Ideas for improving writing

2
928 days
by in General

George Orwell’s essay on the use of the English language encouraged me to think about how to improve my writing by applying lessons from neuroscience and  cognitive science.

One idea is to optimize cognitive load.  By cognitive load, I mean the effort it takes to understand the ideas I want to convey.   Effective writing needs to maximize the density of ideas being presented, without exceeding the rate at which the reader can process them.  Because we can only think about a few things at the same time, we need frequent breaks in text to process information before moving on.  If I make my writing easier to understand, I can tell the reader more with the same number of words.

Some ideas for optimizing cognitive load:

  • Minimize word length. Long and unusual words take longer to identify, so I can improve my writing by using smaller and more familiar words.
  • Ditto for sentence size and paragraph length.
  • Shorter words and different-sounding words in the same sentence are easier to remember.
  • Analogies and figures of speech require an unnecessary cross-reference, so they should be minimized.
  • Repetition is crucial to forming long-term memory.  You can improve memorization by using spaced repetition – “a learning technique in which increasing intervals of time are used between subsequent reviews.”
  • Improve the retention, relevance, and utility of writing with frequent examples and references to the reader’s existing ideas and beliefs.
  • When appropriate, leave the outline in the final text, and use thesis statements rather than subjects.  For example, see my one minute cases.

Some things that disrupt cognitive efficiency:

  • “Cue words” are abstract concepts that can trigger emotional responses that blocks rational analysis. For example, President Obama’s speeches are full of words like “democracy”, “faith”, “reform”, “challenges”, and “destiny.” (It is OK to use these words when they are necessary to convey an idea and placed in an unambiguous context.)
  • Group affiliations are another kind of trigger word – when a reader identifies the author as belonging to either his or an adverse group, it triggers a distracting emotional response.
  • Logical fallacies.  Even if the logical flaw is not detected, it adds to the cognitive load without adding to the readers knowledge.  If detected later, it erodes the credibility of the entire argument.

One criticism of this kind of writing is that it has limited emotional appeal.  Emotional impact is important – it tells the brain make ideas more memorable.  I wonder if anyone has systematically thought about how to add emotional impact to writing.  What kinds of emotional appeals rely on logical fallacies, and what kinds best reinforce the lesson being taught?

New video by John Allison on the financial crisis at AynRand.org

2
928 days
by in General

View accompanying slides

The media, politicians, and even many businessmen have blamed today’s financial meltdown on capitalism. But in this talk, John Allison—the longest-tenured CEO of a top-25 financial services company—argues that this crisis is a legacy of the government’s anti-capitalist policies.

Mr. Allison uses his unique inside view of the financial services industry to show how massive government intervention into the U.S. economy—from the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 to a reckless crusade to encourage home-ownership—laid the groundwork for an unsustainable real estate boom. And he shows how the government’s response to the inevitable bust—a frenzied series of bailouts, nationalizations, and “stimulus” efforts—is only making things worse.

Finally, Mr. Allison explains the underlying philosophical reasons for the crisis, and discusses the immediate and long-term solutions. He shows that capitalism, far from being the cause of today’s crisis, is its only cure.

Activism Opportunity: The One Minute Case

2
942 days
by in One Minute Case

In May of 2007, I introduced “The One Minute Case”:

The One Minute Case is a new collaborative blog which will present a brief argument about a controversial issue that can be read in under a minute. The goal is to publish one case per day. You can read the cases to learn something new about an issue or use them as a source for longer arguments of your own.

I started the blog because I believed that there is an opportunity to educate students by taking advantage of cost-effective advertising using Google Adwords. Has my strategy been effective?

From one perspective, no – there are only 33 posts, most of them from the first month. From another perspective, there is an average of 6.4 comments per post, the majority of them being unique users.  Various evidence suggests that many of them are students doing research for school papers.  Here is a weekly chart:

weekly

(There were no posts made during most of that time.)

I think the numbers suggest that the format I selected presents a good oppportunity for activism.  There’s many ways to measure the success of intellectual activism, and many motivations for writing,  but if you are writing to someone somewhere – congressmen, fellow capitalists/Objectivists, forum members, how does this compare with your results? If your goal is to make the maximum difference given the resources available to you, how does this compare?

If you are interested in supporting my efforts, you can help in three ways:

  • Write or edit cases
  • Financially sponsor my Google Adwords campaign
  • Help me manage the Adwords accounts and come up with new ads

(Edit: I got the initial comment count wrong because I mistakenly counted spam comments.)

