SUO: Re: Focus and Volume
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John F. Sowa wrote:
>
> Jon,
>
> I forget where I read the comment, but it is perhaps the best advice
> that I have ever seen on how to accept suggested revisions to one's
> pulications -- either in style or in content:
>
> Whenever intelligent readers find a problem in clarity or
> readability in my writing, they are almost always right.
>
> But whenever they try to make suggestions on how to improve it,
> they are almost always wrong.
>
> JA: Since I am determined to model my participation in this discourse
> on the best established standards, I earnestly await your advice.
>
> Many people have noticed problems in clarity and readability in your
> writing, but you are the one who must determine how to correct them.
>
> John Sowa
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John,
Well, enough about me, but just in case the strategy
that I found, the hard way, as always, can be of any
use to other poor souls, who may just happen to find
themselves suffering under such a severe inhibition
of all forms of expression that they can scarcely
bring themselves to speak in public -- and I know
whereof I choked to speak -- let me just exposit
more expressly the pyre-techic that I eventually
flashed on: Just go ahead and say it, no matter
who hates to hear it -- you can always refine the
rawness of the wounds on all sides, but only later.
Go ahead and use that bombastard side of your given
human nature, if that is the only face that can face
the muse, the medusa, or the mirror. It's a whole lot
better fate than choking your mind to death. It's all
just words, and we are just talking here. Formal pubs
are another sort of bar than we are grokking in now.
My way is to say it, and then say it another way,
until I find a way that works for the person in
front of me, not mention, okay, I will, the
persona through which I am fit to speak.
Jon Awbrey
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