TheOtherDave comments on Rhetoric for the Good - Less Wrong

49 Post author: lukeprog 26 October 2011 06:52PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (289)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 25 October 2011 04:59:12PM 3 points [-]

I mostly endorse your list, though I often fail to follow it.

Among my favorites (these are not entirely disjoint from your list, but strike me as importantly different in emphasis):

  • Know where I'm going and why I'm going there
    Once I figure out what I'm trying to say, I can say it far more effectively.

  • Avoid the second person
    IME, second-person advice is far more likely to inspire defensiveness. When I'm really fine-tuning, I avoid the word "you" altogether unless I'm CERTAIN that my audience will feel complimented by the sentence.

  • Present complex points iteratively
    I'm fond of short-phrase bullet points followed by a few sentences of explanation (and cross-references to longer explanations where needed).

  • Specify who is doing what to whom.
    This is related to your point 13, though distinct from it.
    Also related is limiting pronoun use.

  • Avoid lists of more than five or six items.
    If I genuinely have that many things to say, I try to chunk them into more comprehensive items and expand each item.