[melindajb]

"It’s puzzling that there isn’t a stronger tradition of “user testing” for writing. Occasionally I’ll give a friend something I’ve written and implore them, “Please circle anything that makes you feel even slightly unhappy for any reason whatsoever.” Then I’ll ask them what they were thinking at each point. There are always “bugs” everywhere: Belaboring of obvious points, ambiguous phrases, unnecessary antagonistic language, tangential arguments about controversial things that don’t matter, etc."

This is called an editor. They're invaluable!

[blurker]

Not disagreeing but just pointing out that I felt the author also said this:

> Fixing these is great but your friends (let’s hope) don’t want to hurt your feelings. This makes it almost impossible to get them to say things like, “your jokes aren’t funny” or “you should delete section 3 because it’s horrendous and unsalvageable”. Good editors are gold.

Perhaps this is a good example of their main point, haha!

[ohwellhere]

This is an amazing first comment in the context of the article.

[melindajb]

The irony was not lost on me either. but I really did agree with a lot of the piece. :) To his point, again.