LEADERSHIP LAB: The Craft of Writing Effectively

Summary

Summarized wtih ChatGPT

Effective writing is about clearly communicating your ideas to your readers. Understanding your audience is crucial in making your writing valuable and persuasive. Use writing as a tool to think more clearly and to engage your readers better.

Key Takeaways:

1. Know your audience and their needs.
2. Use writing to clarify your thoughts.
3. Aim to create value for your readers with your work.

Highlights from Article

terrifically good thing andit’s the source of most of the value ofyour worknow you are also writing about thatworld and this is where it starts theproblem starts arising unlike ajournalistalmost surely you are using your writingprocess to help yourself thinkin other words the thinking that you’redoing is at such a level of complexitythat you have to use writing to helpyourself do your thinking

• People use their writing to think.

for the rest of this yeartaking articles in your fieldprint them out so you have a hard copygo through and circle every word in thewriting that is creating value to thereadersif you see an article that you thinkdoesn’t have any of those wordssend it to me I’ll give you my emailsend me your email and say Larry I foundan article that doesn’t do it here’swhat I bet you will see none I will see10.

• All domains have codes. You need to learn how to communicate to your readers in their codes.

if you do not know these peopleyou are very unlikely to create valueand you are very unlikely to bepersuasivebecause persuasion depends on what theydoubtyou don’t know what they doubt how onEarth are you going to overcome thosedoubtsyou must know themit’s not enough to know your subjectmatter you got to know your readersokay so what is it about none there’stwo things going on here then one ofthem has to go on with the community of

• To persuade your community, you need to know what they believe in. To do that, you need to know them.

Instead of saying, “Here’s what a student

let review says,”

in 1998, he said this; in 2000, he said

this; in 2002, he said this; in 2005, he’s

sorry for the he’s, but I’m looking at a

bunch of he’s here, right?

A professional that review says what

in 2001 he said this.

But in 2004, he said something which, if we’re

smart, we realize

puts in tension.

And then in 2005, he said this,

which complicates the situation here.

But even more complicated if we put that in

motion with what he said back in 2001.

Now we have layers of complexity,

complication, and tension.

Now, can we say I’m moving forward? Yeah,

but you notice I’m not moving forward

from stability.

I’ve now enhanced their sense of

instability.

And if you’re really good, you’re hype

with the costs.

You start saying, “Wow, not only is there a

little tension there, but it’s a tension

that matters in this community as we go

forward, because it suggests that not

only were they wrong, but we’re wrong as

We move forward based on their ideas,

so it’s not just them and the rest of us.

• Nice example of how to build up community-specific tension and then show that by resolving it, it forwards the reader.

Writing a lit review as a PhD student is

one of the hardest things there is to do.

It’s incredibly hard,

because you don’t know who your readers

are.

Let’s talk about a straight teacher

reading a lit review.

What is the function of a lit review

for the teacher

who is not reading it to change her view

about the world, but is reading it to

judge you.

What’s the function of a lit review for

That reader

to show that you understood it

Right, that’s perfectly clear, is that its

function in a professional text

is that its function in a professional

text. You think they’re reading is to find out

whether you know the stuff about

anything. What’s its function in a professional

text? It has several. What’s one

What’s the function of a lit review in a

professional text?

All material owns to the authors, of course. If I’m highlighting or writing notes on this, I mostly likely recommend reading the original article, of course.

See other recent things I’ve read here.