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johnlawrenceaspden comments on A Medical Mystery: Thyroid Hormones, Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia - Less Wrong
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Comments (159)
"I am going to tell a story .. "
Please, no.
Not to pick on you, as this is a pet peeve of mine, but I don't know how people are being taught to write anymore.
Three paragraphs in, and I don't know what you're talking about yet. And now it's story time! Somebody put a bullet in me!
Particularly if you're trying to convey a thesis, how about an abstract, or a brief description of the question you're trying to evaluate?
Give me a frame to start hanging information on as I read the article. What are we trying to accomplish here?
Otherwise, the article washes over me like a drive in the country. An annoying drive, because I spend my time wondering where the hell we're going.
EDIT: And whaddya know? Looks like it's all about thyroid hormones. I happen to be hypothyroid, am currently taking medication, and have done a bunch of reading about it.
It occurs that I could just delete the first three paragraphs. Anyone else think that's a good idea? All I'm trying to say there is 'don't trust me', 'this is interesting, important and hard', and 'it's mostly John Lowe's ideas'.
It might be, but
would be a much bigger improvement. Maybe some other signposts to help the reader grasp the structure of what you're doing, but I think most important is for the reader to go in with some idea of (1) what's at issue and (2) what you're suggesting might be true. And maybe also of (3) what the prevailing consensus is and (4) why you think it might be wrong. Of course laying out #3 and #4 is the purpose of the whole article, but maybe you can give a brief summary for readers to hang their thoughts on.
Yeah, signposts are good too.
Where are we going, how are we getting there?
Give the reader some structure up front to help him organize and consume the mass of info. And just know if he wants to read it too.
There is a snide comment I got from somewhere, but it comes to mind often:
Don't make me wonder.
That's a good rule for editing in general; if you can remove something without losing any value, remove it. (Apply this on multiple levels: a chapter in a book, a paragraph in a chapter, a word in a sentence.) Sometimes instead of thinking too much when one writes, it is better to just write, and delete the unnecessary parts afterwards. Sometimes I reduce my e-mails to half or less, when I have enough time to write them.
However, what gjm said: adding an abstract is even better. You can do both, of course.