Bjorn Lomborg: Our priorities for saving the world

0
943 days
by in General

The vast majority of wealthy people in the developed world prefer to doom billions of people to death and poverty than to doubt the environmentalist/socialist propaganda taught in government schools.

Are patents stifling innovation in mobile devices?

3
959 days
by in Economics, General

In 2007, I wrote why software patents are not a good idea.  It’s easy to find examples of patent abuse but its not often to find a company that uses patents that stifle a whole industry.  Such may be the case with the Apple iPhone.

I purchased an iPhone shortly after it came out, because I recognized that it was a revolutionary device.  It was not a case of superior specifications, as many devices have better hardware.  It didn’t even run on the latest 3G network until the second generation.  Rather, it was a superior design, which featured an intuitive user interface that did not try to compete on the number of features but on usability.  Apple fully deserves the billions of dollars it has made and will go on to make from its device.

Yet something curious has happened. When Apple introduced the iPhone, those who recognized its revolutionary potential expected the innovations and design concepts it introduced to percolate to the rest of the industry.  To an extent, that is happening, but key iPhone technologies -a capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch, a 3-axis accelerometer, proximity sensors, graphics acceleration integrated integrated into the UI, and a number of other key innovations have not been found in competing products.  Part of the reason for this has to do with the particular culture and expertise found at Apple, but its indisputable than the 200+ patents covering the iPhone have gone a long way to discouraging competitors, who offer alternatives lacking key features – until now.

Palm, the company who created the first popular PDA is coming out with the Palm Pre, the first device to brazenly infringe many of the key iPhone patents.  Apple is already making threatening gestures, so an apocalyptic legal battle is almost certain.  Palm is the first company to go against Apple head on because  its status as the one-time leader in the PDA and mobile phone market makes it the only company capable of challenging Apple’s leadership.  While the Palm Pre clearly borrows ideas from the iPhone, the iPhone itself uses many of the innovations first patented by Palm as early as 1996.  Today Palm is a marginalized has-been for whom the Pre is a desperate gamble to save to company, but it still has the patent portfolio of a market leader.

The question of who is the bigger infringer in this battle is besides the point.  The issue is that the patent system is limiting innovation to large companies who have established sufficiently large patent portfolios to pose a credible threat of retaliatory patent lawsuits.  The best that new competitors can hope for in this environment is to be aquired by the giants or to establish their own patent portfolios – rather than create products than people want to use.

My Mac blog

0
972 days
by in General

Introducing DotMac: I got a MacBook laptop as a personal birthday present in October, and started a blog for Mac users with tutorials and programming tips .

Popular posts so far: using a Mac with a Windows pc and organizing your music library.

I’m getting hitched!

4
972 days
by in General

According to the FeedBurner counter on the left, I have 105 regular readers, so for those who haven’t heard elsewhere, I proposed to Sarah, my lovely girlfriend of two and a half years shortly after midnight, December 31st.  Sarah and I met at my Examined Life philosophy meetup group.  We plan to wed sometime this summer.

 

engagement

My random thoughts now on Facebook

0
972 days
by in General

For the last month or so, I’ve been posting a “thought of the day” to my facebook profile as a “quickie” form of activism.  Some of the “thoughts” refer to current events, while others are more philosophical.  I’ve decided to collect the more quotable ones on my wiki.  I’m going to try to continue posting my thoughts on a daily basis.

more statist philosophy

1
973 days
by in Economics

… In economic matters, most people, including most politicians, mainstream economists, and investors unconsciously follow Dewey’s philosophical principles: reality is ultimately driven by social consensus, and the success or failure of markets depends only on the optimism or pessimism of consumers and investors. This is more than the belief that wishes and prayers affect reality – this is a belief that one’s wishes are reality – if only enough people share the delusion.

(From What you need to know about the economic “crisis”)

Two more examples:

“As long as no one knows about it, the counterfeit money we print doesn’t really exist:”
“The Bank of England will be able to print extra money without having legally to declare it under new plans which will heighten fears that the Government will secretly pump extra cash into the economy.”

“As long as we ignore the problems in your economy, they won’t really affect us:”
“South Korea set a rare and controversial example over the weekend by arresting a popular blogger who was accused of undermining the financial markets [by correctly predicting economic downturns] but worshipped by many Koreans as an online guru.”

Shocking!

1
1000 days
by in General

Despite an “impartial” and “transparent” process, it turns out that there is a high correlation between Congressional power and science grants.  Must be a “a case of correlation but not causation” one commentator writes.  There’s no way that politics could corrupt the scientific process (as long as Democrats are in power, at least.)

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