LEADERSHIP LAB: Writing Beyond the Academy 1.23.15
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- Опубликовано: 27 май 2024
- Speaker: Larry McEnerney (University of Chicago Writing Program)
When graduate students envision themselves working outside academia, they often worry about writing. This is sensible: academics who work outside academia are endlessly criticized for writing "like a professor". Worse, writers who are criticized in this way are often baffled at how to adapt to their new world. Very often, they try to change aspects of their writing that are not troublesome, and they leave in place aspects of their writing that are making their writing less clear, less logical, and less valuable to their readers.
This session will be about a few patterns of writing that are likely to aggravate non-academic readers. We'll focus on patterns that are often difficult for academics to see, but are actually fairly easy to change.
I feel that I owe money to this man for this video
You do. Please send cash by mail to his address. He's retired now, so don't send it to the university.
same
me too
If I was young enough I would have gotten into uchicago
same same
While writing my doctoral dissertation, I discovered that 90% of what mattered to my committee (and the university) was my ability it weave other peoples ideas with my own grammar and sentence structure to make it look like I had discovered brilliant nuggets of information no one else knew while CLEARLY (based on a seven page bibliography) filling the paper with other people’s ideas. Madness!!! But it got me a degree!!
bachelor here, i still feel like our whole final project is a scam
@@gebbygeb3547you’re right.
*My takeaways:*
1. This lecture is about 1.1 Why people that are really smart can have writing issues, 1.2 some techniques to solve these issues 2:17
2. More on 1.1 5:30, writings need to be clear, organized, persuasive and VALUABLE
3. Think about readers and the function of writing is important 7:25
4. Domain experts use writing to help themselves with thinking 9:20, if contents are very complex, it is impossible to do good thinking (e.g. outline) first and then start writing. DO them together
5. One of the reasons that smart people can't do good writing is, in school, their readers (e.g. teachers) are paid (tuition) to read their writings, but other than that, their writings have no other values to their readers 11:20
6. An example 19:40
7. We shouldn't ALWAYS use short sentences 30:20
8. We were trained in school to use writing to express our idea, to show our understanding, not to create values for our readers 33:10
9. Stop thinking about writing rules 34:18, language is not rule-following, is about control the reading process 36:30
10. How to make writing valuable to readers 40:30 - make arguments, tell what questions (i.e. reader's questions) that the paper will answer
11. We value about reading bad stuff 55:25. I guess the way people tend to use "bad word" for eye-catching could be related to a TED talk about bad stuff last in our mind longer: *Getting stuck in the negatives (and how to get unstuck) | Alison Ledgerwood | TEDxUCDavis* ruclips.net/video/7XFLTDQ4JMk/видео.html
12. Readers don't trust writers 1:02:45
13. Think about how we should struct our writing based on who is our potential readers 1:05:40. In English, subject is the focus of a sentence
Thanks a lot!
another great job for the review after your 1st for The Craft of Writing Effectively!!!
@@zhanged9080 You are welcome!
Thanks again, it is useful.
Very good notes Lei. How do you do it?
As a graduated master student, I wish I had such a teacher to guide me in my writing when I was in school. Most enlightening, thank you, Dr. McEnerney.
You sure he was never your teacher? You kind of look like that guy in the back at 16:28
Sethumi Agampodi hahaha... alas I Never went to UoC!
You're successful in my eyes, man.
@@sethmendis8471 looks like the guy in the first row too 🤔
@@sethmendis8471 l
A writing professor once said to us: you need to satisfy the intellectual and emotional needs of your reader. His words have always stayed with me; that was the first time I was properly oriented toward my readers. Lucky for me I was young because I write policy now. I miss the UofC!
Pure joy he has on 50:46, you can see it in every fiber of his being. He is such a passionate and quality teacher that what he transfers is his whole life. What a great person. Insprational lesson for all of us. Thank you for giving out these lessons, and also thank you chicago college for sharing us with this treasure that you have allowed to encubate in your classrooms. This is the greatest writing lesson i have ever watched and none can match the pure passion and joy this gentleman, imparts on his students. Bravo.
That’s what a top teacher does. He/she tells the truth to encourage students to do the same once they’re out of the academia and even while they’re studying. Value those teachers because they’re precious. Actually, they’re a rarity.
"you've been writing garb.. ineffectively" 28:55 lol, this professor is killing it! i'm really thankful for having access to his lectures
very down to earth but in a most respectful way at the same time.
@@Cyberlord_Blaze does he have a website?
