Writing to Be Understood

Anne Janzer

First annotation on Jun 8th, 2022. Last on Mar 10th, 2025.

8 quotes

1. Who Are Your Readers?

Readers? How
Your audience is never "everyone." Writing for everyone pleases no one. Having a specific audience makes your writing better. Personas, demographic classifications, and customer segments aren't people. Write for people.

3. How Much Do They Need to Know?

She conducted an experiment in which half of the participants (the tappers) were asked to tap out the rhythms of common songs, while the other half (the listeners) guessed the songs. The tappers estimated how long it would take the listeners to name the right tune. The people tapping were inevitably surprised by the listeners' inability to hear the tune that matched the rhythm. It seemed obvious to the tappers. This study illustrates a phenomenon known as the curse of knowledge, or the challenge of getting out of our own heads.

Preface

In his scholarly essay On Bullshit, philosopher Harry Frankfurt differentiates between deliberately misleading another person about a topic and simply talking smoothly without regard to the facts. Bullshitters, according to Frankfurt, misrepresent themselves. They don't generally care about the truth or falsehood of their statements. Writes Frankfurt, "Bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
According to psychologist Arie Kruglanski, people exhibit different levels of a need for closure as a personality trait. Individual levels vary; you can take a quiz on Kruglanski's website to see where you land on his Need For Closure Scale.
People with a strong need for closure tend to make decisions more quickly in uncertain situations. Having made a decision, they stick to it with more tenacity. And that tendency can lead them into trouble.
Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery at Stanford University, undertook an enormous topic in his book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. This monumental, 800-page tome explores and analyzes human decision-making, zooming out from the brain's neurons at the moment of the choice, back in time through genetics, cultural influences, and evolutionary biology. Sapolsky achieves his goals through a combination of winning structure, storytelling, humanity and humor, and excellent descriptive and explanatory techniques. Deep within the book, Robert Sapolsky shares a short, two-sentence story, borrowed from his colleague Claude Steele at Stanford. This brief scene takes the topic of the role of the amygdala in reinforcing stereotypes and turns it into a human moment. Here's the passage in its entirety from Behave:25 Steele recounts how an African American male grad student of his, knowing the stereotypes that a young black man evokes on the genteel streets of Palo Alto, whistled Vivaldi when walking home at night, hoping to evoke instead "Hey, that's not Snoop Dogg. That's a dead white male composer [exhale]."

Introduction

Second, Sloman suggests that writers focus the discussion on causes and consequences instead of values. "I take the distinction between sacred values and causal, explanatory thinking very seriously. Sacred values get passed down through the community. You can deal with sensitive issues effectively by making the discourse about causal relationships and consequences rather than sacred values and preferences."