What makes a word explanation good?
- 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)
- 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
