My general rule is if the jargon represents something specific, I will use it and explain it depending on my audience. New vocab represents compressions and abstractions of important ideas that might be totally unclaimed territory within someone's internal landscape. Using this language, we might hope to explaining something without brining in interpretive baggage.
I used to be on the opposite end of your imposture syndrome (still having it but expressed in a different way), totally afraid I might come off as pretentious. So I actually flaunted my bad spelling and grammar(in informal writing), and actively avoided any sophisticated-sounding words, not realizing how much this dampened me and also reduced specificity.
I read this somewhere that words are a way of representing complexity, and complexity is the intellectual's material in which they create new ideas. Maybe there is a golden mean, academics tend to overcomplicate, laymen tend to oversimplify. Much of the language used should depend on the goal is what I say. What's amazing is this oscillation between complexity and simplicity, how complexity can discover new things, and simplicity can make it easy to apply and understand(I strongly believe in Feynman's razor). So I think there is space for both.
Your editing advice is perfect though, and clarity is a goal no matter who the audience is.
I agree there's a balance and it depends on the audience. Specific words aside, I sometimes struggle with how much to explain--do I explain what statistical significance means, or assume the reader knows? It depends on the audience I'm imagining. Too much explanation is going to drive away the more academic readers but too much compression is going to reduce the potential audience.
My own story and writing process is very similar. I use WritingProAid to get a post to a 9th or 10th grade reading level. But my best tip is to age a post. I work on 3-4 posts at one time so that I can put them down and come back to them with fresh eyes.
Interesting, I don't often write multiple posts at a time. I find it hard to switch to another when I don't have a finished draft--I quickly lose the spark of what made me want to write it if I don't get the rough draft done. And then when I have the rough draft done, it's too tempting to just get the rest over the line after letting it rest for a day.
I agree with John. It's a very enjoyable read. Did you have to cut out many sesquepedialistic anachronarcical pedantivocabilisms?
On a more serious note: I am a philosopher who turned poet and fiction writer - a strange turn perhaps, but I find myself thinking about how AI will write 'better', or more precisely: will be better at writing poetry that most readers want to read. And I can imagine it will (in the 2030s) write better novels, even if by better we mean the superset (sorry for that stupid word) of all criteria ever used by all literary faculties.
So I see writing as a spiritual activity. Like walking, playing music with no audience, breathwork, yoga. An enjoyable detour to temporary spiritual fulfillment.
I wanted to run this thought by you. What are your thoughts about this line of thinking? Am I caving in too quickly when I assume AI will be better (the silicon valley pundit Mo Gawdat says he already met his AGI- moment and AI could do everything better than him)? Do you think it makes psychological sense to call any activities that allow us to experience a flow state, spiritual?
I'm not sure it's a guarantee AI will be better than good human writers on all criteria, and there are a lot of scenarios that just lead to a different role for commercial human writers (moving more towards being the prompters/editors).
Personally, I'm not sure how much I care. I write to grapple with ideas. I can write a prompt and have an AI write an essay for me on a topic I care about, but it wouldn't be the same connections I would draw and it wouldn't force me to engage with the content in the same way.
If you're writing to grapple with a problem or express yourself, those aren't things AI can do wholesale. But AI could actually help some people focus on the problems they want to be solving--I've certainly used AI to try to brainstorm or to suggest better ways to phrase specific sentences, but find it of very limited use currently. I think of it as running something by an infinitely patient friend, sometimes it's useful.
I wouldn't use the word "spiritual" just because it has metaphysical connotations I'm uncomfortable with, but I think I agree with your sentiment. Just like people still practice photorealistic drawing in a world with cameras, or write in assembly language even though compilers exist, I think there would still be a lot to gain from practicing writing even if we were in a world where AI could do it better. Both the practicing of a difficult artistic skill, as well as improving our understanding and ability to articulate ourselves.
Thanks for this. Its timely advice for me while writing my masters dissertation. The idea that confidence plays a part in writing obscurely is so true. For me, I can find myself falling back into jargon when I'm not confident that trying to simplify an idea will capture it's intended meaning. I dread misrepresenting ideas and so I end up adopting the jargon terms the original idea was written in. It could also just be that I'm not fully confident that I understand the idea in the first place!
>He would question why anyone would ever use a word like "utilize" when "use" would work.
