The resource that has spurred me into thinking differently about effective writing was shared on HN, from UChicago Social Sciences' Leadership Lab - The Craft of Writing Effectively.
This is why I love HN. These rare moments of hearing someone articulate something that I haven't quite grasped yet, but have seen glimpses of and have struggled with, presented clearly, insightfully. Feeling my brain being rewired. I've watched this talk multiple times over the last days and it is transformative.
It's not like anything he says is, by itself, that new or counterintuitive. But the whole talk, when fully digested, lets you view the world in an entirely different way.
The talk isn't about writing. It's not about science. Not about careers. It's about everything. The same thinking can be applied to speaking, to dating, to everything human.
What's in your head isn't intrinsically interesting to anyone except your mother. What value do you deliver? It's harsh. Harsh and cruel. It's not the cozy feel-good message you see everywhere nowadays. Maybe some would call the whole framing toxic. But would you rather taste the poison and then learn how to handle it, or would you stay ignorant and die of it (silently get ignored, nosedive your career, etc.).
In a masterfully meta way, the talk manages to deliver immense value.
Absolutely. In that same vein, I've gotten a lot out of so many similar videos which are ostensibly about one thing, but to effectively use what they're teaching, you have to start learning/mastering something else entirely. "Indirect learning" is one way to put it, and a term I picked up from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture[0]. I've gained so much from watching that video, as well as his Time Management video[1]. So much so that I rewatch it about once a year, because every time you rewatch something, you're a different person in certain ways, and you often appreciate things much more the more you change and grow as a person.
Echoing the other comments that this was an excellent lecture on how to approach writing from the perspective of the reader, aka the top-down approach.
He contrasted top-down with the bottom-up approach taught from elementary school to the undergraduate level which shows it as a superior approach to writing—if your goal is to introduce ideas that change the minds of your readers with your writing.
Thanks for the recommendation. The point that more than anything, your writing should be valuable to the group of readers it is targeted at is fascinating.
It's not like anything he says is, by itself, that new or counterintuitive. But the whole talk, when fully digested, lets you view the world in an entirely different way.
The talk isn't about writing. It's not about science. Not about careers. It's about everything. The same thinking can be applied to speaking, to dating, to everything human.
What's in your head isn't intrinsically interesting to anyone except your mother. What value do you deliver? It's harsh. Harsh and cruel. It's not the cozy feel-good message you see everywhere nowadays. Maybe some would call the whole framing toxic. But would you rather taste the poison and then learn how to handle it, or would you stay ignorant and die of it (silently get ignored, nosedive your career, etc.).
In a masterfully meta way, the talk manages to deliver immense value.