Thanks for the lovely responses to the post last week. As promised last week, here is something more lighthearted, some writing about writing. I don’t have any fully formed ideas for the next newsletter; but I want to keep up doing them fairly regularly, and also next time return to something tech policy related, so now’s your chance to get requests in. And a reminder you can subscribe at the top right of this page.
A reminder that these newsletters are all my personal views, not those of my employer (AlgorithmWatch). For some of my actual work views: I was interviewed on the Tech Policy Press podcast about Systemic Risks online (I’m a big fan, so this was exciting); appeared at DisinfoCon and have written a blog arguing in favour of “end-to-end auditing” of algorithms using the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle; and we published some research on problems with using AI chatbots to get answers to election-related questions.
I am currently en route to Seville for a belated summer holiday. I hope you are well, wherever you are and whatever the weather.
Writing for Fellow Humans
I pray thee, peace! I will be flesh and blood. For there was never yet philosopher who could endure the toothache patiently. However they have writ the style of godsand made a push at chance and sufferance.
During my years of university – eight in total, from Bachelors through to PhD – I did quite a lot of theatre. In particular quite a lot of Shakespeare and, due to my ability to grow a beard, a lot of Dad roles. Some of these are barely worth remarking on: Romeo’s dad in Romeo and Juliet has a brief angry appearance in the first scene, and is grief-stricken at his son’s death in the final scene (it’s quite the character development to portray). Others were much better: Claudius in Hamlet, though technically an Uncle rather than a Dad, is one of the classic villain roles and great fund to play (especially as we used an, erm, artistic style in which I played him while genuinely drunk).
The opening lines of this piece are from Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing. He is lesser known but perhaps my favourite Shakespearian Dad. He is genial, funny, high-status while also a bit clownish. Then, hearing disinformation that his daughter has cheated on her husband-to-be, he transforms into a wounded, vicious, almost violent man. His brother attempts to calm him, and in response he delivers the above line. Translated to more modern English, it is basically saying: your abstract arguments and ideas don’t not affect my real, physical pain, like how a philosopher can’t philosophise away a toothache despite writing long texts about suffering.
Final additional detail: We performed the show outside in the front court of University College London, and during this scene we also needed to perform the logistical feat of moving the whole audience. So I was roaring out this speech (when performing outside you need to be loud) while surrounded and followed by a flock of audience members (and some confused hangers-on). It was great, and very vivid in my memory. Also I got to wear this great coat:
But - why am I telling you all about yelling Shakespeare in a great coat in a blog that about largely about social research?
Your Audience Are Flesh And Blood
To briefly and un-Britishly praise myself, my writing is often described as clear, engaging, vivid, etc. This did not come naturally; my PhD supervisors from ten years ago would be surprised to hear that I get this feedback. So I wanted to share some of the approach I’ve developed. And part of this is, as I write something that I feel is becoming convoluted or abstract, to think to myself: I will be flesh and blood.
Why? One answer that may immediately occur to you: I have used a common trick of opening this post with a story. It’s not a bad trick. However it’s (i) hard to maintain at length and (ii) risks becoming cliché. I once saw a good tweet about academic writing which went something like:
First sentence of first paragraph: It was a freezing day in November, as I heard the swelling sound of the approaching crowd.
First sentence of second paragraph: This co-construction of social reality is mediated through social-political context(s), which are themselves recursively constituted.
There’s a whole host of similar tricks one can learn from various writing guides. Another favourite of mine is used for avoiding the passive voice – “this study was conducted in two phases” – by finding any uses of it, and adding “by zombies” at the end. And then, more importantly, replacing the passive with the active (“we conducted this study…”).
But the reasoning behind bringing up these lines isn't about these tricks. They are limited without really engaging with the principles and the point behind them. And a key one is: The people you are writing for are also flesh and blood. Their attention has physical limits, and you mustn’t demand more energy from them than necessary. Different approaches to writing demand or conserve energy. Full stops give the readers’ brains a little pause, while commas are the mental equivalent of making them hold their breath. Handing them clear images – ideally, people doing things – is preferable to abstract language, like the passive voice. A structure that jumps between different ideas, or has lots of callbacks, also demands a lot of retention, like reading a fantasy novel with 100 different characters.
(Tricks that follow from these principles: Firstly, maximum one comma per sentence, two at most. Secondly, the “zombies” trick above. Third, the “reverse skeleton”, i.e. write a bullet point summary of your piece after you have written the full thing).
All this is best learnt via engaging with actual flesh-and-blood people – i.e. editors who are willing to hold you to very high standards of clarity. The three years I spent as a civil servant writing for extremely attention-poor ministers – and senior civil servants with experience of preparing papers for them – was a good education here. The fact we were dealing with very big and complex topics was never allowed to be an excuse for unclear writing. You had to distil, shorten, clarify. Otherwise your piece was never read. It was a good antidote to my Masters and PhD approach, where I focused on the impressiveness of the ideas – sorting out how they were expressed was just an afterthought. I was like Leonato’s philosopher, trying to “writ the style of gods” . But I have found I get much better reception by making an idea half as ambitious but twice as clear. And then I get airtime to develop the ambition further.
This takes time. It's worth it.
Obvious point – all this takes time, and effort. For all my claims to have learned clear writing, I still notice that when I don’t proofread – for e.g. quick messages, emails, and also my verbal communication – I am often misunderstood or misinterpreted. Different people have different styles around writing vs. editing (Zadie Smith has an interesting distinction between novelists who start a novel with the steps already in their heads, vs. those who work it out as they go along).
