Examples of how not to write a paragraph are surprisingly rare
Epistemic Status: one person’s attempt to find counter-examples blew apart their own ( subjective) expectations
I try to assemble as many examples of how not to do something as ‘gold standard’ or best practice examples of how the same task should be done. The principle is similar to what Plutarch wrote: Medicine to produce health must examine disease, and music to create harmony must investigate discord.
However when I tried to examine how not to write, in particular examples of poorly written paragraphs—I was surprised by how rare they were. There are a great many okay paragraphs on the internet and in books, but very few that were so unclear or confusing that they were examples of ‘bad’ paragraphs.
In my categorization paragraphs can be great—okay—bad.
Okay paragraphs are the most numerous, they observe the rule of thumb—keep one idea to one paragraph. To be an ‘okay’ paragraph and rise above ‘bad’ all a paragraph needs to do is to successfully convey at least one idea. Most paragraphs I found do that.
What elevates great paragraphs above okay paragraphs is they do an especially excellent job of conveying at least one idea. There are many qualities they may exhibit, including persuasiveness, the appearance of insight, brevity and simplicity in conveying an otherwise impenetrable or ‘hard to grasp’ idea.
In some isolated cases a great paragraph may actually clearly and convincingly communicate disinformation or a falsehood. I believe there is much more to learn about the forms paragraphs take from a paragraph that conveys a falsehood convincingly than a paragraph that clearly conveys what is generally accepted as true.
What was surprising is how hard it is to find examples that invert the principle—a paragraph that is intended to convey an idea that is truthful but is hard to understand would be a bad paragraph in my categorization. Yet, despite actively looking for examples of ‘bad paragraphs’ I struggled to find some that were truly confusing or hopeless at conveying one single idea. This experience is especially surprising to me because it challenges a few assumptions or expectations that I had:
Assumption 1 - people who have mistaken or fringey beliefs are disproportionately incapable of expressing those beliefs in a clear and intelligible form. I expected that looking for the least popular comments on Reddit, I would find many stream of consciousness rants that failed to convey ideas. This was far less common than rants that at least conveyed intent and meaning intelligibly.
Assumption 2 - that as a whole, people need to learn to communicate better. I must reconsider, it appears on the transmission side, they already communicate better than I expected (counter-counterpoint: 1% rule)
Assumption 3 - the adage that good writing = good thinking. Perhaps not, it would seem that you can write clearly enough to be understood yet that doesn’t mean your underlying arguments are strong or your thinking is more ‘intelligent’.
Assumption 4 - That I’m a merely a below average communicator. It appears that if everyone is better than I expected, than I’m much further below average than I expected.
I have no take-out or conclusion on this highly subjective observation, hence why it is a quick-take and not a post. But I will add my current speculation:
My current theory for why is “I wasn’t looking in the right places”. For example, I ignored much academic or research literature because the ability of the writers to convey an idea is often difficult to assess without relevant domain knowledge as they are seldom made for popular consumption. Likewise I’m sure there’s many tea-spilling image boards where more stream-of-consciousness rants of greater impenetrability might be found.
My second theory is pareidolia: perhaps I highly overrate my comprehension and reading skills because I’m a ‘lazy reader’ who fills in intention and meaning that is not there?
A difficulty to common understanding I see here is that you’re talking of “good” or “bad” paragraphs in the absolute, but didn’t particularly define “good” or “bad” paragraph by some objective standard, so you’re relying on your own understanding of what’s good or bad. If you were defining good or bad relatively, you’d look for a 100 paragraphs, and post the worse 10 as bad. I’d be interested in seeing what were the worse paragraphs you found, some 50 percentile ones, and what were the best, then I’d tell you if I have the same absolute standards as you have.
Examples of how not to write a paragraph are surprisingly rare
Epistemic Status: one person’s attempt to find counter-examples blew apart their own ( subjective) expectations
I try to assemble as many examples of how not to do something as ‘gold standard’ or best practice examples of how the same task should be done. The principle is similar to what Plutarch wrote: Medicine to produce health must examine disease, and music to create harmony must investigate discord.
However when I tried to examine how not to write, in particular examples of poorly written paragraphs—I was surprised by how rare they were. There are a great many okay paragraphs on the internet and in books, but very few that were so unclear or confusing that they were examples of ‘bad’ paragraphs.
In my categorization paragraphs can be great—okay—bad.
Okay paragraphs are the most numerous, they observe the rule of thumb—keep one idea to one paragraph. To be an ‘okay’ paragraph and rise above ‘bad’ all a paragraph needs to do is to successfully convey at least one idea. Most paragraphs I found do that.
What elevates great paragraphs above okay paragraphs is they do an especially excellent job of conveying at least one idea. There are many qualities they may exhibit, including persuasiveness, the appearance of insight, brevity and simplicity in conveying an otherwise impenetrable or ‘hard to grasp’ idea.
In some isolated cases a great paragraph may actually clearly and convincingly communicate disinformation or a falsehood. I believe there is much more to learn about the forms paragraphs take from a paragraph that conveys a falsehood convincingly than a paragraph that clearly conveys what is generally accepted as true.
What was surprising is how hard it is to find examples that invert the principle—a paragraph that is intended to convey an idea that is truthful but is hard to understand would be a bad paragraph in my categorization. Yet, despite actively looking for examples of ‘bad paragraphs’ I struggled to find some that were truly confusing or hopeless at conveying one single idea. This experience is especially surprising to me because it challenges a few assumptions or expectations that I had:
Assumption 1 - people who have mistaken or fringey beliefs are disproportionately incapable of expressing those beliefs in a clear and intelligible form. I expected that looking for the least popular comments on Reddit, I would find many stream of consciousness rants that failed to convey ideas. This was far less common than rants that at least conveyed intent and meaning intelligibly.
Assumption 2 - that as a whole, people need to learn to communicate better. I must reconsider, it appears on the transmission side, they already communicate better than I expected (counter-counterpoint: 1% rule)
Assumption 3 - the adage that good writing = good thinking. Perhaps not, it would seem that you can write clearly enough to be understood yet that doesn’t mean your underlying arguments are strong or your thinking is more ‘intelligent’.
Assumption 4 - That I’m a merely a below average communicator. It appears that if everyone is better than I expected, than I’m much further below average than I expected.
I have no take-out or conclusion on this highly subjective observation, hence why it is a quick-take and not a post. But I will add my current speculation:
My current theory for why is “I wasn’t looking in the right places”. For example, I ignored much academic or research literature because the ability of the writers to convey an idea is often difficult to assess without relevant domain knowledge as they are seldom made for popular consumption. Likewise I’m sure there’s many tea-spilling image boards where more stream-of-consciousness rants of greater impenetrability might be found.
My second theory is pareidolia: perhaps I highly overrate my comprehension and reading skills because I’m a ‘lazy reader’ who fills in intention and meaning that is not there?
Interesting thoughts, ty.
A difficulty to common understanding I see here is that you’re talking of “good” or “bad” paragraphs in the absolute, but didn’t particularly define “good” or “bad” paragraph by some objective standard, so you’re relying on your own understanding of what’s good or bad. If you were defining good or bad relatively, you’d look for a 100 paragraphs, and post the worse 10 as bad. I’d be interested in seeing what were the worse paragraphs you found, some 50 percentile ones, and what were the best, then I’d tell you if I have the same absolute standards as you have.