I found it quite impressive that people are capable of this. For me, I have neither energy, nor ability, nor comprehensive knowledge to do so. So, it is always fascinating (and a bit intimidating) to see people writing these all the time. I want to ask how you guys achieve this feat.
Maybe, is it that I am nonverbal so I cannit write coherently?
I am guilty of writing walls of text as comments, but I try to stick to my lane. You can see my most recent wall of text about freeze dryers as an example. There are a few things that I think need to come together to create a good, high-effort post:
- Passion - If you don’t care, you aren’t going to spend the time to write about something
- Knowledge - For some topics this may be less required, but I tend to create walls of text about technical issues. I have a PhD in physics, so that gives me a pretty good foundation of knowledge to work from in this regard
- Writing Ability - You need to be able to write effectively to make a wall of text worthwhile. This is a skill that gets better the more you do it.
The other thing I tend to do when writing a high-effort post is I actually proofread it before making it. I try to cut out unneeded tangents, reword things that might be confusing, or supplement things that aren’t motivated enough.
For me personally, this doesn’t take me too long to do since I have been writing and presenting about extremely technical topics for about two decades at this point. Like I mentioned above, informative writing is a skill that gets better with practice. So, doing it regularly as a significant part of my job as well as providing feedback to others on their writing/presentations, has provided me with tons of practice to improve these things.
If you want some formal guidance on scientific writing/presentations specifically, two books I have found informative (mostly on presentations) have been:
- The Craft of Scientific Presentations by Michael Alley
- slide:ology - The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte
I find myself having to delete tangents as well! I feel that my writing begins conversational, with brief asides for nuance or comedy. That style does work well for presentations. But if I am trying to be as concise and informative as possible, I find that I need to trim a lot.
It is an interesting excersice in observing how your brain relays information naturally and how you need to ‘translate’ that into effective communication with others.
I see. Maybe learning mathematics have screwed my writing since so much of mathematical literature is simply equations, definitions and propositions. Lots of papers, and even books, are just bad at expositions, in my experience.
I actually agree with you about math education and math texts. It is really bad at conveying understanding and my math-heavy courses were the toughest for me (E&M in grad school was awful). Too often math textbooks simply present things and leave the proof as an exercise for the reader, or they will lean too far the other way and present formal proofs for everything. Either way is not helpful for developing an intuitive understanding of what is going on.
The things that helped me develop communication skills the most were simply doing it a lot followed by having some good mentors that I found to be good communicators. My grad school advisor was great at communicating physics and one of my early bosses in industry was an excellent presenter. So, I would often bounce either writing or slides off of them for feedback.
I also found that watching ‘video essays’ on Youtube helped me develop and understand communication skills after years of math education. Depending on what you are interested in, Youtubers like Tom Scott, Every Frame of Painting, Miniminuteman, and Ask a Mortician are fantastic places to start.
There are many people on lemmy who are very passionate and/or opinionated about certain topics. So when a discussion about that topic comes up, they tend to go hard on the comment section. Also, for some terminally online people, this is literally their only social space to express themselves.
I don’t know, even if I’m extremely prone to write huge walls of text, and need to actually take my time to abridge them.
(And every bloody time that I do abridge it, some reply makes me regret it.)
When someone points out something I deleted or only alluded to for the sake of brevity, it kills me. I want to respond “…yes, I know I actually wanted to write that, but wasn’t sure anyone would care or even read it.”
But knowing everything doesn’t get you any extra credit on Lemmy or in real life. Speaking as a recovering teachers pet my entire academic life, I find it’s best to just remember that it is just a conversation. Especially on Lemmy, responses to comments are pretty rare, so any thoughtful response is welcome.
The wall-o-text comments on Lemmy are the worst. No shame at all in not being that person.
Not the best? I like high effort posts and comments…
I agree. I usually like to hear people out if they are knowledgeable. Depends on the topic, though.
Sometimes I get into a long story, but overall, I’m with you. I usually just read the first few sentences and move on.
The TLDR is great if people include it. But sometimes it is hard to be that concise.
Adding to what everyone else has said.
… You know what helped me learn how to write (which I now do for a living)? Yes, talking in comment sections – But specifically.
I spent a lot of time in fandom forums.
Why does this matter?
Well.
TV Show fandoms are very low-stakes, you know? If you’re learning to swim you start at the kiddy pool, not the olympic one. So you can participate in discussions, make up headcanons, and learn how to express your ideas… And if you do get picked apart or something, even if you actually, genuinely, fucked up and were straight up wrong. It’s… Y’know. It’s just a TV show. So you can, in fact, let it go.
It’s different from when you’re talking about something serious, something important. If you’re writing about something technical and you mess up, you can end up spreading misinformation. On a political discussion, being clear on what you mean is important because the stuff being talked about matters. Not so for a fandom.
Oh and – Re-read what you wrote, and use that edit button if you catch something you missed.
Look into technical writing. I took it in college but I’m sure you can find free resources online about it. In short, good technical writing is:
- accurate
- concise
- clear
- usable
- readable
Of course, that’s easier said than done. It makes sense to make a rough outline of what you want to write before you write it. It’s also good to look over what you’ve written afterwards. If you keep these basic principles in mind while planning, writing, and revising, you can make your writing more effective.
Write what you know, take your time, and make many corrections before posting. If it’s very long, provide a TL/DR
For me, lengthy is enough to fill one computer screen.
I typically use a physical keyboard but Futo Voice Input is an option.
comprehensive knowledge
That’s the neat part!
You just get started. Its part of the reason I’ve always preferred either forums or fark/ digg/ reddit/ lemmy style conversations.
Also, writing is a skill. You get better at it with time. Its like how a TV show host can just ‘riff’ on a topic. I think responding to comments has definitely improved my ability to write in particular style (engaging/ proactive/ enthusiastic, whatever.).
It also helps to be familiar with markdown, as good formatting makes the writing more satisfying.
I was just talking about how commenting has made me reflect on how effectively I communicate in everyday life. I only ever lurked on Reddit because it seemed like everyone had already said what was worth commenting on. But on Lemmy, there is an opportunity to give it a shot and see what happens.
The worst case is someone picks apart what you were trying to articulate (rare), or no one responds (common). In the best case, you have an engaging conversation (also rare).
Not like this.
Over the course of half an hour. With lots of revisions and proofreading. If i’m putting in the effort, I’m putting in all the effort.
In recent times?
ChatGPT.
Writing essays in high school teaches you how to do this.
Have you not learned to write essays in school? It’s a similar skill.
It takes hours to write essays for me…
Sure, but if we’re just talking a paragraph or two, it’s a lot quicker than a few pages.
Their secret is ChatGPT.
In past, many word impossible, but AI make talk verbose. Shun AI. Talk short.
