[HN Gopher] Writing at work
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Writing at work
Author : signa11
Score : 71 points
Date : 2022-12-12 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lcamtuf.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lcamtuf.substack.com)
| pcurve wrote:
| "When you're reading your prose right after writing it down,
| you're hearing what you wanted to say, not what the text actually
| spells out. It helps to add a bit of time between writing,
| proofreading, and hitting "send".
|
| Seems like the only way I discover errors in my emails is AFTER I
| hit the SEND button. It's shocking how many errors I find in
| emails no matter how many times I proofread them.
| k__ wrote:
| I always tell myself to leave one day buffer, so I can read a
| draft after a night of sleep, but I always finish writing right
| on the deadline...
| Breza wrote:
| I have the same tendency. In Outlook, I use CTRL-Enter to send
| my emails but I haven't turned off the confirmation dialog.
| It's a weird mental hack, but I hit CTRL-Enter to "send" the
| email then realize that I made a mistake. But I haven't
| accepted the dialog, so I hit cancel.
| simonw wrote:
| I've started leaning into this with my blog. I post entries as
| soon as they don't completely suck, then follow up with edits
| over the next few minutes / hours.
|
| The alternative is leaving posts in eternal draft mode while I
| sweat over the details. I find putting them live and editing-
| in-production makes me much more likely to actually publish!
| daveguy wrote:
| The same thing happens to me. This is why I put a 30 second
| delay between send button and actual send (maybe 10s on
| outlook365... I think that's the max.) I send much better
| emails with that speed bump in place.
| teucris wrote:
| For years I had "delay send" enabled on all email for this very
| reason. I forget how long the delay was - probably only a few
| minutes - which was important because then the recognition of
| urgency helped catch mistakes.
| sph wrote:
| One thing I love about HN is the generous edit times. If @dang
| could check, I bet I am the person that edits their comment the
| most on this site. Not to change my ideas, but fixing typos,
| expanding, clarifying, maybe delete unnecessarily inflammatory
| sentences. A comment of this length might go through 5
| iterations at least--but this time I'm trying to get it right
| once and refrain from editing it.
| dwringer wrote:
| There's also a delay feature which can be handy if you are
| the kind of person like me who finds yourself realizing no
| amount of editing can salvage an impulsively conceived and
| unnecessary comment. Still better to think before you type;
| I'm working on that one day at a time.
| sph wrote:
| Is the delay in minutes or seconds? I can't set it to more
| than 10, so I assume minutes. I had it set to 1.
| dwringer wrote:
| It is in minutes, as per
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231024
|
| I note that it specifically mentions being a window for
| edits prior to the comments going out in RSS feeds, and
| not intended explicitly as a deletion window, so it's
| still probably best not to make posts and then delete
| them (I used to have a pretty bad habit about it until
| the mods reached out).
| trasz2 wrote:
| Same, but it also reminds me of another thing: I think it was
| the Solaris format(1M) utility; instead of the usual "y/n"
| question before performing a destructive action it said
| something like "will proceed with overwriting XXX in 15
| seconds; press ^C to abort".
| [deleted]
| amenghra wrote:
| The two free technical writing courses by Google [1] are worth
| doing, especially if you didn't study/grow up speaking English
| and want to improve your writing skills.
|
| These courses can be accomplished in a pair of weekends or a
| couple lunch breaks.
|
| [1] https://developers.google.com/tech-writing
| jgrahamc wrote:
| _" Recognize that the voice in your head is an unreliable
| narrator. When you're reading your prose right after writing it
| down, you're hearing what you wanted to say, not what the text
| actually spells out."_
|
| I, somehow, taught myself to "read aloud in my head". That is, I
| can go back and read the text I've written as if I were speaking
| it aloud. It requires a slower, more deliberate reading of the
| text and I've noticed that my tongue is trying to move inside my
| mouth. So I assume I've somehow lit up areas of my brain that
| would be involved in actual speaking.
|
| This is incredibly helpful to do because it enables you to re-
| read something almost as if you were someone else. The careful
| reader in you is very different from the writer.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| This also resonates with
| https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3SjnvsB5aR2ddsycyXofbYR7fCx...
|
| Writing is very important for getting things done, communicating
| what you want and mean, and generally helping your work have
| visibility beyond your commit msg and code review.
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