I personally have a mode I call “cat-typing-gif”, where I just splurge words out into a document (I genuinely send that gif to colleagues to indicate I’m about to start writing). Then I re-read slowly, multiple times, editing – most probably shortening sentences, choosing more vivid words, adding subheadings or other ways to lead the audience through the structure, etc. Others may prefer to do this as they go along.
Whatever the case, the time spent trying to minimise the mental effort for readers - and moving away from trying to impress and to trying to help - is time very well spent, and I would argue shows basic respect for other people To borrow from another historic Brit with a knack for words, Winston Churchill: I am sorry for the length of this letter, if I had more time it would have been shorter.
Relatedly, I often offer to proof-read the academic work of many of my friends. I enjoy it. But often they delay or refuse to take up the offer on grounds that “it isn’t ready”. My interpretation is that they want to think harder, as otherwise I’ll be unimpressed. But I don’t see my role as to be impressed; my role is to check I understand. If anything, I am there to stop them doing too much thinking, which can create distance from an audience.
Conclusion: Back to Leonato
I pray thee, peace! I will be flesh and blood. For there was never yet philosopher who could endure the toothache patiently. However they have writ the style of godsand made a push at chance and sufferance
(Note how I've repeated the key lines, rather than making you scroll back or memorise them. I’m reducing effort for you. You’re welcome).
The point of citing these lines isn’t really the story behind it. It’s to highlight how Leonato makes his argument. He doesn’t say something like “strong emotions render abstract arguments ineffective”. He explicitly refers to himself. He uses clear, physical, bodily words “flesh and blood” (they’re also helpfully short and blunt – when delivering them I beat my chest on each of the words, for effect). He invents a specific hypothetical person and invokes a familiar feeling – a philosopher with a toothache – to make the opposing views more vivid.
It doesn’t take effort to take the idea in; if anything, the image forces itself onto your brain. It’s been nearly a decade since I delivered those lines, but I can still remember them. And now by ruthlessly stealing them from Shakespeare, my hope is you’ll remember this post more than a general “writing tips” post. And, given how much ruthless stealing Shakespeare did, I don’t think he can complain.
Fact about: 9 November
Germans have helpful time words, like Vorgestern and Übernächste Woche. Gestern is “yesterday”; Vorgestern is “the day before yesterday”. Nächste Woche is “next week”; Übernächste Woche is “the week after next week”. At time of writing, Vorgestern – 3rd October – is the German Einheitstag or Unity Day, marking the day at which the unification agreement between East and West Germany was signed (and Berlin very very narrowly beat Bonn in a vote to regain its status as capital of Germany).
But: the Berlin Wall was actually breached on 9 November. As I’ve heard some historians say, the long 1990s – the rough-decade of optimism and general geopolitical progress – runs from the European 9/11 to the American 9/11. Why not celebrate on that day instead? Well, because German history has a weird habit of often occurring on this day. So marking 9 November would also mean marking Hitler’s Bierhall Putsch in 1923 and the start of Jewish pogroms in 1938 (often known as Kristallnacht, which conveys a night of breaking glass as shop windows were smashed – but the term is falling out of use, in favour of the less nice-sounding and more brutally descriptive Novemberpogrome). Also the proclamation of the Republic in 1918 during the November Revolution. So to avoid celebrating all these things, Unity Day marks the signing of the unification agreement. Celebrating a bureaucratic process is also very German.
This also gives some online wag opportunity to apply this meme format to German history. For those who need an explainer of the meme, go here.
Recommendations
Given time of writing, I’d feel remiss not to mention the near-anniversary of October 7th. In my view this was a horrific event, and the military response and its impact on innocent civilians and vital infrastructure is one of the great ongoing tragedies of modern times. The rise in both anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents, and disinformation about both October 7th itself and subsequent events, across the world is also greatly concerning; as is, in Germany, some (in my view) overly heavy actions against pro-Palestinian speech (e.g. here, here). It’s also one of those times which leave many people feeling very powerless. To me it seems a good thing to do is share information around organisations worth donating to, to help innocents affected. I will do so next newsletter; so if you have any recommendations, please send them to me.
A great example of the writing approach I have laid out, as well as generally great book, is Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi. Ypi is an Albanian political scientist at the London School of Economics, who was 11 when Communism ended in Albania. The book explores the idea of freedom by vividly retelling the experience through her childhood memories. It’s similar to another book I’ve previously recommended, The File by Timothy Garton-Ash.
For the tech policy (or general policy) nerds who read this: There’s obviously a host of dedicated tech policy podcasts (if I had to pick three – Moderated Content, Tech Policy Press, Ctrl-Alt-Speech). But recently I’ve been finding Lawfare, despite not being tech-focused, still gives some of the most detailed engagement and interesting perspectives. Their episode on the recently vetoed California AI Bill was particularly helpful. Plus their show “Chatter” is (usually) more lighthearted but often extremely interesting - the episodes on Miami and spy costumes in particular.
Finally: Miniature Wonderland. Last weekend I visited Hamburg (and the extremely pretty neighbouring Lübeck). I would recommend both. Top of most “visit in Hamburg” lists is the Miniature Wonderland. I cannot overstate how much I recommend this; it is incredible. I spent an hour there alone, and am already planning a trip back so I can spend a whole morning there with company. To give just a taster, here is mini Rome. There's like 50+ of these, many with moving parts, lights, and even tiny things you can control.
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