"Concision isn't the number of words in the page, it's how long it takes readers to process what's on the page"
I'm not a student anymore, I don't write so there are very little chances I'd be watching this video until the end ,...and yet I found those two lectures utterly and ridiculously interesting and as I'm writing this yes I think about this theory applies to all spheres of communication! Thank you Professor !!
This is 100% spot on! Too many important concepts for just one viewing. Will definitely be watching this again in the future. I can't thank Larry and the University of Chicago enough for making this available for public consumption. Anyone who writes anything longer than a tweet should watch this and take notes.
Learned more in the past 1hr 16mins than in the past 15 years working in a university
I loved the 2 lectures I've seen from Mr. Larry McEnerney!
They've been strategic, engaging & helpful.
Thank you for sharing them!
For me as well. I just stumbled onto him yesterday. I have seen the two lectures also. I am in a writing class for teachers right now at CSU Bakersfield. I have to write a journal. I'm hoping to be able to incorporate the value into it.
LOVE UR TITLE OF SEXOLOGICAL, I CAN TEACH MEN MANY TRICKS TO WOOOOO THEIR FEMALE PARTNERS. EVEN THOUGH I'M ONLY 38YRS AND HAD FEW GFS, I BELIEVE WOMEN ARE AMAZING
This makes so much sense to me now... around 11:15 what he said... I found that I have trouble writing outlines. My teachers would tell me to write an outline first before writing my thoughts, but I end up writing nothing. My thoughts were always jumbled, and writing them down on paper helped me sort out my thoughts.
It's certainly quite a revelation when we realize there is a bigger world out there than the one that spins inside our heads.
Professor McEnerney is absolutely right! His lectures are one of the best that I have ever listen! Thank you, Professor McEnerney!
If memory serves, McEnerney is not a Professor. If not the case, please, let me know.
@@patrickmccormack4318 Yeah, he did not complete his doctoral studies. Alas he is retiring this year...
Mr. McEnerney: I listened to this lecture last night and found it insightful, VALUABLE, and unique. In my experience you are a rare type of teacher, the type we all wish we had more of when attending college, someone who cares, who knows what works in the real world, and who is bold enough to dismiss distractive teaching methods. Cheers to you.
Can you explain what you mean by distractive teaching methods?
I love how much truth he is telling. It's utterly unbearable for people like me, who have been taught to write inside the system, to absorb this. But these are the hard truths we need to learn.
So is learning, thinking, decision-making and problem-solving. These at the fundamental components of how one makes progress in life, and they are not taught :)
@@rinhmuseum the problem is the polar opposite is being taught and these are ignored
ruclips.net/video/zQhIKGNGsJs/видео.html
Hard truths or just truths?
@la ba I should add the word ‘explicitly’, ‘directly’ and ‘deeply’. During learning people can make profoundly different inferences and connections. They may even develop different approaches to a problem without recognizing their own bias due to lack of formal frameworks for problem-solving.
Have your teachers produced world-class engineers or did the student discover and integrate their own methologies? What is the contributing factor of the two? Looking back I should have been more accurate say, teachers underestimate and under-deliver in their role to nuture problem finders and thinkers.
This is treasure for sript writers as well. Thankyou & God bless Dr. McEnerney & the person who uploaded this. He has unlocked some pretty awesome points where writers get stuck on a page.
I love the way he teaches. So connected, so focused and professionally gentle on a serious topic that matters - writing.
Larry demonstrates real concern for students by shooting down wrong opinions instead of constant affirmation.
I love this guy, I often think about my writing and want to improve and it is good to know the things you must be aware of. Namely the reader and value.
I swear, when I was listening to this lecture at 10 minutes and 12 seconds, I jumped and slammed my left hand on my right so painfully that I instantly regretted the stupid painful display of emotion, but forgot about it after 3 seconds. I shouted: "Damn it, he’s so precise and cool, and he knows what he’s saying."
I send my warmest greetings from Poland from a lost and downtrodden Belarusian who is writing his first, and perhaps only, but very important book! Thank you professor! I hear you!
Does it have to be entertaining to hold the readers attention ?
I don't think it would be suitable for a military or catastrophe report, but people like to be entertained. I'd even say they love it. @@marykinsella417
I like when he guided his speech as what he basically wanted to share to the audience. He doesn't care about what's inside his mind but he cares of something valuable and the problem that he wanted to resolve for the audience.
He Does a great job of talking in terms of what’s in it for them by listening to what he has to say. Prime example of talking the talk and walk in the walk.
