Read on Twitter
For clear writing, answer these questions
1. What Am I Really Trying To Say
2. Why Should People Care
3. What Is The Most Important Point
4. What Is The Easiest Way To Understand The Most Important Point
5. How Do I Want The Reader To Feel
6. What Should The Reader Do Next
1. What Am I Really Trying To Say
2. Why Should People Care
3. What Is The Most Important Point
4. What Is The Easiest Way To Understand The Most Important Point
5. How Do I Want The Reader To Feel
6. What Should The Reader Do Next
A self-referential example that answers each of these 6 questions for the topic of “Writing Clearly”
Following up here, a collection of podcasts on writing:
https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1287768766533664768?s=21 https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1287768766533664768
https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1287768766533664768?s=21 https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1287768766533664768
On being intentional about the effect you want to have on the audience—applies to any form of communication, including writing: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1294309503228231681
@anujmagazine has created a handy sketch of these 6 questions for clear writing, sharing it here: https://twitter.com/anujmagazine/status/1289547935311491072
Great, concise tips on good writing https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1335431529464414208
Writing is important, but understand this hierarchy of skills and traits (Integrity > other skills) https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1285751991390461953
Decomposition is quite useful for writing https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1334555963651551232
Writing is a tool for more rigorous debates that help avoid dominance by strong personalities & gifted verbal debaters https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1278899596421283840
Influential writing proactively answers the reader's subconscious questions https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1311726528682631168
How can you accurately predict the reader's subconscious questions? Through Cognitive Empathy. A thread on it: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1291764637545816065
Do you want to Force, Inspire, or Perform Inception with your writing? https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1328844298759016450
Important to remember (and easy to forget) when writing on Twitter https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1335462306700902400
Fallacies you will encounter as a writer on Twitter (or almost any place online). Try not to get riled up about them, recognize them, and move on (hard, I know, but also do-able with practice) https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1334742249540730881
This split of Mindset, Principles, and Tactics also applies to learning to be a better writer https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1308402078184693760
Environment is at least as important for productive writing as the underlying ideas you will write about https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1290462127275347975
Writing & clear thinking go hand-in-hand. You can't write well without having clarity of thought, and clarity of thought is often catalyzed by the process of writing.
A mega-thread on clear thinking (set aside a good amount of time if you want to read it) https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1315543407331213314
A mega-thread on clear thinking (set aside a good amount of time if you want to read it) https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1315543407331213314
An example of a well-written email, from Netflix: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/958957429424766976
An example of a well-written paper:
http://how.complexsystems.fail
Also available for download here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228797158_How_complex_systems_fail https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1342925329359257602
http://how.complexsystems.fail
Also available for download here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228797158_How_complex_systems_fail https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1342925329359257602
A couple more well-written papers
How to Share a Secret:
http://web.mit.edu/6.857/OldStuff/Fall03/ref/Shamir-HowToShareASecret.pdf
The Bitcoin paper:
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
These papers concisely combined clear writing with mind-blowing creativity on the core subject matter of the writing.
How to Share a Secret:
http://web.mit.edu/6.857/OldStuff/Fall03/ref/Shamir-HowToShareASecret.pdf
The Bitcoin paper:
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
These papers concisely combined clear writing with mind-blowing creativity on the core subject matter of the writing.
My take:
Good Writing=Clarity×Concision
Great Writing=Clarity×Concision×Creativity
YMMV.
Good Writing=Clarity×Concision
Great Writing=Clarity×Concision×Creativity
YMMV.