This is kind of an interesting look into the scientific vs aesthetic approaches (which is an oversimplified divide, I think a lot of science is based on aesthetics, but it suffices here). I can understand *questioning* this in a specific instance, but it sounds like this is more of a question in the form of a judgement.
And to that I'd ask a follow up question: why would a composer use a minor chord when a major chord would work? Because they sound different!
The same goes for word choice. Even if the meaning of the words you choose may be the same (I'd argue that "utilize" and "use" both have slightly different meanings or connotations, with "use" being a bit more simple and generalizable and "utilize" being a bit more goal-directed and potentially implying that you are using something in an unexpected way), the sound of them is different, and the headspace they put the reader in is different.
A potential benefit of jargon is that it abstracts further from everyday associations than clear writing does, so if you want to put someone in a very disembodied or intellectual headspace, jargon is kind of what you need, and you have to sacrifice clarity to that end. There's a direct analogy to music here too, as when you're working on a mix, you need to balance two things: emotional impact and clarity of the sounds. Sometimes, those work hand in hand: you have two melody lines, and the emotional impact you want comes from them being clearly distinguishable. But sometimes mixing "well" actually ruins the impact — sometimes you just want everything to blend together in an unintelligible mess. The key is just knowing why you're doing it so that you can use each style or tool effectively instead of relying on one or the other as an unconscious default.
I enjoyed your article, thanks. I have been on this bandwagon for more than 35 years. I've written about clear communication. Visit my publications page: tinyurl.com/CherylStephensBooks
About the only advice I remember from my college days from any professors is, “Your writing should be smarter than you.” On its face, the insight means that your opportunity to edit your writing should make your expressions better than what you’d be able to speak in a regular conversation.
Engaging in the process of affixing your thoughts in a medium also offers the chance to go slow and research, to double check your own claims, and to learn things in the course of crafting your piece.
This is easy reading, like a knife through butter. I appreciate the damn hard work.
Thank you!
My general rule is if the jargon represents something specific, I will use it and explain it depending on my audience. New vocab represents compressions and abstractions of important ideas that might be totally unclaimed territory within someone's internal landscape. Using this language, we might hope to explaining something without brining in interpretive baggage.
I used to be on the opposite end of your imposture syndrome (still having it but expressed in a different way), totally afraid I might come off as pretentious. So I actually flaunted my bad spelling and grammar(in informal writing), and actively avoided any sophisticated-sounding words, not realizing how much this dampened me and also reduced specificity.
I read this somewhere that words are a way of representing complexity, and complexity is the intellectual's material in which they create new ideas. Maybe there is a golden mean, academics tend to overcomplicate, laymen tend to oversimplify. Much of the language used should depend on the goal is what I say. What's amazing is this oscillation between complexity and simplicity, how complexity can discover new things, and simplicity can make it easy to apply and understand(I strongly believe in Feynman's razor). So I think there is space for both.
Your editing advice is perfect though, and clarity is a goal no matter who the audience is.
I agree there's a balance and it depends on the audience. Specific words aside, I sometimes struggle with how much to explain--do I explain what statistical significance means, or assume the reader knows? It depends on the audience I'm imagining. Too much explanation is going to drive away the more academic readers but too much compression is going to reduce the potential audience.
My own story and writing process is very similar. I use WritingProAid to get a post to a 9th or 10th grade reading level. But my best tip is to age a post. I work on 3-4 posts at one time so that I can put them down and come back to them with fresh eyes.
Interesting, I don't often write multiple posts at a time. I find it hard to switch to another when I don't have a finished draft--I quickly lose the spark of what made me want to write it if I don't get the rough draft done. And then when I have the rough draft done, it's too tempting to just get the rest over the line after letting it rest for a day.
I agree with John. It's a very enjoyable read. Did you have to cut out many sesquepedialistic anachronarcical pedantivocabilisms?
On a more serious note: I am a philosopher who turned poet and fiction writer - a strange turn perhaps, but I find myself thinking about how AI will write 'better', or more precisely: will be better at writing poetry that most readers want to read. And I can imagine it will (in the 2030s) write better novels, even if by better we mean the superset (sorry for that stupid word) of all criteria ever used by all literary faculties.
So I see writing as a spiritual activity. Like walking, playing music with no audience, breathwork, yoga. An enjoyable detour to temporary spiritual fulfillment.
