complex read
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There is nothing more annoying than reading an article/book from an author with a PhD. Actually maybe not even a PhD, but a graduate of a comp sci. X| Usually you can find a plethora :) of articles on google for any topic you can imagine....all from OMG this sux to high quality, easy to follow/understand, excellent 10 out of 10 articles. It has been my experience though when reading up on more advanced topics like encryption/compression/compiler design, etc...you are usually limited to university type texts/articles geared towards school types, of which I don't fall under :) Here's my complaint: Why, when these articles are written must the authors use such fancy friggen words. It only complicates my being able to comprehend (having to open dictionary.com every 5 mins) the subject. I guess it only improves my vocab, but still...why do it? An article is about teaching isn't it? Why would you want to hinder someone's ability to learn what your teaching. :confused: I wonder if they do it to sound smart...I wonder if they just use a Thesaurus after writting a rough draft and just replace every second word with it's cooler sounding alternative. Yeah I know that trick...I did that in high school all the time. :cool: Do university types consider themselves something of an esoteric bunch and maybe think that no non-schooled type should be able to read anything they write just cuz. :) end of rant... dodo..do...dodo..do ;) Cheers How do I print my voice mail?
No, not about you. Just thinking about Don Knuth[^] writing: (Shell Sort) "Yo, man. Now, this algo will sort thingies. I mean, it will put them in their place, cuz thingies should be there, in their place. U start swapping those small thingies and put on that memory, u know, on the left. The big thingies you put on that other memory, u know, on the right. U know, you keep doing it, going left and right all the time, like dancing, do u know what I mean? Keep doing, cuz it'll take some time. Cool algo, huh? Here's a VB 6.0 sample: " Or (about NP-complete problems) "Geez, u need da huuuge computa to do this, man!" Yes, even I am blogging now!
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O’ fishy fishy fishy…. Heck I’ll bite…. On the face of things your argument appears to be “I’m uneducated, people who are educated write, therefore people who write should write for the uneducated.” Alright so as a syllogism it breaks down and perchance so does your logic. As a poster on Code Project with over 2200 posts you contribute to an online community. You most likely write to the conventions of the community you associate with, and I imagine those conventions are fairly stringent. Why would you cast aspersions on academic writers who are writing not for you, but their community? Similar to how you stumble or look for information within academic resources academics may be reading your writing in other venues. Why look there’s one now… Shhhh they spook easily. Academic papers and dissertations are written not for the public, but for a fairly small community who may number in the dozens or fewer. Academic papers are not about teaching, but about communicating to the scholar’s community research. The peer review and referee process for most scholarly papers is stringent, ego shattering, and stressful. A PH.D dissertation may have as few as a dozen reviewers who all are TRYING to make the material as difficult to comprehend as possible. Remember that a dissertation is expanding the science within its topic, and it is a final exam. Within your rant are the obvious feelings of a young inexperienced individual not necessarily comfortable with the world. Why the sour grapes over education? I usually see people who are belittling the significant investment in time, effort, and will power that higher education requires as people who don’t have those qualities. A degree is not proof that a person is smarter than anybody else. A diploma should represent a person’s investment in themselves. Those who denigrate the educational institutions and specifically the students are themselves with out hope. In your rant you suggest that you have never attended college. I’m not sure how the higher education system works in Canada, but I’m willing to bet it is quite similar to the United States. When you are sitting in class as a student you don’t understand the level of commitment an instructor has put into a class. Attempting to explain left-hand or right-hand grammars to freshman is fairly easy when compared to explaining the concepts of polymorphism and inheritance. You can be fairly certain that the discussion is not very high on the academic thesaurus level. Then what would I know.. 4 posts? ---
