Thanks for the suggestion, but I don’t think I will add one—not because the article can’t be summarized but because adding a summary is kind of antithetical to the whole thrust of the essay. In part, I am arguing that excessive emphasis on legibility and efficiency in science is killing creativity. If the lack of a summary means that less people will read it then so be it :)
Speaking as a moderator, I tried to understand whether this post belongs to “personal” or to “frontpage”. In fact, I’d have put this under “personal” (because I thought that this post is more about improving one’s creativity) had I not read this comment which gave me some more context.
I think I disagree with adding a summary being antithetical to the argument of legibility and efficiency killing creativity. First, summaries are important from an explanatory perspective. It helps readers have context for what they are reading, and I think that is especially important as different readers read texts differently. Readers can prefer to read more linearly, or they can prefer to jump around the text however suits their own style. Readers also come with widely different points of view and preconceptions which might make it much harder to linearly control the flow of how the author’s ideas are understood.
Second, while I agree that adding a summary adds to efficiency, but I don’t think that this is an example of the type of creativity-killing overefficiency. Then again, I haven’t read this whole post and I’m not sure what your argument is, I can only guess. On a broader scale, do you think that efficient communication is killing creativity?
I would say that reading the whole piece would clear up these issues—the second half (III and IV) is very different than the first and it might be hard to understand the whole thrust the argument without getting to the end.
I don’t disagree with all of your points here regarding summaries and communicative efficiency. I think my argument is that other values necessarily get sacrificed in the name of efficiency and clarity—aesthetic value, persuasive efficacy, diversity of style/tone. Insisting that every article aims for clarity/efficiency is going to standardize articles in a way that affects the author’s creativity and the mindset of the reader. There is nothing wrong with your preference for articles to conform to the “EA forum norms”—this is a style that is good for quick intake of information—but there are other goals that one can have in writing and reading. I would say my goal in this article is persuasive and inspirational, and as such there is (I hope) an artistic quality that is probably not found in many articles on here. Adding a summary, in my opinion, would detract from these goals/qualities. For example, as I said the second half of the article is very different than the first—a reader who knows what is coming to some degree might not feel the same emotions (and might not be inspired/persuaded) as they would if going in cold. While summaries might convince some people to read on, they also might stop some people from reading who would just plunge in otherwise. I would argue that the people who would be dissuaded from reading this article because of its summary are probably the people that need to read it the most, so in this sense of a summary is kind of self-defeating.
A summary is also good if you want the largest number of people to read your article, but there is no reason why this must be your goal as an author and it is not mine here. I would rather fewer people read the essay and actually think about it then more people read it but just skim.
Thanks for your comments! I never really had to make this argument before but I’ve had this feeling for some time. I can’t say I’m super familiar with the EA forum and the typical writing styles/formats, curious what you or others think about it.
Thank you, I think I understand your point of view and I think that it makes total sense that you’d prefer to keep this post the way it is. My takeaway is that while I’m personally optimizing for efficiency and clarity, this needn’t be the case for everyone in every post and that is fine on the forum (at least to some extent which is likely higher than what we currently have).
I think you might have a good point regarding legibility. I tend to find myself slightly overagreeable with posts that are presented in a way that conforms to the “EA forum norms” and somewhat rejecting posts with styles that I’m less fond of. In this post, I actually felt more agreeable rather than not at first, not sure why, but less so over time as I just didn’t find my footing and that made me confused. This could be because I never actually read the whole post.
(I notice now that I’ve actually spent more time writing these comments than the time it’d have taken me to read the text… I’m sorry about that! )
I can only speak for myself, but assuming my experience generalizes, this means lots of people will miss out on what you have to say. Since you don’t have a prior belief that posts by you are worth reading and this post has a vague title that could be about any number of things, it makes it hard to consider it worth the time to invest in reading. So just purely from the pragmatic point of view, I estimate a summary would help get more people to read.
The irony is that EdoArad and myself have probably now spend enough time engaging with comments on this post that we could have read it, but I know I still haven’t. The comments feel valuable (chatting with a fellow forum member about possible ways to make a post better) while reading the post itself doesn’t (since there’s not even really much of a teaser to pull me in, I’m just not developing any motivation to read).