I could listen to him for hours! very interesting and mind blowing stuff!
This was heaven. Enjoyed every second.
This was one of the best lessons I've had on any topic let alone writing. Thank you Professor McEnerney.
Thank you Dr. McEnerney for such an insightful video.
As a person who is a student of Literature all I have done is write but now that I have graduated from university I have been stuck on making my writing accessible and meaningful for a larger audience. Your lecture has provided me key points for reorienting my writing and making it valuable. Thank you so much!
this man has blown my mind in the first 10 minutes, one hour more to go.
think with an outline, write when you are done thinking.
mind=blown again in the next minute.
what you write about the world has a job, its job is to cause the readers to change how they think about the world.
He is a great teacher. I want those pamphlets.
awesome! just what I needed. After writing about a thousand pages about an important topic that nobody seems to understand now I know that I have only been writing to organize my thoughts and have some ideas about what to do next. WOW!
Amazing course taught by an amazing professor who definitely knows how to convey his point. Lots of gratitude for this video. I wish the audience was more reactive, he deserves it so much, look how much energy and enthusiasm he gives !!!!!
All of my team learned this vedio--very useful.
key point
--Create Values For Readers
1. whom is Reading?
2.what is the function?(what's your reader's needs/questions/focus on)
3.Do ur readers care about it?
Dr McEnerney thank you for this knowledge . When you are telling us this you are communicating with the crowd by changing our thoughts of how we should be writing also the main point of why we are writhing.this video is the perfect example of it .
Over; students don’t pay attention in class not because we don’t want to but because most teacher couldn’t communicates with the students.
I need more of this guy.
This class should be taught in all colleges.
Excellent, inspirational professor, Dr. Larry McEnerney of the University of Chicago.
If memory serves, McEnerney is not a professor. If not the case, please, let me know.
Many thanks to Dr. McEnerney.
This workshop is pure gold.
This man changed my life.
These Philippines really don't understand how much lucky
they are to sit here and listen to this fantastic teacher)
Accidentally left this playing last night, and I woke up to straight facts
"Tell them what you are going to tell them." That YEHOVAH, I had been hammered that thought in my face my entire life.
I fell asleep as this was coming on.. I woke up wise beyond my wildest imaginations!!
I actually interjected in my sleep!’ Whoever this man is… I owe him a check!!
🙏
This is inspiration for learning detailed writing, it is a way of meeting the challenges which provoke thoughts in brainstorming. How do you as a writer bring value to your work?
Thank you Mr. McErnerney. I was just about to commit every mistake you outlined. Your insights have enabled me to realise that I needed to radically change my direction and that before I even put pen to paper I must first identify who my reader is. and secondly, what is my intention of function. Now the hard part.
I see a man trying to help. Thank you so much. This comes with consciusness, the more you are the more easy it gets to catch what he says.
When text-based advice is given, ask for which readers and what function. I loved this.
Interactive and engaging writing. I have enjoyed each and every single moment of this lecture.
Extremely helpful for my writing project right now. I need to constantly think about who my readers are and what's valuable to them, and change their views!
My writing skills improved to a whole new level due to this video. Please provide a link to the handout so that we could learn more about this wonderful lesson.
This was a wonderful video on writing at the expert level. Thank you for the teaching Prof. McEnerney.
This way of teaching is just great! I wish I had had such interesting lectures and that I could give them! Brilliant!
We write horribly because our payment is a grade - and our “teachers” get a paycheck for dispensing the currency of grades!! We are held hostage to their styles and their values as long as we are students ... and as you said, changing habits and thinking and perception of value after 20 years is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT!!! It can be done, but it’s like detoxing from a drug addiction!!
This wonderful teacher is giving the most valuable lesson about writing, and we have this student eating some soap in class.
Great pieces of Academic tips:
1."Language is not rules. Language is controlling the reading process." A great writer should use language to guide. It is not to make the reader get lost.
2. Novice writers have not got trained to get value out of writing products or make it valuable for expert reader-evaluator.
3. Writers should care more about spelling and forget about ready does and don'ts.
4. Short sentences lead to convincing the reader to list numerous points of strengths.
5. For me, this lecture is a revolution against those ready and superficially rules . It is a call for deep research and tips from practitioners and teachers of writing.
6. ...
I am so grateful to be able to learn from this lecture. I'll make sure to pay it forward.
