Many people I encounter regularly tell me that I have difficulties communicating spoken ideas in a concise, timely, fashion. I've been reading Less Wrong since I was fifteen, and ask because its likely that people here have useful suggestions. Are there any books on communicating concisely that I ought to read?
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Just guessing here, because I have a similar problem. You need to know your audience, so that you can skip the parts they already know, and only communicate the new part.
Also, depends on whether it is a monologue or dialogue; in monologue you err on the side of saying more, in dialog you can expect some "if they don't understand, they will ask".
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For example, I sometimes realize that I am needlessly defensive, that I am unconsciously expecting the most uncharitable misinterpretation of anything I say -- that's because I have spent a lot of time offline with people who were like that -- so I am trying to make my argument ironclad, include all kinds of disclaimers, etc., which results in many extra words.
On the other hand, it is easy (and frequent) to err on the side of saying too little, making your message ambiguous without noticing it. Sometimes people appreciate that I include some extra context; I have been explicitly praised at work for writing great documentation.
1"if they don't understand, they will ask"
A lot of people have to write for audiences with narcissism, who never ask, because asking constitutes an admission that there might be something important that they don't understand. They're always looking for any reason, however shallow, to dismiss any view that surprises them too much.
So these writers feel like they have to pre-empt every possible objection, even the stupid ones that don't make any sense.
It's best if you can avoid having to write for audiences like that. But it's difficult to avoid them.
1I also have suffered from this (and still do, really). I will share some lessons that I have picked along the way, followed by a couple of book recommendations.
The lessons:
- Focus: Most of the time the issue is you are trying to communicate way too many things. Now I try to contain my message to one single point. This helped me immensely.
- Message House: A framework in branding and PR, I advise you to do a quick web search on this. With my previous bullet, I "construct" my message house with these components whenever possible: (1) Anecdote, preferably a personal one. Kicking it with a very short story that is central to your idea helps capture people's attention immediately; (2) why this matters, why I am telling you about this; (3) Sizzle, or a very quotable quote. If people wanted to tweet one sentence from your "speech" this is it; (4) Data point or one last anecdote to enforce the central theme.
- Fluency: You might know what you are talking about, but if you are not fluent about it, it takes a lot of time to put stuff together, and it feels like you don't know what you are talking about from the outside. To overcome this, you can drill things down. Anecdotes or data points you occasionally use; you can create word blocks of your world view that signals where you are looking at things from; you can have identity related short blocks and exercise on them constantly to get yourself fluent on very specific little blocks, which then you can use as springboards or solid middle- or end-points in your speech.
Book recommendations:
- Smart Brevity by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz
- You've Got 8 Seconds by Paul Hellman
What specific kinds of ideas are making this problem noticeable?
Are you talking about conveying specialist knowledge to a lay-audience - for example, good luck trying to get me to understand what an Eigenvector is or the points system in Cricket - I've tried. Likewise, to explain to a friend what Sub-Surface scattering was, I first had to introduce him to the mechanics of Ray Tracing. Luckily he was a musician so I could just use analogies to the diffusion and travel of sound waves.
Or are you talking about more personal preferences and experiences, for example recently someone asked me "why do you prefer to be behind the camera rather than a performer in front of it?" - apparently they thought I was such a ham I should be a comedian not a director - I didn't know where to even begin.
Likewise many people who "kind of fell into doing this" for their current profession will stumble if you ask them how they "got into it" because there's often a meandering narrative and confused chronology because even to themselves it's not clear.
Another question I have is - are there any patterns in the assumptions, misunderstandings or tangents which people you're trying to explain exhibit in reaction to your explanations?
Actually, both.
- I started a AI club at my high school last year, and I've been (slowly) trying to teach other students the basics of deep learning. They generally come out of my 15-to-20 minute-long explanations confused, rather than understanding.
- This too (I don't have a specific example in mind - I'll see if any pop up during school tomorrow)
I normally think what I'm saying is clear, but the result is that others don't understand what I mean when I finish saying it - which causes me to tack on hasty clarifications of my intentions / ideas.
Thank you for the reply.
What kind of questions, analogies, or models are your fellow students responding to your explanations with? Are there any patterns in the specific feedback you've noticed? Are there any particular aspects of Deep Learning or the metaphors or terminology you're using that seem to be the biggest bottlenecks?
My hunch is that maybe you instead look at beginner's introductions to Deep Learning and Neural Networks and see how they go about conveying these concepts. If someone else has done the hard work of figuring out an expedient way to convey the subject matter, why not borrow from them (giving credit, of course)?
Please do get back if you can think of specific examples of the second case and I'll think any books or resources I know of which might be suitable.
Thank you for your response!
There were 3 situations today where the second case arose:
- I asked whether GTP was less stable than ATP in AP Bio (I wanted to understand how it was possible that GTP + ADP -> GDP + ATP, and if this was the case, why ATP was used at all). My teacher thought I was asking about it from an evolutionary standpoint, and started explaining the evolution of the system.
- I have a tendency to speak in short bursts of content in which I think I often underestimate inferential distances. (My internal monologue normally consists of vaguely used phrases + a sense of what I mean, which I think this carries over into my speech).
- I'm realizing that I find it difficult to phrase sentences correctly. I rewrite almost every sentence I type many times over because I'm not sure about grammar and word arrangement (I spent a minute thinking about whether I should wrap "many times over" in a pair of commas at the start of this sentence).
I'm so sorry but I haven't been able to think of any specific books, although the first case it seems like your problem could be a matter of the Availability Heuristic - your teacher answered a different question to the one you asked because quite simply it was easier for them to recall the knowledge about the evolution of the system than the relative stability of GTP to ATP.
I'm not sure if there is anything in Kahneman's Thinking Fast, Slow which might offer your practical techniques for priming listeners the right way. If anything you might be better served by the books of Robert Cialdini or even literature on sales - my thinking here is sales people often think about the structure (or in Aristotelian terms the Kairos) that they present different options which in effect 'primes' the customer to different Semantic and Mental frameworks.
Sorry that I can't point to any specific books. I could guess on some specific techniques that I think might aid your communication but I've been wracking my brain and can't think of any books that I know hit the mark.
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I also have suffered from this (and still do, really). I will share some lessons that I have picked along the way, followed by a couple of book recommendations.
The lessons:
Book recommendations:
Thank you! The books you recommended look like what I was hoping to find.