A writing tip I learned at Oxford(newsletter.timber.fm)
newsletter.timber.fm
A writing tip I learned at Oxford
https://newsletter.timber.fm/p/a-writing-tip-i-learned-at-oxford
91 comments
that was a pretty long comment, with a lot of points to follow.
but you can find the main point in 3 seconds - it's in the second line, on it's own, with a symbol beside it. Then I get into the story. You can choose to follow along or not afterward - you've gotten the most important point right away.
Ok, that symbol though - the > is generally used as a quote symbol in HN, so of course I was confused as to what was being quoted.
on edit: by quote symbol I mean this is the point that someone else in the parent comment or the article made that I am going to respond to in my following bit of text.
on edit: by quote symbol I mean this is the point that someone else in the parent comment or the article made that I am going to respond to in my following bit of text.
I think it's actually a carry over from reddit, where it activates the quote, while here on hacker news it does nothing. It's just a symbol.
It’s a carryover from long established internet (plaintext email, Usenet, etc.) convention, which is where reddit (and lots of other forums) got it, too.
most people on the internet have never used plain text email, or usenet. A fair chunk of them have used reddit, where it actually does something.
So I guess it's just not that important to me, overall, to use a convention that few people have ever used. If HN had a basic quote function it wouldn't matter.
So I guess it's just not that important to me, overall, to use a convention that few people have ever used. If HN had a basic quote function it wouldn't matter.
> So I guess it's just not that important to me, overall, to use a convention that few people have ever used.
My favorite writing tip is knowing one’s audience. (:
My favorite writing tip is knowing one’s audience. (:
> So I guess it's just not that important to me, overall, to use a convention that few people have ever used.
Lots of people have used it, because lots of places have copied it from where it originated.
At any rate, HN is mostly-plain-text environment that is more similar than most newer places that have adopted the convention to the context in which it originates, so in addition to its relevance to past experience, it makes sense on its own here.
> So I guess it's just not that important to me, overall, to use a convention that few people have ever used.
Yeah, lots of HN conventions each wouldn't matter if HN had one specific relevant formatting feature for the use case the convention addresses, but it doesn't, so we have the conventions we have.
Lots of people have used it, because lots of places have copied it from where it originated.
At any rate, HN is mostly-plain-text environment that is more similar than most newer places that have adopted the convention to the context in which it originates, so in addition to its relevance to past experience, it makes sense on its own here.
> So I guess it's just not that important to me, overall, to use a convention that few people have ever used.
Yeah, lots of HN conventions each wouldn't matter if HN had one specific relevant formatting feature for the use case the convention addresses, but it doesn't, so we have the conventions we have.
Intriguing. I have never used Reddit except as a search result.
The ">" is ubiquitous in email, usenet, Markdown, Github and Discord, which are more familiar. It seems to be a widely used convention here on HN as well, even though HN software doesn't highlight it.
It's baked into a lot of modern software due to long-standing convention for about half a century.
Nowadays that software includes anything taking input with a vague similarity to Markdown. There's a lot of that about.
The ">" is ubiquitous in email, usenet, Markdown, Github and Discord, which are more familiar. It seems to be a widely used convention here on HN as well, even though HN software doesn't highlight it.
It's baked into a lot of modern software due to long-standing convention for about half a century.
Nowadays that software includes anything taking input with a vague similarity to Markdown. There's a lot of that about.
It's stupid. If HN implemented a quote feature, it would mean something. if I preceded every quote with a bold pipe | for each line of the quote it would be more noticeable, but of course HN doesn't provide a WYIWYG editor so you never know when a new line starts. It's just a first line visual indicator here.
Consider me your quote symbol iconoclast. There's no reason for > to mean quote in a system that doesn't implement quotes. It's just a cultural construct being followed 'because thats how it was'.
Consider me your quote symbol iconoclast. There's no reason for > to mean quote in a system that doesn't implement quotes. It's just a cultural construct being followed 'because thats how it was'.
> It's just a cultural construct
That's the point. It doesn't have to "do anything" in software or be "implemented" to be useful - it has shared meaning in people's minds.
You're reminding me of the small child who receives a non-electronic action figure for Christmas and immediately asks, "but what does it do?"
That's the point. It doesn't have to "do anything" in software or be "implemented" to be useful - it has shared meaning in people's minds.
