What do you think about encouraging writers to add TLDRs on top of their posts? TLDRs make the purpose and content immediately clear so readers can decide whether to read on, and it plausibly also helps the writers to be more focused on their key points. (Advice that’s emphasized a lot at Rethink Priorities.)
IMO, articles should include TLDRs, but shouldn’t just be TLDRs. You have a short, high-context, high-trust summary. Then you write a longer article for people who don’t have all the necessary background to understand your summary, or don’t immediately trust that your summary is correct.
As a silly example, if you did an experiment to determine the acceleration due to gravity, your TLDR could simply be, “The acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2.” And for many readers, that’s all they need to know. But you should definitely also explain your methodology and present the data from your experiment.
What do you think about encouraging writers to add TLDRs on top of their posts? TLDRs make the purpose and content immediately clear so readers can decide whether to read on, and it plausibly also helps the writers to be more focused on their key points. (Advice that’s emphasized a lot at Rethink Priorities.)
If your article could be substituted with a TLDR, then just write that in the first place.
IMO, articles should include TLDRs, but shouldn’t just be TLDRs. You have a short, high-context, high-trust summary. Then you write a longer article for people who don’t have all the necessary background to understand your summary, or don’t immediately trust that your summary is correct.
As a silly example, if you did an experiment to determine the acceleration due to gravity, your TLDR could simply be, “The acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2.” And for many readers, that’s all they need to know. But you should definitely also explain your methodology and present the data from your experiment.