
Steven Pinker's rules for writing better - yarapavan
https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1084490338629242880
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yarapavan
1\. Reverse-engineer what you read. If it feels like good writing, what makes
it good? If it’s awful, why?

2\. Prose is a window onto the world. Let your readers see what you are seeing
by using visual, concrete language.

3.Don’t go meta. Minimize concepts about concepts, like “approach, assumption,
concept, condition, context, framework, issue, level, model, perspective,
process, range, role, strategy, tendency,” and “variable.”

4.Let verbs be verbs. “Appear,” not “make an appearance.”

5.Beware of the Curse of Knowledge: when you know something, it’s hard to
imagine what it’s like not to know it. Minimize acronyms & technical terms.
Use “for example” liberally. Show a draft around, & prepare to learn that
what’s obvious to you may not be obvious to anyone else.

6\. Omit needless words (Will Strunk was right about this).

7\. Avoid clichés like the plague (thanks, William Safire).

8\. Old information at the beginning of the sentence, new information at the
end.

9.Save the heaviest for last: a complex phrase should go at the end of the
sentence.

10\. Prose must cohere: readers must know how each sentence is related to the
preceding one. If it’s not obvious, use “that is, for example, in general, on
the other hand, nevertheless, as a result, because, nonetheless,” or
“despite.”

11\. Revise several times with the single goal of improving the prose.

12\. Read it aloud.

13\. Find the best word, which is not always the fanciest word. Consult a
dictionary with usage notes, and a thesaurus.

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mrspeaker
Is there a term (preferably derogatory) for replying to a comment/article that
contains a list by extending the list? "I would add <unnecessary additions to
list>" ... drives me crazy!

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wrnr
His lecture on style is entertaining and informative:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODzR1mjB99Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODzR1mjB99Q)

