Stats for nerds
4recommend
6mentions
4people
2008–2024years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- write a lot, read even more (books!), read critically what you wrote
Bill Stott, "Write to the Point - and feel better about your writing"
- I still have my copy of Write to the Point, which you recommended.
- This statement seems unfair. I'll back up my claims:
1. I help you find errors in your writing. Despite the limitations of spellcheck and misused word detection they are still a valuable safety net to have.
2. The style checker is useful for helping you write better. Writers like to come up with massive lists of pet peeves. Memorizing these lists is too much for a human. After the Deadline automatically flags this stuff. It isn't the same as a human editor but it does help.
3. A good copy editor will flag and revise most cases of passive voice and hidden verbs. After the Deadline doesn't rewrite these for you but it does flag them. This is a useful service to call your attention to these things. See: http://jaffeerevises.com/Nominalizations.htm
4. After the Deadline explains your errors when you make them. When you write in passive voice you can click "explain" and learn what passive voice is. If you use the wrong indefinite article you can click explain and learn why it is wrong. I see these as teachable moments and by giving you snippets of grammar info when you need it, I am helping to make you a more aware writer.
BTW I recommend Write to the Point by Bill Stott. Will checker out Zinsser's work.
- I really like Write to the Point by Bill Stott. Agreed that every hacker should work to improve themselves as writers.
- This thread will go on forever with our tit for tat responses. But thanks for the encouragement!
People have written quality content for awhile now, agreed. They did so before the word processor too. My claim is that I will speed up the polishing process for writers using my product.
My tool is a billy club, bopping writers over the head with their bad habits. We all have them. How many engineers write "utilize" over "use". You may think, "who cares?" but read a paper where everything is said with complex words, passive voice, etc.--it gets dense.
One of my favorite books is Write to the Point by Bill Stott. He advocates concise writing to communicate ideas quickly. I breezed through his book like it was a Neil Stephenson novel. This is a testimony to the difference clear writing makes.
Sure, I'm hocking a product, but I also believe in what it does.
- Here's a book (recommended by Clifford Stoll) that helps simplify the process of writing: "Write to the Point" by Bill Stott.
I'm not an alum either, but enjoy this group, at least the 'ask YC' questions and responses.
