Ponce, I used to read practically everything, but the last couple of years haven’t read nearly so much. Still scientific stuff of course, but books have become pretty much limited to authors like Dale Brown, W.E.B. Griffin, and Vince Flynn. Favorite all-time author is EE “Doc” Smith. The all-time best scientific communicator was far and away Isaac Asimov.
On catering: I’m really not referring to catering. Excessively long sentences don’t suit anyone. I don’t even think them good myself. They are simply the product of writing about as fast as I type, and tending to speak and think that way. If they make the posts hard to read for many – and by this point it’s clear that they do – then it’s not “catering” to people to clean them up, but simply correcting poor writing.
One of the problems in asking a question like this is that people don’t like admitting things that they feel will make others find them less intelligent. Because of this, they would rather suffer through awkwardly worded posts and say shit like, “don’t cater to the masses, Bill” or, “some of us made it past fourth grade!” rather than give honest feedback.
While I wouldn’t recommend multiple proofreads of every post (you do have a life to live, I’m sure), simply keeping the fact that you tend to ramble and post awkward, stilted sentences in mind would probably be enough. Your information is usually sound, it’s just your presentation of it that leaves room for improvement.
It’s not “dumbing down” if you really ARE making mistakes that force your posts to run the risk of misinterpretation or multiple readings in order to soak it all up.
I agree – I never remotely thought of it as dumbing down at all.
I don’t believe it can work out though as just keeping it in mind that my natural flow of words winds up being, at times, very lengthy. That is fine when carefully composing, but not when typing at nearly conversational speed. It will take going back and heavily rewriting parts, which is why it is enough trouble to have been worth asking before embarking on it. But clearly there’s enough problem encountered by enough people that that will be worth doing.
In my perception, often times, your writing comes off as pedantic, and for an online forum it might not be the most effective means of communication. This is only my honest opinion and not intended to be offensive or rude. Nevertheless, as a whole your posts are well-thought-out and informative, and your writing style certainly provides a unique flavor from the ordinary. I believe there is a happy-medium you will be able to find without ‘dumbing your posts down’ or proofreading excessively.
Bill, you are one of the more intelligent members on this forum. I think the general consensus around here is that there is a niche of sorts for someone of your writing style. I, like many of the above, appreciate the quality and thought that goes into your posts. However, if you feel compelled to simplify your thoughts in order to reach out to a wider audience (some sort of moral obligation perhaps?), then more power to you. Either way, keep up the good work.
I think (and hope) that you continue to speak and write just as you have been. If the material is over our head, which can easily be the case, it makes the rest of us “pony up” to understand what you say. You two make us better, and if it’s ok with everyone else, I prefer to poke the minds of those more intelligent than I. Both of your writing styles are the very reason people look up to you both and look forward to what you have to say, do not change that, unless you want to. It is better for the rest of us to pick up the slack than for you to water down your material. My 2 cents.
I don’t mind the huge sentences and parenthetical expressions at all, perhaps because I am prone to that stuff myself. I don’t skim or skip your posts. On the contrary, you are one of a handful of posters here (BushidoBadBoy and KSMan are others) whose posts I seek out. Keep it up! Of course, there does seem to be a general clamoring for relief, but I’d rather have MORE posts from you than better edited posts, if that is the trade-off.
Just shorten your sentences a bit. Sometimes your posts are like reading a textbook.
When sentences or paragraphs go on for too long, readers lose interest. I don’t know what the exact statistics are, but you don’t have very long to capture a reader’s interest, and once you’ve captured it, you don’t want to lose it.
All day every day I talk numbers, formulas and financial concepts with people in other countries. They are smart people to whom English is not their native language.
When I write emails, in order to make certain I get my point across, I write in short choppy sentences, sometimes only one sentence per paragraph. I have noticed that Shugart writes this way as well.
I think ProfX mentioned earlier that he used to write like he was communicating with a room full of physicians. I write like I am writing to finance people. You however are writing to a wide array of readers, so unless you only want to get your point across to a small handful of them, dumb it down.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
It’s never been my experience that people (for the vast majority) have difficulty with the concepts. I think many very much underestimate people.
The problem is generally with the communication.
And the exceptions are generally of closed-minded absolute adherence to existing ideas, rather than actual (other than that) lack of ability.[/quote]
Were you a philosophy major?
By the way, I withdraw my suggestion, shortening the sentences was ineffective.
I apologize if this seems sarcastic, but you just don’t seem to get what many people are saying.
Regardless, who cares? Your writing style is your writing style. Don’t worry what others think of it.
Because I do not reply to every post, or I don’t agree with a presumption behind it, does not mean that I don’t “get” what people are saying.
For example, if you’re operating under a presumption that most others here are just too dumb, unlike yourself, and to meet their needs my posts need to be dumbed down – to use your expression – you can be sure that I “get” you. I understand what you think.
But I don’t agree with it, and I have a lot more basis for knowing how well I’m understood by people – except where undoubtedly poor writing in technical regards such as sentence length provides a barrier – than other persons do, because I have far more feedback on that than another person will have.
[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
However I do often chuckle and shake my head when reading some of your posts, because of your style, which can be confusing in a ‘double negative’ sort of way.[/quote]
I actually employ intentionally complex sentence structures and little-used words on my blog, for that exact reason. It’s funny in a “Penny Arcade”, “XKCD” kind of way. The people that get it think it’s hilarious, and the people who don’t have stopped commenting. That does not bother me.
When I’m writing more seriously, though, I do have to be careful to limit the complexity and verbosity (see?) of my posts; they want the “true 90% of the time” answer, not the minutia and ass-covering. TL;DR is a very real internet phenomena.
On the other hand, some concepts really do require precise phrasing; I totally agree with Bill regarding the occasional importance of making something explicit over making something easy. There’s no such thing as a free lunch; if you want quality information, you have to be willing to pay the price, even if that price is re-reading a paragraph a couple of times.
And if a guy drops by, says “hey guys, how can I be sure that I’m not destroying my hormonal system with all of these horse drugs I’m about to inject,” and then says “huh, what does this Bill Roberts guy have to say… wtf? Parenthesis? Commas? Muthaluvin agreement between the noun and the verb? Fuck You!!!”, well, that’s natural selection at work.
Bill, I love your posts and when I see your name attached to a thread when cruising a forum, I go right to that one. But then again, I come from a life sciences background, so not much is going to go over my head. Same goes for Sky Nett, PX, MODOK, Jehovah’s Fitness, Scott M, and Sento. I’m not sure if all of them have science backgrounds, but most do and are all pretty bright guys.
Actually, Millard Baker and I were conversing on Face Book, commending your insightful posts on the 'net.