You're reminding me of the small child who receives a non-electronic action figure for Christmas and immediately asks, "but what does it do?"
alternately, I just don't care what symbol is used since it's not connected to any actual function. Someone got offended that I used one symbol instead of another and when I said 'i don't really care' people jumped in to tell me how important it was to them. I still don't care.
> alternately, I just don't care what symbol is used since it's not connected to any actual function.
Put it like this: it is connected to an actual function, it's just that that function is in people's minds.
As for people getting offended, I think you might be projecting. Let's look at how part of this conversation might have played out in an alternate universe:
> I think it's actually a carry over from reddit, where it activates the quote, while here on hacker news it does nothing. It's just a symbol.
> > It’s a carryover from long established internet (plaintext email, Usenet, etc.) convention, which is where reddit (and lots of other forums) got it, too.
> > > Oh wow, I didn't know that! It's always cool to learn about the history of where things we take for granted come from.
The point is, there's no need to take offense at a minor educational correction.
Put it like this: it is connected to an actual function, it's just that that function is in people's minds.
As for people getting offended, I think you might be projecting. Let's look at how part of this conversation might have played out in an alternate universe:
> I think it's actually a carry over from reddit, where it activates the quote, while here on hacker news it does nothing. It's just a symbol.
> > It’s a carryover from long established internet (plaintext email, Usenet, etc.) convention, which is where reddit (and lots of other forums) got it, too.
> > > Oh wow, I didn't know that! It's always cool to learn about the history of where things we take for granted come from.
The point is, there's no need to take offense at a minor educational correction.
> There's no reason for > to mean quote in a system that doesn't implement quotes. It's just a cultural construct
So is all of language. There is no reason for “cultural construct” to mean cultural construct, its just a cultural construct. But shared cultural constructs are what enables communication.
So is all of language. There is no reason for “cultural construct” to mean cultural construct, its just a cultural construct. But shared cultural constructs are what enables communication.
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>>> If I can't find the most important part of your writing in 3 seconds, I've already moved on.
You should try to to qualify that with the kind of writing you mean, because taken literally, that's a weird way to read anything. For instance, what is "the most important part" in War and Peace, or Song of Ice and Fire, that the reader should be able to find in 3 seconds?
You should try to to qualify that with the kind of writing you mean, because taken literally, that's a weird way to read anything. For instance, what is "the most important part" in War and Peace, or Song of Ice and Fire, that the reader should be able to find in 3 seconds?
No, I shouldn't. I was clearly talking about blog posts and similar articles. It wasn't a criticism of dostoyevsky, either. smh
I buy the OP's advice when the writer hopes to engage their audience in a light conversational medium like a podcast. But is talk the only style of communication to aspire to?
Yes, much great writing is musical. But surely no composer of stout heart sets the stage using only one musical style, nor ask the same voice to sing every aria. Nor are all great works vocal.
Does it not make more sense for authors to explore the telling of tales through many voices in many rooms, and not just one?
Yes, much great writing is musical. But surely no composer of stout heart sets the stage using only one musical style, nor ask the same voice to sing every aria. Nor are all great works vocal.
Does it not make more sense for authors to explore the telling of tales through many voices in many rooms, and not just one?
The tip: read your writing out loud.
Thanks. It felt like I was trying to find how long to cook something and at what temperature and instead the author is only interested in telling me about their grandmother's sweaters and childhood summers in Vermont.
You nailed it. That's precisely how I felt.
I made this Chrome extension to help skip to the recipe on those long-winded sites. Someone on here years ago encouraged me to build it!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recipe-filter/ahlc...
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recipe-filter/ahlc...
I half expected it to be, "Add credibility signifiers like 'I learned this at Oxford' to your headlines."
I’ve also closed my eyes and used a computer’s text-to-speech capability. I find this helpful when my writing is fresh and I’m apt to be reading as much from memory as with my eyes.
Yes I'm doing that all the time. There is no good TTS on Linux so I often have to use online tools. I need to try some of the cloud providers TTS systems, their demo sound great.
I was taught that writing and speaking are very different you tend to speak much differently than you'd write. Maybe that was bad advice.
You do, but the goal here isn't to write the way you speak, it's to force a different engagement with your own writing than you would get otherwise. This page from the UNC writing center gives a better explanation: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-aloud/
I try to follow this advice for important emails, and it helps a lot.
I try to follow this advice for important emails, and it helps a lot.
