Getting on the same page
Before there were computers, there were humans.
Still are, last time I checked, and hopefully the next time as well.
But before there were even humans, there was language. Perhaps not language as we have come to take for granted, but at least building blocks used to signal attraction, aggression, danger, and other intentions.
Taking a signal processing view towards language is as obvious as it is old, but Paul Spinrad does a swell job articulating, in the opening two paragraphs, why words can be simultaneously meaningful, and meaningless. He mentions models, too(!), although I prefer code books and decision trees if talking about compression.
Thinking about language in this way is something only a designer would care to mull over, and even then it may not change the fashion in which they write one iota, because the insight may indicate that nothing is broken, and no writer wants to fix something that doesn't need to be.
Wait, did I just invoke "writer" and "designer" in the same sentence?
Maybe I should have said "passionate writer" instead, for there are any of number of people who are passionate about any number of things, and they may even be passionate about sharing it, but it is a subsection that would be as dedicated to transcoding that passion into words.
Anyone can write a fangasm piece, but not every reader is going to feel it. Maybe you don't care for those who don't share your code book; what you value is sharing amongst those already in the know. That is, ultimately, your call, and power to you for staying true to your convictions.
I feel that if, in my own small way, I can somehow add to someone else's perspective, then I have written the kind of entry that I myself would want to read. It ususally doesn't play out that way, but it at least makes the prospect of proof-reading less embarrassing.
Having something to say is not the same as actually saying it. Until we figure out how to quantize emotions and abstract ideas and inject them directly into our brains, we have to make do with text and a couple of figures, tweaking each entry as if it were its own broadcast channel.
So if you, like me, are interested in designing a half-decent entry, what does signal processing suggest you consider? Here are the most salient:
- Pulse shaping and Bandwidth
- Intersymbol interference
- Data randomization
- Modulation and Forward Error Correction
- Training sequence and Equalization
The above considerations went into the design of, among others, your optical disc drive, your cell phone, and your last-mile internet connection. A loose adaptation might look something like:
- Word count
- Lines per paragraph
- Variety
- Vocabulary and Redundancy
- Context establishment
Word count
Digital communication is all about getting a bunch of bits across as efficiently as possible. Writing should be about getting your ideas across as quickly as possible, even if it is just rambling.
The easy solution is to be as terse as possible. Do so at your peril. Terse is a sword that cuts both ways, rapidly applied and withdrawn just as quickly. The effects of such a shock are undesirable to many, who would much rather prefer rolling the edges off to produce something softer.
This is a fundamental tradeoff any writer must make. Use too few words and risk alienating the reader, or be verbose and risk insulting their intelligence. But whatever you do, you will generally have three broad sections: preamble, payload, and postamble.
Three sections … what else has three sections? It couldn't be! Am I telling you to grind out hamburger essays and press patty paragraphs? Not necessarily. The hamburger institution as we popularly know it is a structure with zero words spared for transition. If you want to be blocky, that's your prerogative. Lego it up.
Be terse to shock, but try not to be shockingly bad. See the appendix at the end for some fat trimming considerations.
Lines per paragraph
Have you ever come across a piece of writing, usually a forum post, that is a formless blob? Do you immediately skip it?
Congratulations, you are living proof of an information gag reflex. There is only so much that people can read before requiring a breather. Any more, and things become mired and jumbled.
The line break in between paragraphs is your pacing. It gives it definition. Consider just how long your paragraphs are, and how many lines you think your own reader can generally tolerate.
I clearly crave white space. My last entry had paragraphs that never exceeded 4 lines. This entry up to now shares the same trait. This is a design choice that I made considering the page layout and font size, and absent any external feedback, so it's about high time that I apologize to all who find this behaviour a bit excessive. Or obsessive.
Variety
Mix things up. Digital communication does this because a) the FCC says so, and b) a flat spectrum makes filters easy. But you don't need to know any of that. What you need to know is, repetition is predictable, and it's boring. Do you want your reader to get to the end, or tune out part way through?
