Difference between revisions of "What makes a word explanation good?"

Revision as of 01:03, 16 July 2021

Establishes the prerequisites/background the reader needs, and then builds on that background
Simulates the reader's inexperienced state of mind
- Anticipates common misinterpretations/misconceptions and counters them
- Does not assume infinite working memory (what goes wrong when this is violated: Unbounded working memory assumption in explanations)
- When different words/terms/phrases are used to point to the same idea, this is explicitly pointed out (synonyms are very common even in technical fields!)
- When the same word/term/phrase is used to refer to different ideas, this is pointed out (this is also very common even in technical fields!)
Considers all or many permutations of ideas (see permutation trick for a similar idea)
Alternates between concrete and abstract
Actually gives a precise/technical/gears-level/mechanistic model for the reader to tinker with

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 ** Anticipates common misinterpretations/misconceptions and counters them
 ** Does not assume infinite working memory (what goes wrong when this is violated: [[Unbounded working memory assumption in explanations]])
+** When different words/terms/phrases are used to point to the same idea, this is explicitly pointed out (synonyms are very common even in technical fields!)
+** When the same word/term/phrase is used to refer to different ideas, this is pointed out (this is also very common even in technical fields!)
 * Considers all or many permutations of ideas (see [[permutation trick]] for a similar idea)
 * Alternates between concrete and abstract