Ask Lemmy

I am guilty of writing walls of text as comments, but I try to stick to my lane. You can see my most recent wall of text about freeze dryers as an example. There are a few things that I think need to come together to create a good, high-effort post:

• Passion - If you don't care, you aren't going to spend the time to write about something
• Knowledge - For some topics this may be less required, but I tend to create walls of text about technical issues. I have a PhD in physics, so that gives me a pretty good foundation of knowledge to work from in this regard
• Writing Ability - You need to be able to write effectively to make a wall of text worthwhile. This is a skill that gets better the more you do it.

The other thing I tend to do when writing a high-effort post is I actually proofread it before making it. I try to cut out unneeded tangents, reword things that might be confusing, or supplement things that aren't motivated enough.

For me personally, this doesn't take me too long to do since I have been writing and presenting about extremely technical topics for about two decades at this point. Like I mentioned above, informative writing is a skill that gets better with practice. So, doing it regularly as a significant part of my job as well as providing feedback to others on their writing/presentations, has provided me with tons of practice to improve these things.

If you want some formal guidance on scientific writing/presentations specifically, two books I have found informative (mostly on presentations) have been:

• The Craft of Scientific Presentations by Michael Alley
• slide:ology - The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte

Regarding comprehensive knowledge: there might be a lot of topics where you lack the knowledge to write a good and detailed answer. There might even be topics where you don't even have a clue what they are actually asking about.

But I am sure there are topics where you are the person in the know. And someday, someone will ask a question where you are the person perfectly qualified to answer it.

Adding to what everyone else has said.

.... You know what helped me learn how to write (which I now do for a living)? Yes, talking in comment sections -- But specifically.

I spent a lot of time in fandom forums.

Why does this matter?

Well.

TV Show fandoms are very low-stakes, you know? If you're learning to swim you start at the kiddy pool, not the olympic one. So you can participate in discussions, make up headcanons, and learn how to express your ideas... And if you do get picked apart or something, even if you actually, genuinely, fucked up and were straight up wrong. It's... Y'know. It's just a TV show. So you can, in fact, let it go.

It's different from when you're talking about something serious, something important. If you're writing about something technical and you mess up, you can end up spreading misinformation. On a political discussion, being clear on what you mean is important because the stuff being talked about matters. Not so for a fandom.

Oh and -- Re-read what you wrote, and use that edit button if you catch something you missed.

Read a lot, cite sources and explain thouroughly what you think.

I mostly use the last method. Basically, you want to make sure that the other person understands fully what you mean. You can use examples and anecdotes as well.

Training yourself in philosophy also helps, as it makes sure you argument well what you want to say.

Long posts rely on what is basically the essay format you learned in high school, following the old rule-of-three.

Three main sections:

• Introduction
• Thesis
• Conclusion.

Each section is further split into three:

• The basic idea, background, why it matters.
• Three supporting arguments, from different angles
• Thesis restated, arguments summarised, you should agree.

And each supported argument is further divided into P1, P2, C - either modus ponens or modus tollens.

Modus ponens is 'X is true, X implies Y, therefore Y is true'.

Modus tollens is 'X implies Y, but Y is false, therefore X is also false'

Of course, not every long post is necessarily an attempt to convince someone, so you modify the technique to suit the content. Sometimes you're just setting out to explain or inform - but this changes less than you'd think: instead of frogmarching someone towards your conclusion, you're leading them towards understanding. In either case, you still break up the concepts into about three pieces, and present them in an order that makes the conclusion feel inevitable.

If you want to expand beyond that, you can break it down inwards, splitting supporting concepts in three, or you can build it outwards, making three supporting arguments for each basic angle.

One important thing to remember is that nobody wants to read a huge unbroken wall of text, so use paragraphs to break up separate ideas into small manageable chunks with whitespace in between. And remember that the last sentence of a paragraph hits like a mic drop, so use this strategically.

Another trick is to sound out the post in your head and think about cadence; you don't want a string of five-word sentences that all fall off at the end. If you have a whole page of "Dada da da da DUM. Dada dada da DUM. Da dada da daDUM.", your readers will get annoyed and dismiss you without necessarily knowing why. You need to change up the rhythm, throw in some parenthetical clauses, vary the length and keep the flow of tex sounding interesting. It makes the difference between school assembly anouncements and a professional youtuber.

Honestly it's all a bit of a hack - once you get the hang of it, you can hammer it out all day with surprisingly little effort.

Look into technical writing. I took it in college but I'm sure you can find free resources online about it. In short, good technical writing is:

• accurate
• concise
• clear
• usable
• readable

Of course, that's easier said than done. It makes sense to make a rough outline of what you want to write before you write it. It's also good to look over what you've written afterwards. If you keep these basic principles in mind while planning, writing, and revising, you can make your writing more effective.

When I do it I mean to leave a couple sentences.... aaand suddenly I've got a 500 word essay. Oops

The wall-o-text comments on Lemmy are the worst. No shame at all in not being that person.

You just get started. Its part of the reason I've always preferred either forums or fark/ digg/ reddit/ lemmy style conversations.

Also, writing is a skill. You get better at it with time. Its like how a TV show host can just 'riff' on a topic. I think responding to comments has definitely improved my ability to write in particular style (engaging/ proactive/ enthusiastic, whatever.).

It also helps to be familiar with markdown, as good formatting makes the writing more satisfying.

Get emotional about something. And you're done. You'll likely go on and on with some ramblings about that.

The other thing is writing coherently and with some structure to the text. That just takes practice. But platforms like Lemmy are a good place to practice your skills. I imagine it to be difficult to start, though. You need to find some topic. Something you have to say something about, a bit of knowledge. And ideally it's something you care about. So you have some incentive to put in the work. Writing it down properly just takes time and a bit of practice. At least for most people.

Over the course of half an hour. With lots of revisions and proofreading. If i'm putting in the effort, I'm putting in all the effort.

Have you not learned to write essays in school? It's a similar skill.

Most people have already written the most things, being passionate and explaining well, but for me it is - I do not interact much, if I dont have anything new to add, I usually don't, If I got interested enough to comment, then I must have something to speak on it, and if no one else has (I first search for other comments, If I find same stuff, I just upvote their comment and move on) then I am past a threshold where I can write something long.

Writing essays in high school teaches you how to do this.

Not like this.

In recent times?

ChatGPT.

It's less of a "How" and more of a "when." If someone makes a posts or asks a question about something you're passionate about, you can find yourself making such a post. It's the written equivalent of "rambling." People making those posts usually aren't starting the with the intention of making a wall of text, it just turns out everything they wanted to say takes that shape.

Their secret is ChatGPT.