Write How You Speak

[Elliot]

Some people want to do philosophy but will barely talk on a philosophy forum because it takes them a lot of time and effort to write anything. They also don’t do enough private writing – notes, journaling, written brainstorming, written pro/con lists, essays, tree diagrams, etc.

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://criticalfallibilism.com/write-how-you-speak/

[S_Emiya]

@Elliot

Some people want to do philosophy but will barely talk on a philosophy forum because it takes them a lot of time and effort to write anything. They also don’t do enough private writing – notes, journaling, written brainstorming, written pro/con lists, essays, tree diagrams, etc.

That sounds like me.

@Elliot

Most people have little experience writing. Many people had negative experiences with writing in school.

I did have bad experiences with writing when I was in school. I guess because my goal for writing wasn’t to organize and share my ideas. It was to write what I thought would get a good grade.

@Elliot

There are many different paths that people can use to make philosophical progress.

I probably don’t keep that in mind enough. I get stuck on a path that’s needlessly difficult instead of looking for a better path forward.

@Elliot

In most cases, more precise wording doesn’t solve or prevent any important problem. It’s not worth the effort.

That makes sense. It’s probably not necessary to worry so much about grammar when I’m writing something. And resist the urge to go back and rewrite simple sentences with minor improvements.

@Elliot

They can spend hours writing one post and it usually still isn’t very good (which is frustrating and disappointing after all that effort spent).

Yeah and the biggest errors (in my case) are usually nothing to do with grammar. The grammar isn’t what’s holding me back from making progress.

@Elliot

Even later, with more practice, you can just directly write, without any extra steps or considerations, and have it come out quickly and easily, like speaking.

That sounds much more efficient.

@Elliot

In contrast, if it takes a ton of work to finish the first time, you won’t want to start over, so you won’t make as many things, won’t get as much practice, and will be stuck trying to fix things with heavy editing (which is generally really hard and doesn’t work out well for people).

This also sounds like me.

@Elliot

If you can hold a conversation in real time with a friend, then you could also write forum posts quickly by writing the same things you would say to the friend.

If you’re on a forum with your friends, then it’s even easier.

@Elliot

If you find learning to post at all hard – if that gets you stuck – then doing it while also dealing with hard topics would not have worked better (it would have worked worse).

This makes a lot of sense. It should be pretty easy for me to post a lot.