WSJ: Why is so much writing so bad? Why is it so hard to understand a government form, or an academic article or the instructions for setting up a wireless home network?
The most popular explanation is that opaque prose is a deliberate choice. Bureaucrats insist on gibberish to cover their anatomy. Plaid-clad tech writers get their revenge on the jocks who kicked sand in their faces and the girls who turned them down for dates. Pseudo-intellectuals spout obscure verbiage to hide the fact that they have nothing to say, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin gobbledygook.
8 comments:
I really appreciate this article. Because dramaturgs have to make sure everyone on a creative team is operating on the same page/using common language the same way, we constantly have to clarify terms/steps/images/concepts to achieve mutual understanding. At the same time, because we come from training that requires us to understand jargon-heavy literary theories and academic concepts, we also have to be careful in our own language that we’re not just spewing out information that only means something to us. I find myself using the term “hegemony” a lot and having to backtrack and explain the concept.
This battle against the Curse of Knowledge can get tricky sometimes because I never want to assume that my audience doesn’t have the same knowledge as me. I’m more worried about insulting someone by over-explaining a concept as though they were a child, than about using the technical jargon, checking in that we understand each other (or ask an editor/advisor/peer reviewer for an opinion), and going back and explaining when necessary. Dr. Chemers used to say, “Never judge a person based on the books they haven’t read,” which absolutely makes sense, but at the same time, I know I would be insulted if someone just assumed I hadn’t read the books I have instead of taking the time to understand my knowledge base.
The Curse of Knowledge also becomes incredibly relevant in management and directing. The most successful directors can clearly articulate what they want to achieve and in what way. Or, as is the case in our acting class, the students who most clearly articulate what rehearsal furniture they need for an exercise get the most and most effective help when setting up a scene. And the best stage managers, talkback moderators, crew heads, etc. all are most successful when they can clearly lay out expectations for the people they are leading.
This is a sin of which we are likely all committing at some point. I like that this article pointed out the connection to bureaucracy though. I just had what I though was a really dumb interaction with Duquesne Light. I moved to a new apartment and when I logged in to my account at the end of the month I could not find my bill. I called them to ask where it was and the guy on the other end actually laughed at me before saying "you just have to edit your account number and add 1 to it" .....I should know this how? Everyone is full of jargon for their own field but very few can explain it all to outsiders. It can sometimes be very obvious with teachers whose job it is to teach only one subject. But at a certain point if you explain something and end with "so of course ....." and are greeted by 200 blank stares you probably need rethink your method. We can all be well served to take this article into account when making presentations.
I have gotten used to assuming that people don't know what I'm talking about. I try to explain myself with the most plain words possible unless I know for sure that they know what I'm talking about, like with a teacher about a project. Showing a draft to other people doesn't always work. There are sometimes certain things that have to be glossed over when writing a paper because of the page restriction.
The Curse of Knowledge is a relatively simple thing to overcome. You just have to keep in mind your audience. I know, the article says that that way of thinking isn't good advice, but it works out relatively well. If you are writing a paper for a class, then you won't reiterate all the information that the professor taught you in it because he/she already knows all of that. They don't need you to spew back the information that they already know.
This article was not exactly what I was expecting based on the title, but it turned out to present some very valuable viewpoints on its focus. To me, this article had more to do with poor communication in general than writing alone, although the two are obviously closely related. The author's explanation of the curse of knowledge is really well put and it can be very easily applied to a lot of scenarios everyone has found themselves in. Recently, I read a book about the Peter Principle, and was shocked to find it so easy to understand because typically this kind of writing is so dense. Rather than using the dry, formal tone common in much academic writing, the author wrote in a casual way and chose not phrase his ideas in an overly-complicated way for the sake of sounding intellectual. This is one of the best examples I can think of where the curse of knowledge was lifted. It requires a lot of self-awareness and awareness of your audience, but I think there is a place between presenting one's information in an overly complicated way and sounding patronizing toward your audience.