As an academic failure - seventeenth from last in my high school class before dropping out - my favorite part is when let’s these undoubtedly brilliant people realize they’re boring and that only a paid reader would read their boring work because I’m to a large degree a failure because I always made my papers hilarious and readable. My teacher once wrote on my paper, “the grade doesn’t reflect the quality of your work.” I was never one to obey minimum course requirements and was selected against. Btw, if you’re one of the “brilliant” people in these classes, you’re not necessarily the best and the brightest; you’re the best and the brightest that did everything you were told. Break more rules!
Just kidding I fix espresso machines. You do you.
Watching this valuable lecture is mind-altering. I did not feel it was boring or long during every minute of it. Thank you poster 👍👍👍👍
Man! He really speaks good. I like the stuff he nos.
He does the best ideals that are good but I never thought of them.
This Pr. McEnerney is basically filling the gaps of my intuitions on the topic and I love it!
🙏🏼 I hope to have a chance to learn with him. How lucky for the student to take course with him.
Larry👑you're a Legend! And this lecture is Legendary!👑✨👍
A fellow consultant.
Awesome!
Now, I get why I relate...
Leadership matters.
Valuable writing matters.
Keep it going!
Thank you Professor, your class has been travelling away to my screen and I felt so lucky to be able to find you and followed your session.
"teachers are paid to read about you", first time I thought of it even as a teacher! lol.
It isn't true. (It's complete nonsense. Unfortunately, like everything and everyone else, ninety percent of teachers have the intellect of roach turds.
@@jamesaritchie1 so how often are teachers reading their students writings in their absolute free time? Because if they had actual value, people would use their valuable time to gain the value in the writing
Yes, agreed, I also never thought of it.
Well, this is a really awesome writing class that I learned from Prof main points of attracting my readers on my works. This needs a lot of eyes in details for writers and eyes catching for readers. Again, this is kind art to fabricate the writing with mind and heart.............STF..........
Brilliant......thanks for making this available.
Purely, purely gold
56:21
Blows me away we are still talking about Ukraine-Russia at present. It’s like the professor was reading into the future
I was thinking the same thing.. makes me want to read the article.
Or Crimea was happening
Sir you made my day, thank you so much for this wonderful lesson. 😊 Thanks to University of Chicago 😊
This is the first person to really teach me about writing since Hunter S Thompson
Please post more lectures 👍 it's amazing to listen about writing
Thank you Larry McEnerney (University of Chicago Writing Program). Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
This guy is so good someone like me an
un educated man that needs to communicate with people we all can use this lecture when we communicate verbally to people around us
I’m learning a second language the importance is to communicate not grammar or punctuation The purpose of writing is to communicate we all want people to value us so we should communicate things that make people want to know us
I’m 60 and I only went to the seventh grade so forgive me for wasting your time ❤
Notes:
- He opens the lecture by explaining who he is, why he's there, and why he hopes he can be valuable to you.
- His goal is to help you avoid common, easily avoidable writing issues.
- He breaks it down into two levels: first, explaining why it is that really smart people have trouble writing effectively (mostly because academia doesn't teach you to do real writing), and then specific techniques and exercises that you can use to improve.
- Your writing should be clear, organized, persuasive, and above all else - valuable.
- Jargon isn't always bad - you can use it to provide value. It's often used in a way that destroys value. Jargon is useful when you know that your audience knows what you mean when you're using the jargon - it's a way to condense information and convey ideas more efficiently to readers who have prerequisite knowledge.
- Most people use their writing process to help themselves to think. This is necessary step, especially when you're dealing with complex issues that you can't figure out in your head.
- Some teachers tell students to think before they write - to create an outline before they write their paper. This is nonsense - writing and thinking are iterative processes. You use your writing to think, and then your thinking improves, and you write using this improved thinking.
- The purpose of writing is to change how your readers view the world.
- In school, your grades don't reflect the degree to which your writing changed your teacher's view of the world. Your teachers get paid to review your work and grade it based on criteria that usually don't relate to how useful the paper is.
- We have 20 years' of bad habits built up by people getting paid to care about us in school.
- He reviews three examples of writing from Roger Myerson:
- He notes some differences: the presence of equations in the first, the shorter sentences in the second.
Shorter sentences have their place, but you shouldn't avoid long sentences. It depends on a lot of things - your reader, their objectives, your position in the piece. The end of a sentence is a microstressor. You can use these microstresses to convey importance and deliver value. But you don't want the entire piece to be hundreds of important things - otherwise nothing is important. Long sentences allow you to use "important things" to build up to "very important things". For example: the last sentence of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
Continued: www.karma.fm/p/M8G0hSj/writing-beyond-the-academy---larry-mcenerney-university-of-c
if you watched this, people check comments if the lecture is good. You are wrong. it is brilliant.
