LEBRUN CHAP 0:


Boyan:

"The knowl-edge gap that separates you from your readers cannot be
ignored,yet adequate background knowledge does not guarantee that
moti-vated readers will find reading your paper easy and rewarding."

I formed the draft of my paper by putting together many small pieces
of notes and reports. So when I work on it section by section, I find
myself lost track of what readers have known so far.

Maybe it would help if before writing a paper, I think about a guide
map, from the general background all the way to the conclusion

[This is a good insight Boyan.  It is why I think of all writing (and
talks, etc.) as teaching, regardless of how much I think the audience
may know!  If you don't have a roadmap for the paper yourself, the
reader can't really have one elther, and is likely to get lost...]

Ben:

"Goodwriting should therefore take into account the reader's
ignorance,fatigue, short-term memory, and impatience in order to
minimisetheir impact"

I always feel it can be hard to keep the reader in mind without
over-explaining things, but breaking it down into specific goals makes
sense.

"Expectations drive reading forwardin science as they do in
literature." 

I feel like this is easy to observe but much harder to appreciate
while writing.

Kevin:

"the abstract that is indistinguishable from the conclusion"

This particular suggestion seems very elusive to me. I suppose this is
an introduction to the book, so there is more clarity on this phrase
elsewhere. In any case, I'm not sure what is meant by this sentence.

Ignoring what point the author is trying to make and just thinking
about it myself, I can think of some reasons on how the abstract
should differ from the conclusion. This is somewhat off-topic, but my
inspriation for the thoughts to come stem from this Youtuber I follow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9NjrMnmlyw. In there, the Youtuber
makes an analogy that writing effectively is like prosecutor
presenting evidence for a murder case. The 'abstract' is the opening
statement: "Jury, we are here today because Dave murdered Tom. I say
this with confidence because Dave always hated Tom, Dave's gloves were
found at the crime scene, and Dave's alibi didn't check out." The
'conclusion' though ties it all together. "We've seen throughout this
trial that Dave is a homocidal maniac who has been out to seek revenge
on Tom all his life, and on February 24th, he was able to carry out
his plan."

In essence, the conclusion not a simple re-pasting of the abstract or
introduction, but rather, the final push that draws upon all the
evidence provided throughout the paper to more aggressively shove the
reader in a certain direction. The introduction isn't able to do this
because the reader has not yet been told what the evidence is in
detail, but at the conclusion, the writer can make bolder claims.

[Certainly thinking about the contours of an argument (roughly,
proposition, evidence, conclusion) is important in organizing a
paper. However I think it is important not to lose sight of the
"storytelling" as well. It's worth trying to make the storytelling and
the argument fit together -- people are convinced by arguments, but
they remember stories.]

Xiaoyi:

"the writer should avoid the short introduc-tion that sheds little
light on the “what” and “why” of the paper"

Overall, this is a really good introduction to give the idea "what"
and "why" for this book, just like it has described. The aim of the
book is to help writers to fit reader's expectation, which is
described in the very beginning, then it gives short examples, may not
so important, both on good and bad, and in the end, elaborate his
successful seminars to show the importance of the book. Overall, this
fits the ideal paragraph structure that we have seen before.

Manjari:

"placing a conjunction such as “because, “but,” or “although” at
thehead of a sentence provide more reading pull than placing it midway"

This question raises a very good point. I feel that while reading a
sentence, what comes in the beginning, grabs more attention and stays
longer in the memory (maybe not always) while we move ahead in the
sentence. Hence it seems like Placing the conjunction at the beginning
will highlight the statement that follows the conjunction.

[I agree, this can work to pull the reader forward (and I do it
myself).  But the main thing is to use the beginning of the sentence
to set a context or identify the "main character" that will be the
focus of the rest of the sentence.  (Did you see what I did there? ;)
)]

Fuchen:

Just as a summary, this book suggested that we should (1) be aware of
the knowledge gap; (2) take reader's ignorance , fatigue...into
account; (3)apply some writing techniques and (4)avoid misleading
introductions(?).

I think all of those problems they bring make sense to me. For example
I always forget to remind the reader the meaning of notation/equations
which are defined far away from the current paragraph. The parts I get
most interest in are the techniques and "how to put together a
coherent set of parts that satisfies readers". I do want to know what
would they say about them.

----------

LEBRUN CHAP 1:

Boyan:

"they point somewhere, but only the person who is pointing knows where."

Sometimes it's hard for writers to find such problems, especially when
they have been thinking about this topic for a long time. I think in
such case, maybe the writer can stop to think about it for a few
days. Then when the writer comes back, he/she might be able look at
the paper from a reader's perspective.

[I think leaving it alone for a few days and coming back to it is a
good strategy for finding these problems.  Even better is having
someone else read your work and be honest about what is confusing.  An
approach to avoiding the problem is to use less pronouns (you can't
and shouldn't eliminate them, but often you can achieve greater
clarity by using the noun instead of the pronoun).]

"visual must “tell all” by itself"

Should we inteprate the visual in caption? Or point out the key things
to look at? (eg. comparing A and B, we find out ...)

[In my view, the figure (or table) and the caption should be enough
for the reader to "get" the visual without reading the paper.  The
paper should provide interpretations or conclusions from the figure
(and maybe provide a more detailed explanation of what is in the
visual than there is room for in the caption.)]


Ben:

"Appositions are also ineffective when they slow down reading,which
happens quite often when many are found midsentence."

I always used to struggle with this - because 1 is useful, more is costly

"You would do well to use the just-in-time principle and keep
thefollowing couples happily wedded:226;An unfamiliar word and
itsdefinition•An acronym and itsdefinition•A noun/phrase and
itspronoun•A verb and its object•Background information andthe text it
clarifies•A visual and its completecaption•A verb and its subject"

This article did a very good job expressing how to reduce slowdowns
and I felt like all the examples showcased things you definitely end
up seeing a lot in papers

Xiaoyi:
Parking all background material in the introductory sections ofyour paper increases the demands on the reader's memory. Less

I totally agree with this. Sometimes, some of my background
information only make sense till the very late part so it is really
confusing if I put them at the beginning. However, if I try to move
them to the later part, the structure of the whole paper may not so
neat and concise, so how to balance these two parts is one of my
questions.

[I think if you follow the global-to-local progression advocated by
Lebrun here, you will do OK.  Global or general backround information
first, then more detailed or specialized information later, in the
introduction (or even in a second section of the paper, perhaps called
"background" or "technical background" or something like that).]