In all honesty I was expecting someone to agree with me. :-D However... selil wrote: I’m uneducated I prefer self-educated :) selil wrote: As a poster on Code Project with over 2200 posts you contribute to an online community. You most likely write to the conventions of the community you associate with, I never considered that, but I agree... Touche!!! selil wrote: Why would you cast aspersions on academic writers who are writing not for you, but their community Why? It's been my experience that many of the articles/books I read often claim that the material is not geared just towards computer science students, but also the laymen interested in the field of cryptology/compression, etc... I typically only look for books like this, becuz they tend to avoid all the fancy looking math that does nothing but discourage me from reading. But they too often contain sentences like: "With his love of telescoping solutions and multi-level techniques, he blithely claims that if words turn out to have structure after all, they are sentences in a different language, of which the letters are the tokens." selil wrote: Within your rant are the obvious feelings of a young inexperienced individual not necessarily comfortable with the world :laugh: I think life experience, by nature is paradoxical(I dunno how else to describe it). The more you learn, the more you realize the less you know. I would personally say i've experienced plenty. I've read possibly over 500 (calculated guess based on an average of one 500 page book per week every week for the last 12 years, probably more like 400 books) computer related books...everything from an operating systems vade mecum (granted I still haven't figured it all out) to advanced assembly language books, from hardware repair to software design. I've unsuccessfully run a computer consulting/programming business for well over 2 years...learning much about business and the human pyschology behind it. I now realize I hate math, but I always excelled at trigonometry and I have a burning desire to someday soon begin development of a flight simulator. 15 books on this subject help make up the repertoire of books i've stolen/collected and purchased over the years. I fathom the truths and realities of life better than most people (including my parents) that i've ever met. Accepting an aetheist or agnostic view on life is a
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Hockey wrote: Why, when these articles are written must the authors use such fancy friggen words. It only complicates my being able to comprehend (having to open dictionary.com every 5 mins) the subject. To them, they won't be fancy words but probably words they use everyday. People will have the same complaint about words we techies use and take for granted that people will understand. Having to look a word up in the dictionary is good, it means you've had to learn something new. This has to be a good thing. Learning is what life is about isn't it. If I don't learn something new everyday, then I feel that I've not had a good day. Hockey wrote: I wonder if they just use a Thesaurus after writting a rough draft and just replace every second word with it's cooler sounding alternative. Yeah I know that trick...I did that in high school all the time. If all the same words are used constantly through the manuscript, then the text becomes boring and the reader will probably not get enjoyment out of reading and thus make it harder to learn. Of course some writers do it, to make themselves feel superior but again we all do that in our everyday lives. How many times to do we in our technical documents and conversations, use words that are designed to keep the sales pukes in their place :-D Michael CP Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote: Having to look a word up in the dictionary is good, it means you've had to learn something new. This has to be a good thing. Learning is what life is about isn't it. If I don't learn something new everyday, then I feel that I've not had a good day. I agree... :) It's just frustrating when your learning something that's already complex. How do I print my voice mail?
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No, not about you. Just thinking about Don Knuth[^] writing: (Shell Sort) "Yo, man. Now, this algo will sort thingies. I mean, it will put them in their place, cuz thingies should be there, in their place. U start swapping those small thingies and put on that memory, u know, on the left. The big thingies you put on that other memory, u know, on the right. U know, you keep doing it, going left and right all the time, like dancing, do u know what I mean? Keep doing, cuz it'll take some time. Cool algo, huh? Here's a VB 6.0 sample: " Or (about NP-complete problems) "Geez, u need da huuuge computa to do this, man!" Yes, even I am blogging now!
Daniel Turini wrote: Here's a VB 6.0 sample :laugh::laugh: Funny... Actully i'm reading the book this guy wrote. He's part of the reason I came here to rant. How do I print my voice mail?
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Daniel Turini wrote: Here's a VB 6.0 sample :laugh::laugh: Funny... Actully i'm reading the book this guy wrote. He's part of the reason I came here to rant. How do I print my voice mail?
Hockey wrote: Actully i'm reading the book this guy wrote. He's part of the reason I came here to rant. Oh, don't mind: no one understands Knuth until reads it for the 10th time :) But don't blame him: we are stupid :) Yes, even I am blogging now!