How many times in class have I raised my hand to contribute some banal tidbit to class discussion and tried to dress it up in words that only obfuscate the meaning, rendering the instructor and my classmates incapable of doing anything else other than smiling and nodding? Case in point.
The Curse of Knowledge is a double-edged sword, to be sure. I can make what feels like a very valid and important point completely inaccessible to other purely through my word choice, thus frustrating me and alienating others. As a former biology major, reading the abstracts of various studies and experiments excited me at first. The technical language, and aloof adjective-ridden phrases reminded me of how I spoke and wrote. But then when I actually tried to read the abstracts, I found my mind sliding over the words, unable to find purchase in context I could not even begin to comprehend. I was reading brilliant papers, but they did me no good because I could not gain anything from them.
I try to make myself aware of the words I use. Finding the balance between using the exact right word, and using a word that will be understood by many is hard. But why try and share knowledge in a way that makes it impossible to receive and interact with?
Something I think that the article isn't addressing is the limited education people are receiving on being to write AND read critically. I find myself seeing way that universities are limiting the amount of formal writing and analysis classes. Not just in the availability but in the requirements. People should know how to read and write well. Period. Though I do agree with the articles point on the Curse of Knowledge. I think it's important that people know their audiences and how best to communicate them IE it's perfect acceptable to use jargon when talking to people who specialize in your subject matter, but if you know that there are people who may not necessarily be 100% hip to the know, then you should rethink your tactics. Regardless I still believe that people should still be working on making sure they have the necessary reading and writing skills to engage with others on an academic level (and even not) and be able to communicate intelligently.
There's a corollary to this problem to be found in something we TD types deal with all the time: Drawings. "Detailing," the process of describing, on a piece of paper, an object and how it will be constructed, is our version of writing. It has a syntax, a grammar, and a dictionary all its own. Likewise, practitioners of this dark art are just as susceptible to the pitfalls of ill communication, and the underlying reason for most errors is the same: assumption. Like the scientist described in the article, assuming your audience knows everything you do is the basic problem of all communication. By the time a designer gets to the detailing part of the process, they have likely already spent a great deal of time getting to know the object they are tasked to describe to the builder. This is actually a problem. Especially now that CAD software allows us to create real three dimensional objects in virtual space, it's easy to make assumptions about what is apparent as you flatten that object on to paper. In this way, I think it's actually a more effective workflow to have someone other than the designer do the detailing. It may take a little more time as the detailer first has to become acquainted with the object, but time saved later in manufacturing is worth far more money. It is said that between each phase of a project, the costs associated with fixing an error increase by an order of magnitude (10x). So if fixing a problem on the floor costs a dollar, it would have only cost a dime to catch it in the office.
So assume nothing. I know there are people who will disagree with me on this, but there is simply no such thing as too much information on a drawing. The notion that a builder on the floor should have to take the time to do math in order to build something has always seemed to me misguided. First of all, often the carpenter on the floor makes more money than the detailer, so if anyone is going to stand around doing math, it should be the guy who makes less money. Secondly, as someone who has built a lot of things, I have never understood the fantasy that somehow having to figure out the cross cut length of a toggle, for instance, rather than having it provided on the drawing, makes me more likely to build the thing correctly. And lastly, one of the major advantages to CAD is that the computer does the math for you. What a concept! This does not mean that both the detailer and carpenter should trust the machine implicitly. On the contrary, providing all the information possible on the drawing gives us a baseline from which to compare and check our common assumptions about the object before we waste time and materials building it.
This is a very important concept which sadly too few people comprehend. I had never heard the phrase "the Curse of Knowledge" used before, but there is definitely a balance between making sure your audience understands what you are saying and not patronizing them by trying to explain something that they all already know. It can be very difficult, of course since everyone operates at a different level, but there are some cases, such as those described in the article, where it is clear that the presenter didn't consider at all what the audience was experiencing. It all emphasizes how incredibly important it is to have clear communication between parties so that as few mistakes as possible are made.
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