Thanks for the suggestion, but I don’t think I will add one—not because the article can’t be summarized but because adding a summary is kind of antithetical to the whole thrust of the essay. In part, I am arguing that excessive emphasis on legibility and efficiency in science is killing creativity. If the lack of a summary means that less people will read it then so be it :)
Speaking as a moderator, I tried to understand whether this post belongs to “personal” or to “frontpage”. In fact, I’d have put this under “personal” (because I thought that this post is more about improving one’s creativity) had I not read this comment which gave me some more context.
I think I disagree with adding a summary being antithetical to the argument of legibility and efficiency killing creativity. First, summaries are important from an explanatory perspective. It helps readers have context for what they are reading, and I think that is especially important as different readers read texts differently. Readers can prefer to read more linearly, or they can prefer to jump around the text however suits their own style. Readers also come with widely different points of view and preconceptions which might make it much harder to linearly control the flow of how the author’s ideas are understood.
Second, while I agree that adding a summary adds to efficiency, but I don’t think that this is an example of the type of creativity-killing overefficiency. Then again, I haven’t read this whole post and I’m not sure what your argument is, I can only guess. On a broader scale, do you think that efficient communication is killing creativity?
I would say that reading the whole piece would clear up these issues—the second half (III and IV) is very different than the first and it might be hard to understand the whole thrust the argument without getting to the end.
I don’t disagree with all of your points here regarding summaries and communicative efficiency. I think my argument is that other values necessarily get sacrificed in the name of efficiency and clarity—aesthetic value, persuasive efficacy, diversity of style/tone. Insisting that every article aims for clarity/efficiency is going to standardize articles in a way that affects the author’s creativity and the mindset of the reader. There is nothing wrong with your preference for articles to conform to the “EA forum norms”—this is a style that is good for quick intake of information—but there are other goals that one can have in writing and reading. I would say my goal in this article is persuasive and inspirational, and as such there is (I hope) an artistic quality that is probably not found in many articles on here. Adding a summary, in my opinion, would detract from these goals/qualities. For example, as I said the second half of the article is very different than the first—a reader who knows what is coming to some degree might not feel the same emotions (and might not be inspired/persuaded) as they would if going in cold. While summaries might convince some people to read on, they also might stop some people from reading who would just plunge in otherwise. I would argue that the people who would be dissuaded from reading this article because of its summary are probably the people that need to read it the most, so in this sense of a summary is kind of self-defeating.
A summary is also good if you want the largest number of people to read your article, but there is no reason why this must be your goal as an author and it is not mine here. I would rather fewer people read the essay and actually think about it then more people read it but just skim.
Thanks for your comments! I never really had to make this argument before but I’ve had this feeling for some time. I can’t say I’m super familiar with the EA forum and the typical writing styles/formats, curious what you or others think about it.
Thank you, I think I understand your point of view and I think that it makes total sense that you’d prefer to keep this post the way it is. My takeaway is that while I’m personally optimizing for efficiency and clarity, this needn’t be the case for everyone in every post and that is fine on the forum (at least to some extent which is likely higher than what we currently have).
I think you might have a good point regarding legibility. I tend to find myself slightly overagreeable with posts that are presented in a way that conforms to the “EA forum norms” and somewhat rejecting posts with styles that I’m less fond of. In this post, I actually felt more agreeable rather than not at first, not sure why, but less so over time as I just didn’t find my footing and that made me confused. This could be because I never actually read the whole post.
(I notice now that I’ve actually spent more time writing these comments than the time it’d have taken me to read the text… I’m sorry about that! )
I can only speak for myself, but assuming my experience generalizes, this means lots of people will miss out on what you have to say. Since you don’t have a prior belief that posts by you are worth reading and this post has a vague title that could be about any number of things, it makes it hard to consider it worth the time to invest in reading. So just purely from the pragmatic point of view, I estimate a summary would help get more people to read.
The irony is that EdoArad and myself have probably now spend enough time engaging with comments on this post that we could have read it, but I know I still haven’t. The comments feel valuable (chatting with a fellow forum member about possible ways to make a post better) while reading the post itself doesn’t (since there’s not even really much of a teaser to pull me in, I’m just not developing any motivation to read).