Thank you, Dr. McEnerney. I argued to myself that I failed to obtain my MA degree in audiovisual translation because I was to some extent rebellion enough and could not embrace many academic writing rules, therefore I am totally convinced I will be a good writer. Hopefully I am not just a dreamer.
Watching this on 2022 and thinking about Crimea, the implications were huge not only for Ukraine but for the world.
Top notch. Value is the key word from this seminar.
The "accepted styles" in academia also contribute to soulless writing! They're meant to keep things consistent and keep all the references easy to follow, but the unintentional consequences is that they also make expression extremely difficult and "level the playing field" to make everyone's writing appear the same. Only naturally gifted writers typically break through this barrier, the rest just see it as one more link in the chain to an assignment where they are not allowed to express any of their own valuable thoughts.
Unfortunately academia is more effective in formatting people to their unfounded assumptions then stimulate thinking.
Great to see and hear this untapped valuable knowledge about fine writing skill. It might be helpful for me ahead.....
Such a wonderful person, I genuinely enjoyed it. 👌👌👌
this just captured history back in 2015.. like ongoing worldly problems. Thats wild. RUclips & professor good job!
Thank you for this, Larry!
Thank you Professor. Outstanding presentation of the material. The material was very valuable.
That thinking and writing of the writer support each other is just part of human nature.
I mean, even little kids write diaries and it helps them to make sense of how to perceive the world around them.
Definitely psychologically challenging and changing my perspectives which were simply not known nor understood regarding both my writing and things I read. Writing for the reader, Valuable, Not the readers job, who is getting paid to be the readers, who is reading, writing after leaving academia, the Lincoln's Address sentence structure and short and long sentences pro con explanation is profoundly important and never considered its impact....
WOW what eye opening perspectives !!!!!!! This changes my attitude on what I am willing to read to some degree, if not to think before i decide to !!!
I will have to watch his 2 videos on writing at least 5 times, the first time view reveals alarming and important issues to me.
Now I am trying to understand if this effects Kate L. Turabian's Chicago Style Manual or its editions after; I think it doesn't ,
i think it means to use what he is presenting here and if writing something in the Chicago Style write for the reader....
I need more help, so I'll be searching for more of your lectures. Thank you for the professional view points.
To those interested in this material, I think you may like the book "Six Memos for the Next Millennium" by Italo Calvino... It's less specific perhaps, but also very enlightening about the writing process... check it out if you're so inclined...
after getting out of school and having to convince a boss with 10+ years of experience in basically an elevator pitch why my idea will solve the problem he was having, you quickly learn that the value of the speech or text to the reader/listener is the most important. This was a great refresher and I have gotten great value out of it.
Thank you, Dr. McEnerney.
Everyone refers to McEerney as either a Professor or Dr. If memory serves, he is neither. Let me know if not the case.
@@patrickmccormack4318 That's the matter of ancient academia courtesy and it shall remain so.
Excellent presentation and insight on writing. Easy and fun to listen to. Thanks for the video.
This lecture helped me confirm I loathe writing and I must make my living in fields that don't require writing for a public that needs to "buy my writing"
It took me 3 attempts, I kept getting bored and falling asleep. But I recognise he's correct about his premises and that is useful.
thankfully I'm doing very well in 1 or 2 of those (computer security - hole disclosure, bounties; microelectronics design - if the design is good and works, they will read the little text that needs to be written)
I've been toying with the idea of writing technical books with some of my insights in these fields, but I can foresee it being a completely unbearable experience to me. The social aspect of it particularly.
Prof. McEnerney -- your video is so practical, and insightfully done, I needed to pause & applaud.
While I did hear many of these pointers 30 years ago, but over time and tumult, I'd gotten away from them -- to the point, I was just wondering the other day, how it could be, that two people with University degrees, could have so much difficulty communicating effectively with one another in something so simple as texts. Thank you for the answer and the solutions to the problems!
this is so good, I'm watching at 1 in the morning.
Love this. Although it's meant for "outside academia", I find the advice very much suitable for academic writing in my field (management and organizations)
This has been so enlightening, huge value to my life. Thank you.
This is gold, I wish i had found this my freshmen year.
This video is so valuable I am watching it again 0:29 in 2023