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There is nothing more annoying than reading an article/book from an author with a PhD. Actually maybe not even a PhD, but a graduate of a comp sci. X| Usually you can find a plethora :) of articles on google for any topic you can imagine....all from OMG this sux to high quality, easy to follow/understand, excellent 10 out of 10 articles. It has been my experience though when reading up on more advanced topics like encryption/compression/compiler design, etc...you are usually limited to university type texts/articles geared towards school types, of which I don't fall under :) Here's my complaint: Why, when these articles are written must the authors use such fancy friggen words. It only complicates my being able to comprehend (having to open dictionary.com every 5 mins) the subject. I guess it only improves my vocab, but still...why do it? An article is about teaching isn't it? Why would you want to hinder someone's ability to learn what your teaching. :confused: I wonder if they do it to sound smart...I wonder if they just use a Thesaurus after writting a rough draft and just replace every second word with it's cooler sounding alternative. Yeah I know that trick...I did that in high school all the time. :cool: Do university types consider themselves something of an esoteric bunch and maybe think that no non-schooled type should be able to read anything they write just cuz. :) end of rant... dodo..do...dodo..do ;) Cheers How do I print my voice mail?
I know for sure, that some people use complex terms, because they are well-defined. This means - nobody can misinterpret your words and make the crowd laugh because you are stupid (on some conferences or other scientific meetings). I have seen such things, they really have to be very careful with the wording.
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There is nothing more annoying than reading an article/book from an author with a PhD. Actually maybe not even a PhD, but a graduate of a comp sci. X| Usually you can find a plethora :) of articles on google for any topic you can imagine....all from OMG this sux to high quality, easy to follow/understand, excellent 10 out of 10 articles. It has been my experience though when reading up on more advanced topics like encryption/compression/compiler design, etc...you are usually limited to university type texts/articles geared towards school types, of which I don't fall under :) Here's my complaint: Why, when these articles are written must the authors use such fancy friggen words. It only complicates my being able to comprehend (having to open dictionary.com every 5 mins) the subject. I guess it only improves my vocab, but still...why do it? An article is about teaching isn't it? Why would you want to hinder someone's ability to learn what your teaching. :confused: I wonder if they do it to sound smart...I wonder if they just use a Thesaurus after writting a rough draft and just replace every second word with it's cooler sounding alternative. Yeah I know that trick...I did that in high school all the time. :cool: Do university types consider themselves something of an esoteric bunch and maybe think that no non-schooled type should be able to read anything they write just cuz. :) end of rant... dodo..do...dodo..do ;) Cheers How do I print my voice mail?
I agree with a lot of your statements. I'm also an autodidact. People hide under fancy words, it makes them feel more important when they have little to say. Even documents on advanced topics, never intended to be read by the average programmer, can be written in a clear concise way using common words. The problem is usually that the author uses uncommon words that have nothing to do with the subject. And how he/she builds senctances that are too complex. As a motivation they explain that those words have more precise meanings, but that just a lot of BS. Describing something in a way that many people understand is an art in itself. Science documents seems to be written to impress people not to educate them. Regards, Björn Morén Stockholm, Sweden
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I agree with a lot of your statements. I'm also an autodidact. People hide under fancy words, it makes them feel more important when they have little to say. Even documents on advanced topics, never intended to be read by the average programmer, can be written in a clear concise way using common words. The problem is usually that the author uses uncommon words that have nothing to do with the subject. And how he/she builds senctances that are too complex. As a motivation they explain that those words have more precise meanings, but that just a lot of BS. Describing something in a way that many people understand is an art in itself. Science documents seems to be written to impress people not to educate them. Regards, Björn Morén Stockholm, Sweden
bjoernen wrote: I'm also an autodidact. People hide under fancy words It made me laugh that you said this but you are against people hiding behind fancy words. Obviously I had to look up what autodidact means, but then I laughed. Mike
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I agree with a lot of your statements. I'm also an autodidact. People hide under fancy words, it makes them feel more important when they have little to say. Even documents on advanced topics, never intended to be read by the average programmer, can be written in a clear concise way using common words. The problem is usually that the author uses uncommon words that have nothing to do with the subject. And how he/she builds senctances that are too complex. As a motivation they explain that those words have more precise meanings, but that just a lot of BS. Describing something in a way that many people understand is an art in itself. Science documents seems to be written to impress people not to educate them. Regards, Björn Morén Stockholm, Sweden