I'd say writing that's like your speech without filler words and backtracking to rephrase what you just said can make for remarkably great prose.
Indeed: it seems (according to TA Eliot) that Henry James dictated his latest novels to a typist (or something similar) and that accounts for the density and lack of freshness (also of his revises edition of his works, which he did in his old age).
Mark Twain dictated some 2,000 pages for his autobiography.
"Twain first tried dictating into Thomas Edison's new recording machine but didn't like it -- he was a man who strutted stages all over the world, delivering extemporaneous spiels. Twain needed a live audience to speak to, not a bloodless machine. He eventually found that audience in stenographer Josephine Hobby and author Albert Bigelow Paine, his first biographer. Paine says Twain often dictated from his bed, clad in a handsome silk dressing gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against great snowy pillows. He also got up, paced the floor and waved his arms as he poured out nearly 2,000 pages of typescript over three years."
https://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131703237/on-publishing-mark-...
"Twain first tried dictating into Thomas Edison's new recording machine but didn't like it -- he was a man who strutted stages all over the world, delivering extemporaneous spiels. Twain needed a live audience to speak to, not a bloodless machine. He eventually found that audience in stenographer Josephine Hobby and author Albert Bigelow Paine, his first biographer. Paine says Twain often dictated from his bed, clad in a handsome silk dressing gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against great snowy pillows. He also got up, paced the floor and waved his arms as he poured out nearly 2,000 pages of typescript over three years."
https://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131703237/on-publishing-mark-...
I suspect that that may have been the case for people who grew up without and don’t primarily communicate with the internet, people whose writing style is mainly shaped by a school syllabus, but nowadays I’d guess that that’s falling away, to an extent
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If you write on a computer, printing the essay in a different font/color/line spacing, and reading it, also works.
PG has some interesting thoughts about this: http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html
I can corroborate; I've been writing long-form for years, and somewhere along the way I began releasing my works as podcast episodes. There have been many occasions where I didn't recognize problems until I was recording the narration.
Yep, thanks, tried scanning it to find the but of advice. Failed:)
I read this comment out loud
Thank you.
It might be useful for writing essays.
It is essential for writing YouTube comments - https://xkcd.com/481/.
It is essential for writing YouTube comments - https://xkcd.com/481/.
Saved me a click
Hero!
Worth recommanding too from Howard S Becker : https://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/b...
I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks recently and very much had the related thought: text written for reading is distinct from that written for reading aloud, and a LOT of books are a miserable slog when they’re stuck in the wrong category.
I recently discovered this top on my own while starting a new podcast that’s based on a written newsletter.
It’s not (always) a word for word read, but after a few sessions of reading the newsletter out loud as I was recording, I noticed my writing has become more fluid and the content easier to digest (in my opinion, at least).
It was kind of hard (really, awkward) to read my own writing at first, but it got easier.
A really great tip!
It’s not (always) a word for word read, but after a few sessions of reading the newsletter out loud as I was recording, I noticed my writing has become more fluid and the content easier to digest (in my opinion, at least).
It was kind of hard (really, awkward) to read my own writing at first, but it got easier.
A really great tip!
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TL;DR read aloud what you wrote because it is easier to catch mistakes
This leaves out the sample from Steven King that illustrates adding words for rhythm and not meaning.
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Pay attention to spelling, grammar and Oxford commas.
I see what you did there and I disapprove. But seriously, I find Oxford commas so useful that I catch myself trying to use them in three other languages that don't have them.
May I ask which languages don’t have them? I can’t think of any European or Indian language that doesn’t use them (when writing with the Latin script). I may be wrong though.
Czech is one such example.
Oxford comma[1]? It's not used in Spanish and a flat out mistake in Russian, for example.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
It is considered an error in Polish.
EDIT:
Pay attention to speling, a grammar and Oxford commas.
Pay attention to speling, a grammar and Oxford commas.
"imminently listenable" - I think my writing advice would be: don't give writing advice about proof reading if you're prone to typos!
Author presumably meant "emminently listenable" (a bit of a cliché but not heinous).
Author presumably meant "emminently listenable" (a bit of a cliché but not heinous).
Surely he mean eminently listenable.
Muphry's Law strikes again!
Hah, indeed. Hoist by my own.
It's not "imminently listenable", it's "eminently listenable". The first phrase means we are going to listen very, very soon; the latter means it's very listenable.
