The lecture is about academic writing. However it is also useful in technical writing for developers

• Stop thinking about rules and start thinking about readers
• Writing is a tool for thinking
  • Thinking and writing are not separate processes
  • You generate the text while you’re thinking
• Your writing helped you think.
  • This is different than how your readers expect to read
  • Readers: slow down, reread, they don’t understand, they stop
• If your readers dont NEED to read it they’ll stop
• Your teachers were paid to read your writing
• Readers after school period read because they think text is valuable to THEM
• Writing needs to be:
  • Clear
  • Organized
  • Persuasive
  • Most importantly: Valuable
• Value is about readers not the content
  • Some readers will value your writing and other group will think it’s useless
• Text should show why it’s important
• no body cares what’s inside of your head unless they’re paid to care
• Writing is not communicating your ideas to your readers
  • It’s changing their ideas
  • Nobody cares what ideas you have
• Your work is not new or original. it’s vaulable work.
  • You’re not here to create new knowledge. but valuable knowledge.
• Every community has code. set of words that communicate value
  • Know the code to make your text persuasive
• Have an argument not an explanation
• If you’re challenging the community you need to do it under the code
• There are insulting ways to do it. avoid it
• Your writing function is to help your readers understanding better something they want to understand well
• Reasons for writing is different than reasons for reading
• The function is to move the conversation forward
• The function is not to be preserved indefinitely
• It’s not to reveal what’s in your head but to change the space of what’s going on between your heads
• Words that create tension: however, challenge, contradiction, despite, instability, red flag, instability.
• Avoid talking about yourself, it’s not about YOUR problem.
• the problem needs to reside on the reader side not the writer side
• you locate a problem in a specific reading communities
• Show that the situation is unstable
• Readers look for models of inconsistency to identify value
• “We have a gap in our knowledge” a polite way to say: “We’re wrong” about something
• It’s huge problem for some communities to use a category that they don’t understand

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