Note that I could have just said, "Do you want your reader to finish, or get bored?" I could have also been silly, but my ideals, pet theories, and a misplaced sense of purpose are more than sufficient in that regard.
Realize that this is only tangentially related to vocabularly. Variety encompasses the adjustment of words, phrases, pacing, and structure. The engineers have it easy with a pseudo-random generator and a couple xor gates. You don't.
Vocabulary and Redundancy
This and the following blurb on context establishment asks you to make some assumptions about your readers. In reality, they are not so much assumptions as they are constraints, and your readership will eventually conform to what you expect of them. So spare a thought to the company that you want to keep; it's your choice, and says more about you than it does them.
The words or turns of phrase that you choose hinge on the complexity of your receivers. Are they well-read? Will they look up a word? Or will their eyes just glaze over the moment they see something they don't recognize?
Likewise, how much padding do you think is appropriate? Padding as in, how many second chances do you want to dole out before forcing your reader to pay a visit to dictionary.com?
Some people need to be told something two or three different ways before understanding. Others get it on the first try. Do you want to keep both groups? Or just the smart kids? Yet more decisions that you have to make for yourself.
Context establishment
Why are you writing this particular entry? Is it to enlighten? To document? To merely inform? To complain? To put your unisex fan hat on? How you answer will dictate everything from the length of your sentences to the length of the entry itself.
The entry's preamble is your opportunity to set expectations, or at least manage them. The preamble is your training sequence and housekeeping time before launching into the body of the transmission. The intention is to have everybody on more or less the same wavelength lest they zone out.
Obviously having to establish anything is going to add to your word count, so once more you are faced with a decision. Factor in your own assumptions of your readership. Do you want to target those who are already familiar with the way you write? Are they expected to take some time to think things through? Then feel free to cut to the chase.
On the other hand, if you endeavour to make your entry as accessible as possible, you will have to do some hand holding. Yes, this means dumbing things down.
It may be just me, but I feel that a lot of the above are just twists on things that you probably learned in English class at some point during high school. At least I hope you did.
- Word count? Be concise.
- Lines per paragraph? Delineate your thoughts.
- Variety? Stay interesting.
- Vocabulary? Target your audience.
- Context? Bootstrap your audience. And target them.
After a bit of a learning curve, this stuff doesn't take a lot of time compared to figuring out what you want to say. Scaling any learning curve, however, requires a certain level of passion, but you're a passionate writer, right?
Write.
Appendix: Going on a text diet
- "I must say" or "I have to say." Just bloody say it already, you pompous ass.
- "This was good/bad/interesting" followed by explanation. You mean you have no confidence in your ability to write praise or condemnation, so you have to qualify it?
- Nothing says concise like a list. Plus you get free white space.
- Provided it's not a long list.
- "I'm going to do such and such." Just do it, Nike dude. I am guilty of this, but that just makes me a hypocrite, not a pompous ass.
- If I wanted to be really terse, I would have nixed the "formless" from "formless blob."
- Clichés. They're devalued as it is, so stop stealing them from the masses.
- If you can subvert a cliché, then disregard the above.
- Instead of stealing from the masses, steal quotes from notable historical figures that they may not have actually said. Be sure to link them though.
- Rather than write your own description of a show, link to Wikipedia, AniDB, MAL, or ANN. You know that anyone interested is going to visit one of those sites anyway.
- You know what? Don't even bother linking. Just mention the title.
- Assumptions about a reader's knowledge of a subject/title is inversely proportional to how much you have to write.
- Maintain a pro-spoiler policy. Write as if everyone knows what's going on. If it's a current/popular work, this will be true anyway.
- Abuse grammar. This ain't English class.
- Insight is not 3 supporting examples. This ain't English class.
- I've long since ceased to use the abbr tag, but it's always an option.
- Can your point be made with a link? It can be to a picture, a word definition, anything. You don't have to spell everything out.
- You don't really need an image caption if you use the img tag's alt and title attributes. Assumes that people mouse hover said images.
- The a-(href) tag also has a title attribute. I prefer to link addresses that have the point I want to make already in the URL.