I wanted to run this thought by you. What are your thoughts about this line of thinking? Am I caving in too quickly when I assume AI will be better (the silicon valley pundit Mo Gawdat says he already met his AGI- moment and AI could do everything better than him)? Do you think it makes psychological sense to call any activities that allow us to experience a flow state, spiritual?
Interesting, here are my thoughts
I'm not sure it's a guarantee AI will be better than good human writers on all criteria, and there are a lot of scenarios that just lead to a different role for commercial human writers (moving more towards being the prompters/editors).
Personally, I'm not sure how much I care. I write to grapple with ideas. I can write a prompt and have an AI write an essay for me on a topic I care about, but it wouldn't be the same connections I would draw and it wouldn't force me to engage with the content in the same way.
If you're writing to grapple with a problem or express yourself, those aren't things AI can do wholesale. But AI could actually help some people focus on the problems they want to be solving--I've certainly used AI to try to brainstorm or to suggest better ways to phrase specific sentences, but find it of very limited use currently. I think of it as running something by an infinitely patient friend, sometimes it's useful.
I wouldn't use the word "spiritual" just because it has metaphysical connotations I'm uncomfortable with, but I think I agree with your sentiment. Just like people still practice photorealistic drawing in a world with cameras, or write in assembly language even though compilers exist, I think there would still be a lot to gain from practicing writing even if we were in a world where AI could do it better. Both the practicing of a difficult artistic skill, as well as improving our understanding and ability to articulate ourselves.
Thanks for this. Its timely advice for me while writing my masters dissertation. The idea that confidence plays a part in writing obscurely is so true. For me, I can find myself falling back into jargon when I'm not confident that trying to simplify an idea will capture it's intended meaning. I dread misrepresenting ideas and so I end up adopting the jargon terms the original idea was written in. It could also just be that I'm not fully confident that I understand the idea in the first place!
useful but eats shoots and leaves still had a point
Hi, I’m Kelly - left corporate life to slow travel the world. Your post hooked me instantly.
A PhD in computer science and philosophy? That’s basically mastering the robots and the meaning of life… then choosing to speak human. Brilliant.
Stop by anytime for my own twist on reinvention.
Actually a Bachelor’s in computer science, Masters in Philosophy (the PhD is in Brain and Cognitive Sciences)
>He would question why anyone would ever use a word like "utilize" when "use" would work.
This is kind of an interesting look into the scientific vs aesthetic approaches (which is an oversimplified divide, I think a lot of science is based on aesthetics, but it suffices here). I can understand *questioning* this in a specific instance, but it sounds like this is more of a question in the form of a judgement.
And to that I'd ask a follow up question: why would a composer use a minor chord when a major chord would work? Because they sound different!
The same goes for word choice. Even if the meaning of the words you choose may be the same (I'd argue that "utilize" and "use" both have slightly different meanings or connotations, with "use" being a bit more simple and generalizable and "utilize" being a bit more goal-directed and potentially implying that you are using something in an unexpected way), the sound of them is different, and the headspace they put the reader in is different.
A potential benefit of jargon is that it abstracts further from everyday associations than clear writing does, so if you want to put someone in a very disembodied or intellectual headspace, jargon is kind of what you need, and you have to sacrifice clarity to that end. There's a direct analogy to music here too, as when you're working on a mix, you need to balance two things: emotional impact and clarity of the sounds. Sometimes, those work hand in hand: you have two melody lines, and the emotional impact you want comes from them being clearly distinguishable. But sometimes mixing "well" actually ruins the impact — sometimes you just want everything to blend together in an unintelligible mess. The key is just knowing why you're doing it so that you can use each style or tool effectively instead of relying on one or the other as an unconscious default.
I enjoyed your article, thanks. I have been on this bandwagon for more than 35 years. I've written about clear communication. Visit my publications page: tinyurl.com/CherylStephensBooks
About the only advice I remember from my college days from any professors is, “Your writing should be smarter than you.” On its face, the insight means that your opportunity to edit your writing should make your expressions better than what you’d be able to speak in a regular conversation.
Engaging in the process of affixing your thoughts in a medium also offers the chance to go slow and research, to double check your own claims, and to learn things in the course of crafting your piece.
Three cheers for the entire editing process!