=ygUSUmVzZWFyY2ggaXMgYnJva2Ug https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPy3DeMUyI&t=913s&pp=ygUSUmVz...
f1shy 1y ago
What helps is explaining it to many people, and carefully listening the questions asked by them. It of course help also to have a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

It's really hard to achieve. It takes an awful lot of work and being able to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who doesn't know everything you know.

by juancn 1y ago

It's really hard to achieve. It takes an awful lot of work and being able to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who doesn't know everything you know.

Retr0id 1y ago

A lot of writing suffers from the problem of "this explanation only makes sense if you already understand it", and I think it's the default - if the author is essentially explaining the problem to themselves, of course it makes sense to someone who already understands it. The problem can be perpetuated when e.g. a lecturer sets recommended reading to students. From the lecturer's perspective the selected reading material has clear explanations (because the lecturer understands the subject well), but the students do not feel the same way. As you say, this takes effort to overcome, both on the author's side and from anyone trying to curate resources - including what we choose to upvote on HN!

f1shy 1y ago
Sadly many Universities have lots of professors who just copy books in the blackboard. Those books that asume you already know.
- rtkwe 1y ago
  Partially because Universities insist on making professors both teach and perform research (for the most part a few do have a real distinction between teaching and research but most still require at least a token class from most of their researchers) which isn't what most people go into a PhD program to do.
  - Someone 1y ago
    > Partially because Universities insist on making professors both teach and perform research That alone would not be problematic. The real problem is that they insist on it, but only evaluate them on their research. That doesn’t create an incentive to spend time on getting better at teaching.
    - rtkwe 1y ago
      That's not universal, it factors in at some points at least at some universities, my wife is going through her reappointment after her first year as a professor at an R2 HBCU and teacher evals are part of it from what I've heard of the process there and she was definitely hired as principally a research oriented professor.
      - f1shy 1y ago
        I can speak of Europe, is /mostly/ so (certainly not 100%) Poorer countries, paradoxically, because have less research, people teaching are there for, and like, teaching, explaining.
    - f1shy 1y ago
      And, let me add, “research is (often) broken”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPy3DeMUyI&t=913s&pp=ygUSUmVzZWFyY2ggaXMgYnJva2Ug https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPy3DeMUyI&t=913s&pp=ygUSUmVz...

f1shy 1y ago

What helps is explaining it to many people, and carefully listening the questions asked by them. It of course help also to have a deeper understanding of the subject matter.