Hi -- New here.

Stargazer said:
No specific word count, just clear and concise.

Here, I'll show you.

I was particularly amused by the shift, early on, from people accusing me of not providing enough specifics (when I was trying to be brief so as not to over-tax their attention spans), to people accusing me of being long-winded (when I provided the specifics). There is, of course, no acceptable length for them, because what they actually object to is the argument, not the way the argument is being presented.

Clear translation:

The conflicting accusations of me providing insufficient information along with being long-winded are amusing. No length is acceptable for those who object the argument, not the presentation.

See there?
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I'll leave it to the readers to decide which they think is better written.
 
Oneuli said:
:laugh:
Complexity: "the state or quality of being intricate or complicated."
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DOTdI0bWsAcJcW8.jpg
 
Oneuli said:
I'll leave it to the readers to decide which they think is better written.
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Brevity Is Beautiful
Home›Guides, Observations›
Brevity is my favorite aspect of effective communication. We’re limited creatures, only able to handle a few thoughts at once — make them count!
Concise writing helps us share ideas, but we hamstring ourselves by trying to appear “substantial”. Let’s figure out how to avoid this trap.
Benefits of Brevity
Concise, efficient writing has non-obvious benefits:
We maximize information density.
We can hold about 7 digits in memory. Given limited room, a few powerful thoughts are better than a single dilute one.
What’s better: “x is the sum of two times y and three times z” or “x = 2y + 3z”?
Concise thoughts are more understandable. (By the way, math used to be written in English, as above. Egads.)
We respect the reader.
Long-winded diatribes are about the author: listen to me and look at what I know. Effective communication is about the reader: I’ve distilled hundreds of pages to these essential insights.
Information is everywhere, and I can eventually understand a topic by reading dozens of mediocre books. But time is limited — give me the source that communicates the most understanding in the least time.
We communicate raw thought.
Writing isn’t about words, it’s about recreating ideas:
Idea in my head → words are written → words are read → idea in your head
With good writing we hear the author’s voice, not our own thoughts deciphering their message. The ideal of communicating raw ideas appears in programming, design, art and even humor (“Brevity is the soul of wit”).
https://betterexplained.com/articles/brevity-is-beautiful/

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-importance-of-brevity

https://www.thoughtco.com/brevity-speech-and-writing-1689037
 
Grumpy said:
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-importance-of-brevity
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Just to revel in a little irony:

That web page is named after the Odyssey -- the ancient Greek story of Odysseus. The story could be summed up briefly if you wanted: "Odysseus, hero of the Trojan War, overcomes years of struggles to return to his wife." Yet the actual story is anything but brief. Even though it originated as a spoken story, it takes a good eight hours to get through. It is stubbornly discursive throughout. For example, there are winding stories within stories, as when the ghost of Agamemnon recounts Orestes' vengeance on Klytaimestra -- events having no bearing on the main plot. Did that lack of brevity hurt the Odyssey? Well, the fact that web pages are still named after it 28 centuries later would argue no. Brevity is a value highly prized by those with compromised attention spans, but others value originality of thought and expression, and depth of insight.
 
Oneuli said:
Just to revel in a little irony:

That web page is named after the Odyssey -- the ancient Greek story of Odysseus. The story could be summed up briefly if you wanted: "Odysseus, hero of the Trojan War, overcomes years of struggles to return to his wife." Yet the actual story is anything but brief. Even though it originated as a spoken story, it takes a good eight hours to get through. It is stubbornly discursive throughout. For example, there are winding stories within stories, as when the ghost of Agamemnon recounts Orestes' vengeance on Klytaimestra -- events having no bearing on the main plot. Did that lack of brevity hurt the Odyssey? Well, the fact that web pages are still named after it 28 centuries later would argue no. Brevity is a value highly prized by those with compromised attention spans, but others value originality of thought and expression, and depth of insight.
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You know nothing about effective communication.
 
Stargazer said:
You know nothing about effective communication.
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What you need to remember is that communication is a tool to get information from Point A to Point B. Before deciding whether I'm doing a good job of that, you need to ask whether you're actually Point B.
 
Oneuli said:
What you need to remember is that communication is a tool to get information from Point A to Point B. Before deciding whether I'm doing a good job of that, you need to ask whether you're actually Point B.
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I am part of the audience on a public forum. If you're too thin-skinned for feedback, you shouldn't be here.
 
Oneuli said:
Just to revel in a little irony:

That web page is named after the Odyssey -- the ancient Greek story of Odysseus. The story could be summed up briefly if you wanted: "Odysseus, hero of the Trojan War, overcomes years of struggles to return to his wife." Yet the actual story is anything but brief. Even though it originated as a spoken story, it takes a good eight hours to get through. It is stubbornly discursive throughout. For example, there are winding stories within stories, as when the ghost of Agamemnon recounts Orestes' vengeance on Klytaimestra -- events having no bearing on the main plot. Did that lack of brevity hurt the Odyssey? Well, the fact that web pages are still named after it 28 centuries later would argue no. Brevity is a value highly prized by those with compromised attention spans, but others value originality of thought and expression, and depth of insight.
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I see you still don't understand the term
Brevity
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. :laugh:
 
Stargazer said:
I am part of the audience on a public forum. If you're too thin-skinned for feedback, you shouldn't be here.
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I hope she never tries to be a public speaker. She would lose the audience in the first 2 min.

As soon as I started to read her answer I realized it was nothing but
see how smart I am
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crap, until the last sentence.
 
Oneuli said:
Exactly. If it were just a private communication, it would be a waste of time. But it's a public forum, so others are reading and the communication still has value.
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If nothing else, your exchanges with StarDumb are superbly written for those capable of discerning irony, nuance, and the bloodless removal of a leg to stand on, while wielding nothing but a keyboard.

Your more pithy discourses are likewise worth savoring, every word.
 
Oneuli said:
Exactly. If it were just a private communication, it would be a waste of time. But it's a public forum, so others are reading and the communication still has value.
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More reason for clear communication. You communicate at novel length what could comprise a sentence.
 
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