Techniques for the Day: The Lead Sheet and the Dialectic.

Project for the Day: A Letter to the Editor

Why am I writing this?

Why should my reader read this?

Always ask yourself these two questions. The first refers to your personal reason. For example, Why am I writing this? I’m writing this because:

1. I discovered a truth and I want to tell others about it.
2. I feel I have to get this off my chest.
3. I want to make people laugh.
4. I want to convince the reader to do something or to think in a certain way.

The second question refers to the reader’s reason. For example, Why should my reader read this? She should read this because:

1. She will find this truth useful to her work.
2. She will develop empathy for another human being.
3. She will be entertained.
4. She will swing into action and get this done.

If both questions are clear, you have effective message: transmitted, received, and acted upon.

The message determines what content and construction goes in the text. It also determines what content goes out:

1. Irrelevant, inaccurate information.
2. Boring, insincere feelings.
3. Lame jokes, cliched witticisms.
4. Unconvincing, unsupported arguments.

It also determines what construction goes out.

1. Words foreign to the reader, like jargon.
2. Unnecessary adverbs, adjectives you can’t hear, taste, feel, smell, and see.
3. Phrases that slow down the pace unnecessarily.
4. Bad grammar.

Writing is mostly about putting in, editing mostly about throwing out. The problem for many writers is that they throw out too early. This slows down the work, and it also allows many insights to escape into the wind. In your first draft focus on putting in, and to hell with grammar and style.

The first draft is NEVER pretty. Want to get used to not pretty? Set your font color to WHITE (on a white page) and type like crazy. Want to get used to crazy? Try The Most Dangerous Writing App (https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app). Set a time, say 10 minutes, and type and type and type. If you pause, the text starts to fade. Pause for 5 sec before 10 min is over and everything you typed disappears, forever.

Our assignment for today is to write a Letter to the Editor of a scientific journal. Why do we write Letters?

We write to add or correct information. Perhaps you spotted an incomplete experiment. Or, you want to point out the author was not bold enough with his conclusions.

Some people have made it their business to alert editors to fraud. As of writing, 290 published articles on Covid-19 research have been retracted from around the world thanks to the sleuthing work at Retraction Watch.

Our ambitions are simpler, and they go like this.

Read a short article on a science or engineering subject.

Next, break it up. Such as “argument 1”, “argument 2”, “conclusion”, “evidence”. Or, “issue #1”, “issue #2”. Two is a good number to start with. You can further subdivide from here.

After identifying the parts, identify your values and your aims; these will 1) rank the parts to comment on; and 2) determine your point of view. Are you a stickler for statistical rigor or image quality, and aim to clarify them? Do you have a strong ethical or philosophical opinion against one of the issues, and aim to argue your point? Do you belong to the grammar police, and aim to correct the author’s style? Since you are writing from your point of view, no one is assuming you have the final word.

Then, gather some information to support your text.

But before writing your letter, summarize your project in ONE SHORT SENTENCE. For example: “This article is unfair because it only considers the views of one group of people.”

Technique: The Lead Sheet

That summary is the lead sheet. A lead sheet is a synopsis, a reference to keep you on track. The one above is one sentence long. If you were writing a research article or a novel, the lead sheet will never exceed 1 page. And it can take many forms: mind map, flow chart, bullet points. It could take the form of a storyboard, a favorite technique of scriptwriters. Or, it’s written out on the palm of your hand, or stored as an image in your head.

The lead sheet is not written in stone. Allow yourself to change direction when thus inspired.

Technique: The Dialectic structure of arguing

Armed with a lead sheet, write your Letter. Follow this common structured called the dialectic. It consists of three parts: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

Assignment: Letter to the Editor

Lead sheet: “This article is unfair because it only considers the views of one group of people.”

Letter:

1. Thesis. Dear Editor, in your most recent edition, Dr. Eastwest argued that the mass lay-offs we are seeing in the tech industry anticipate the replacement of these jobs by artificial intelligence. He presented evidence in the form of various recent apps, enumerates which jobs each app will replace, and extrapolates app evolution and job loss using a time series model. He concludes from that evidence and his model that half of all jobs will be replaced in 25 years.
2. Antithesis. However, I do not agree with his analysis because he only considers the problem from the point of view of one group of people, his own, AI experts, and their assumptions. Had he considered the views of corporate stakeholders he would not have blamed AI so much. As shown by Dr. Northsouth, in the Journal of Corporate Governance, the layoffs are the result of companies dealing with decreased revenues from the inflation, and increased cost from the servicing of massive debts incurred in 2021-22. Besides, most of the “dangerous” AI described by Dr. Eastwest were only released recently and fail to account for the fact that layoffs began early in 2022. Besides, his model does not account for the possibility of AI actually creating new kinds of careers, such as promt engineering.
3. Synthesis. Perhaps companies would not have laid off so many people had there been no viable replacements for them. In other words, it’s plausible that had ChatGPT come out later we wouldn’t see 120,000 tech jobs downsized in the 3 months. Nonetheless, I think we should look at direct causes because they are more likely solvable by direct solutions. Limiting the analysis to contributory causes that are not direct, and arguing from models that could very well be wrong, prevents us from reaching good solutions. Most respectfully, XXX.

In the next module, we will take up Storytelling techniques.