References

Bring values to the reader

  • Writing is about changing the reader’s ideas and bringing values to your readers, rather than conveying your ideas to the reader.
  • launage as ways to deal with people - relationship between people, no longer about you, the writer
    • No rule makes sense without readers and functions in mind. Who is the reader and what is the function of the writing?
      • For example, use jargons and passive voice
  • Valuable work vs new/original knowledge. Readers care only the former
  • Underline the subject of sentences - do your readers care about this?
  • Tell what is the paper is about - what is the value to the reader?
    • ideas (does not suggest value) vs tools (purpose, use, value)
    • instead of start with background, identify a problem with the reader’s community. When we say background, we mean building the problem, not history
    • my paper will be about (only about writer, writing about the world - show me how much you know about this topic. I will assess your grasp), my paper will argue - tells you that what quetions you have this paper has answers (most room for reader)
  • Academic papers - I know what you are thinking, and you are wrong/unrealistic
  • Professional writing - I know what you need, and here is the value.
  • You must know the code of the community to create value. Capture them and create a word list. Have ten of them in the first two paragraph
    • Taking an article in the field, circle out words that create value to me

Misalignment between reading and writing

  • expert writer: writing about a subject where you have expert knowledge. Have to use writing to help thinking. This is different from jounalist’s writing, which don’t use the writing process to think of NEW ideas about the world
  • Writer: think about the world and write the text. Reader: read the text to know more about the world.
  • Most expert writers think and write at the same time, but this is not reader friendly. It is more about how much the writer knows rather than the world

Difference between school and work

  • Teachers are paid to read the text to care about you, rather than the world. But at work, you want to get paid and people read it
  • At work, Your readers do not trust you, thinking you are gonna waste their time.
  • When you hear “i don’t understand”, don’t explain, this is unlike teacher’s model. Explain: reveal the inside of your head
  • Why do you think like that? - teacher’s way. Your readers have the professional function of challenging what you write - different from teachers. Explain INSIDE values generated and persuations
  • More often than not the “gap” in the knowledge does not work - because it assumes the accumulative model. filling an infinitely gaps does not help

Focus and stress

  • Strucuture: focus of the sentence and stress at the end. Writer should control both for readers.
    • focus once we get it, it becomes invisible, and then we move to the stress part, often just the subject of the sentence
  • stress pos is near the end of a sentence. Along the way, have lesser stress points. A lot of stress points mean nothing.
  • The subject is known information and the verb gives new information about that subject. It is because this structure is so common that readers expect to find new information in the latter part of a sentence. This expectation is called the Known-New Contract.

Techniques

  • How to make readers feel important: however, netherliess, although, widely, inconsitent, reported
  • Create instability: anomaly, inconsitency, but , however, always
  • We value reading about bad stuff/conflict/trouble/tension - it is more entertaining, make ppl feel better about themselves
  • shorter sentence better with people wants to have fun, e.g., NYT opinions
  • persuation is based on what they doubt - know your (community of) readers: widely accepted, reported
  • “but” and point out they are wrong vs and I want to add something you didn’t you - they don’t care or even putting their voice in
  • Compare and contrast your ideas with concepts that your audience already understands, because you write mostly on evolutional ideas
    • This new app is similar to the Frambus app, except with much better graphics.
  • Writers start sentences with There is or There are to avoid the hassle of creating true subjects or verbs. If no subject exists, consider creating one
  • Place the pronoun as close as possible to the referring noun. In general, if more than five words separate your noun from your pronoun, consider repeating the noun instead of using the pronoun.
    • If you introduce a second noun between your noun and your pronoun, reuse your noun instead of using a pronoun.