(Normally I wouldn't nitpick, but this is a post about writing and the mistake is in the 2nd paragraph so. Also, the tip is to read aloud.)
(Normally I wouldn't nitpick, but this is a post about writing and the mistake is in the 2nd paragraph so. Also, the tip is to read aloud.)
Sounds like the tip fails for homonyms.
Sounds like the tip falls for homophones.
:( I didn't read my comment aloud. The "sounds" part was deliberate though.
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It says "eminently listenable" now. Nice catch.
since we’re being pedantic, the first phrase actually means that we’ll be able to listen very soon, not that we will
upvote from me for the tldr, thanks!
> It's not "imminently listenable", it's "eminently listenable".
Are you sure this isn't a deliberate wordplay? A tiger ready to pounce on you in the jungle is an imminent danger; a great story read by a skilled voice actor is imminently listenable.
Also, you put the comma and period outside your double quotes. We computer programmers often do this, but this is incorrect in American English: the punctuation goes inside the double quotes. In British English the punctuation does indeed go outside the quotes unless the punctuation is actually being quoted, but the British use single quotes.[1]
American English: "Your color is changing," she said.
British English: `Your colour is changing', she said.
[1] https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/does-punctuation-go-insi...
Are you sure this isn't a deliberate wordplay? A tiger ready to pounce on you in the jungle is an imminent danger; a great story read by a skilled voice actor is imminently listenable.
Also, you put the comma and period outside your double quotes. We computer programmers often do this, but this is incorrect in American English: the punctuation goes inside the double quotes. In British English the punctuation does indeed go outside the quotes unless the punctuation is actually being quoted, but the British use single quotes.[1]
American English: "Your color is changing," she said.
British English: `Your colour is changing', she said.
[1] https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/does-punctuation-go-insi...
>the British use single quotes
That’s not true, or at least it’s not what I was taught at my British primary school, and it’s not what you see people use. Maybe historically that’s true, I don’t know. The current British consensus is to use double quotes.
Sometimes you see single quotes in headlines when the author doesn’t want to imply that they’re making a direct quote
That’s not true, or at least it’s not what I was taught at my British primary school, and it’s not what you see people use. Maybe historically that’s true, I don’t know. The current British consensus is to use double quotes.
Sometimes you see single quotes in headlines when the author doesn’t want to imply that they’re making a direct quote
> Are you sure this isn't a deliberate wordplay?
Apparently not, because the author has since corrected it.
> the British use single quotes.[1]
It's not that simple, because "the British" rather notoriously spread to many places. There are large ex-colony countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, where English is the primary language; and others where it's a major official language, like South Africa and India.
When it comes to rules like the ones you mention, they tend to vary because of varying degrees of American vs. British influence, as well as local variation; and of course, this all changes over time.
A better and more realistic treatment of the subject of punctuation in quotes can be found here: https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pun1.htm
Apparently not, because the author has since corrected it.
> the British use single quotes.[1]
It's not that simple, because "the British" rather notoriously spread to many places. There are large ex-colony countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, where English is the primary language; and others where it's a major official language, like South Africa and India.
When it comes to rules like the ones you mention, they tend to vary because of varying degrees of American vs. British influence, as well as local variation; and of course, this all changes over time.
A better and more realistic treatment of the subject of punctuation in quotes can be found here: https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pun1.htm
[deleted]
I'm a non-native English speaker and I somewhat deliberately mix different parts of American and British English. For example, I usually use American spelling, but for some things (like "toward" vs. "towards") the British way (or rather the way which is more common in Britain compared to America) sounds "more right" to me. I also put commas/periods outside quotes because I could never understand why they should be inside.
A writing tip I learned at community college: "get to the point".
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's a deceptively deep dismissal. Please think before posting comments like this.
I did; my thinking was that it was a snarky dig at the author by knocking "Oxford" down to "community college" and making the cliché internet objection to longer articles ("get to the point"). In other words: an obvious status move, the cheapest fault-finding that exists, and literally nothing else. It considers none of the actual content, and to the extent it says anything, what it says is false—there's no need for articles to "get to the point"; it all depends on what kind of article it is. All that seemed not only shallow and dismissive, but a textbook specimen of the genre; hence I posted the above. What's your thinking?
The Oxford/community college point is a valid one, because it points out the emptiness of the clickbaity "learned at Oxford" in the OP title.
