When trying to understand something which you can’t model very well or don’t understand the models others use. A topic that strains your cognitive resources. A topic that you think deserves more attention. Something with stuff going wrong. Something that is unpredictable. A model that would require much coordination to. When you see these thing don’t think conspiracy.
Based on feedback I’ve changed the above paragraph into:
“Putting aside such wild speculation, what should we take away from this? When do conspiracy theories seem more likely than they are?
The phenomena is unpredictable or can’t be modelled very well
Models used by others are hard to understand or are very counter-intuitive
Thinking about it significantly strains cognitive resources
Explains why bad things happen or why something went wrong
Requires coordination
When you see these features you probably find the theory more plausible than it is. ”
First bullet: join the two phrases with either “and” or “or”. Also, you seem to have at least two (possibly three) antecedents for “it” in those bullets. I suspect removing all four instances would be clearer.
Great suggestions, thank you. I will try to avoid such mistakes in future writing. I’m just wondering however, how I can get rid of it in this sentence:
“Thinking about it significantly strains cognitive resources”
Don’t remove the sentence; replace “it” with its antecedent. In other words, answer the question “thinking about what?”. Thinking about the conspiracy theory? The actual sequence of events that happened? Or the non-conspiracy explanation for those events? That’s what I meant for all four bullet points.
As a general rule, “it” is fine when the intended antecedent is in the same sentence, and there is only one such antecedent for all instances of “it” in a single sentence. Multiple distinct instances in one sentence, or an unambiguous antecedent earlier in the same paragraph, can often be fine, but should be scrutinized more closely. Antecedents that don’t appear in the same paragraph are generally a bad idea. (As always, there are exceptions and details. But that’s a good starting point.)
Based on feedback I’ve changed the above paragraph into:
“Putting aside such wild speculation, what should we take away from this? When do conspiracy theories seem more likely than they are?
The phenomena is unpredictable or can’t be modelled very well
Models used by others are hard to understand or are very counter-intuitive
Thinking about it significantly strains cognitive resources
Explains why bad things happen or why something went wrong
Requires coordination
When you see these features you probably find the theory more plausible than it is. ”
Is this an improvement?
Somewhat.
First bullet: join the two phrases with either “and” or “or”. Also, you seem to have at least two (possibly three) antecedents for “it” in those bullets. I suspect removing all four instances would be clearer.
Great suggestions, thank you. I will try to avoid such mistakes in future writing. I’m just wondering however, how I can get rid of it in this sentence:
“Thinking about it significantly strains cognitive resources”
Don’t remove the sentence; replace “it” with its antecedent. In other words, answer the question “thinking about what?”. Thinking about the conspiracy theory? The actual sequence of events that happened? Or the non-conspiracy explanation for those events? That’s what I meant for all four bullet points.
As a general rule, “it” is fine when the intended antecedent is in the same sentence, and there is only one such antecedent for all instances of “it” in a single sentence. Multiple distinct instances in one sentence, or an unambiguous antecedent earlier in the same paragraph, can often be fine, but should be scrutinized more closely. Antecedents that don’t appear in the same paragraph are generally a bad idea. (As always, there are exceptions and details. But that’s a good starting point.)
Thank you very much for your patience, thinking about language really isn’t my thing, I think the OP is now much better due to your advice.