When you, who ever “you” may be, start a new topic(thread in the old parlance), do you struggle with it?
When I post something, creating a new thread, I have the concept, but I can’t seem to put it into words “inside my head”. I have to be trying to put it into words as I compose the post.
It can be a real struggle to make it as concise and clear as I’d like it to be in word form, to make it match as closely as possible what’s in my mind.
Do you have a hard time putting the concept in your mind into words on the screen? Or does your way of doing it not work like that?
I don’t create new threads often, but when I do I will write the topic out on Notepad or some other thing, to make sure it reads correctly and is getting the message I want across - this may take some time. I will then add a title, then copy/paste into a new thread topic, in the appropriate forum. I find that not composing the topic “live” takes some pressure off, and I can put it aside for a while, re-read it, and make edits for clarity, grammar, punctuation, etc. You may be feeling some pressure or being rushed when writing in the live window?
This. Write the OP offline, try reading it later without any preconceived context, edit the shit out of it to remove those ambiguities and unstated assumptions you missed last time, then last of all, try to summarize it in one pithy sentence of a title.
No, it is not easy. Unless, like some posters, you don’t care whether it comes out of the gate as a rambling mess that takes 10 or 20 posts for us all plus you to even figure out what the thread is intended to be about. With several blind alley hijacks along the way.
My bottom line:
A quality ordinary post is not stream of consciousness. It’s a mini-essay and planned as such. Or at least refined to look like it was planned as such by the time it’s done.
A quality OP is much harder to get right and should involve correspondingly more effort.
It’s kind of nice to be communicating in a space where you know people care about clarity and accuracy. I type about twice as many posts as I actually make, and if you’ve read any of my posts, you can imagine how convoluted and rambling the rejects are!
Glad to know that somebody else does this. I will type a post, and then decide it’s too snarky, or unclear, or simply doesn’t make much sense.
As to the OP, I will echo what @snowthx and @LSLGuy said: In the handful of topics that I’ve started, I type the post in Word, edit it for clarity, try to make it shorter, and then still wait for a couple of hours before going back and actually posting.
Hah! You’re quite the prolific one aintcha? I only post about a tenth of what I’d like. There’s lots packed into that, but part of it that when I try to write something like LSLGuy does, it most often comes out worse. I’m not great at careful composing and editing, partly because I lose interest too quickly and partly because somehow it ends up wordier and less clear than when I started
Someone has to be the opposing view so I must step up!
I am quite confident that my relatively few OPs, and larger number of responses, could benefit from rough drafts and an editing process. There would be fewer missed words, which I notice on re read later, if nothing else, and likely other words (or sentences) removed as superfluous.
But this is a message board not writing for publication somewhere. My suspicion is that most who post here can compose a cogent enough concise OP without having to engage in much of a prolonged process.
Despite what I said upthread, @DSeid has made an excellent point. Even off-the-cuff writing can be great. If nothing else, SDMB does not suffer an excess of posting; we could always use more as long as it doesn’t decline t0 the excrable level of, say, YouTube comments. Not that that’s likely with this crowd.
Something I have noticed about my own writing is it has lots of little words added intending to increase precision or clarity that actually end up being just chigger-filled underbrush obstructing smooth easy flow.
if I read something I wrote a week ago it seems clear & polished. When I read it 9 months later it seems complicated, convoluted, and fuzzy/weird. Same words, what’s different is I’ve forgotten whatever context I had in my head then.
More is not always better. At least for me, less would probably turn out to be more.
[aside]
And boy, was I self-conscious as I was writing this! :yikes:
(This is also the thirdfourth fifth edit to correct typos.)
I struggle with it sometimes. But what bothers me more is that I’ll all of sudden think of a good thing to post while I’m driving, showering, etc. and then completely forget what it was when I start perusing SD.
But yes, that’s good advice everyone should follow.