The "cliché internet objection to longer articles" can be valid in some cases. This is one of them. Plenty of other comments in this thread have pointed out the inherently blogspammy nature of the OP. It's a long, rambling piece with a clickbait title that wraps a tiny nugget of advice that may in any case be of limited applicability.
I'm a huge fan of long-form writing, like many of the articles one can find in e.g. The New Yorker, The Paris Review, etc. If this had been an article like that, then a snarky but biting dismissal might have been out of line. But the only thing the OP article has in common with those articles are its aspirations, which it failed to deliver on.
Responding to the form of a critical comment without considering the context is blind application of rules that doesn't help maintain the level of dialog. If we really wanted to apply effective moderation here, it should be to the OP article.
The "cliché internet objection to longer articles" can be valid in some cases. This is one of them. Plenty of other comments in this thread have pointed out the inherently blogspammy nature of the OP. It's a long, rambling piece with a clickbait title that wraps a tiny nugget of advice that may in any case be of limited applicability.
I'm a huge fan of long-form writing, like many of the articles one can find in e.g. The New Yorker, The Paris Review, etc. If this had been an article like that, then a snarky but biting dismissal might have been out of line. But the only thing the OP article has in common with those articles are its aspirations, which it failed to deliver on.
Responding to the form of a critical comment without considering the context is blind application of rules that doesn't help maintain the level of dialog. If we really wanted to apply effective moderation here, it should be to the OP article.
You've done a better job of defending it than I assumed possible!
I still don't think you're reckoning with the cheapness of the snark.
I still don't think you're reckoning with the cheapness of the snark.
> I ended up studying English Romantic poetry with the late Jonathan Wordsworth, who was a great-great-great nephew of the famous poet William Wordsworth.
Sounds like they were Worth their Words.
Sounds like they were Worth their Words.
Writing tip: add "TLDR;".
A much better lesson: https://stevenpressfield.com/2009/10/writing-wednesdays-2-th...
TL;DR no one wants to read your sh*t
TL;DR no one wants to read your sh*t
People obviously want to read other people’s shit, or we wouldn’t have books, newspapers, RSS readers, search engines, etc.
But people don’t want to just read it because it’s there. They want to read it because they think they’ll get something out of it. If they think it will take too much effort, then they won’t want to read it.
Keep writing. Don’t just be a consumer of other people’s writing. Don’t say “I’ll never be Stephen King so what’s the point”. Keep writing. Even if people aren’t interested today, one day they will be.
But people don’t want to just read it because it’s there. They want to read it because they think they’ll get something out of it. If they think it will take too much effort, then they won’t want to read it.
Keep writing. Don’t just be a consumer of other people’s writing. Don’t say “I’ll never be Stephen King so what’s the point”. Keep writing. Even if people aren’t interested today, one day they will be.
>Here it is. Here’s the #1 lesson you learn working in advertising (and this has stuck with me, to my advantage, my whole working life):
Nobody wants to read your shit.
Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchopotoulis.
It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy.
Nobody wants to read your shit.
<
Nobody wants to read your shit.
Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchopotoulis.
It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy.
Nobody wants to read your shit.
<
- If I can't find the most important part of your writing in 3 seconds, I've already moved on.
Take the linked article - I clicked on it for a writing tip. In the first paragraph they suddenly tell me it's not about a writing tip, it's 'weaving together three things'.
Now I scan the article quickly looking for the writing tip, because I don't care about the history of the writing tip before I've evaluated if it's any good.
3 seconds are up, and my patience is gone, and while the author is very interested in their history of writing tutorials at oxford, literally nobody else is.
I'll only care about it if I think the writing tip is interesting, but I can't find the writing tip because it's organized like a recipe blog - you click for a recipe, and they hide the recipe somewhere on the page. At least with recipes you can recognize the format of the recipe down the page somewhere, making scanning easier. With this I can't even do that.
So here's the writing tip for the author - don't hook someone in promising a writing tip, and then hide that writing tip. If it's enough of a tip to get me interested in your story, I'll read it. If it's not, then you just clickbaited me and nothing you write matters.
I classify this as some sort of weird ultra snobbery ('I learned this at oxford') clickbait ('here's a writing tip I'm going to hide in a diary entry'). Promise me a writing tip, give me the writing tip, or lose my interest forever (because now I classify you as recipe blog I won't click on it again).