Autodidact eh? Did you not go to school? ;P Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fuity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? - David Williams (Little Britain) -
There is nothing more annoying than reading an article/book from an author with a PhD. Actually maybe not even a PhD, but a graduate of a comp sci. X| Usually you can find a plethora :) of articles on google for any topic you can imagine....all from OMG this sux to high quality, easy to follow/understand, excellent 10 out of 10 articles. It has been my experience though when reading up on more advanced topics like encryption/compression/compiler design, etc...you are usually limited to university type texts/articles geared towards school types, of which I don't fall under :) Here's my complaint: Why, when these articles are written must the authors use such fancy friggen words. It only complicates my being able to comprehend (having to open dictionary.com every 5 mins) the subject. I guess it only improves my vocab, but still...why do it? An article is about teaching isn't it? Why would you want to hinder someone's ability to learn what your teaching. :confused: I wonder if they do it to sound smart...I wonder if they just use a Thesaurus after writting a rough draft and just replace every second word with it's cooler sounding alternative. Yeah I know that trick...I did that in high school all the time. :cool: Do university types consider themselves something of an esoteric bunch and maybe think that no non-schooled type should be able to read anything they write just cuz. :) end of rant... dodo..do...dodo..do ;) Cheers How do I print my voice mail?
I suppose the bottom line is acedemics write to their intended audience. Which unfortunately is not you. Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fuity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? - David Williams (Little Britain) -
bjoernen wrote: I'm also an autodidact. People hide under fancy words It made me laugh that you said this but you are against people hiding behind fancy words. Obviously I had to look up what autodidact means, but then I laughed. Mike
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Autodidact eh? Did you not go to school? ;P Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fuity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? - David Williams (Little Britain) -
I know for sure, that some people use complex terms, because they are well-defined. This means - nobody can misinterpret your words and make the crowd laugh because you are stupid (on some conferences or other scientific meetings). I have seen such things, they really have to be very careful with the wording.
That was my impression, too. It's true that some people use unnecessarily complex wording to make themselves appear more knowledgable than others, but to anyone who really understands the language their bumbling attempts are obvious and laughable. But in many fields great precision is required, and while many words may seem to have the same meaning, there are subtle differences that are important. The vast majority of people have a vocabulary not significantly greater than a well trained African Gray Parrot, and these subtleties are lost on them. There may be a dozen words to express, for instance, varying degrees of anger, but for most they all equate to "I'm pissed." That makes having a conversation with them a challenge - not of technique, but patience. In technical writing, more than any other genre, absolute precision is critical. And if one is studying advanced material in a field that is unfamiliar, it's easy to feel that the author is being unnecessarily erudite. Some people think of it as a six-pack; I consider it more of a support group.
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I agree with a lot of your statements. I'm also an autodidact. People hide under fancy words, it makes them feel more important when they have little to say. Even documents on advanced topics, never intended to be read by the average programmer, can be written in a clear concise way using common words. The problem is usually that the author uses uncommon words that have nothing to do with the subject. And how he/she builds senctances that are too complex. As a motivation they explain that those words have more precise meanings, but that just a lot of BS. Describing something in a way that many people understand is an art in itself. Science documents seems to be written to impress people not to educate them. Regards, Björn Morén Stockholm, Sweden
bjoernen wrote: Describing something in a way that many people understand is an art in itself. Science documents seems to be written to impress people not to educate them. I don't mind the occasional interesting word, like mentioned earlier, it makes for an interesting read. However when it becomes exsessive, like every 3-4 words it get annoying and I begin to wonder if this is really an educational document or just some smarty pants trying to show off his intelligence. Cheers :) How do I print my voice mail?
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O’ fishy fishy fishy…. Heck I’ll bite…. On the face of things your argument appears to be “I’m uneducated, people who are educated write, therefore people who write should write for the uneducated.” Alright so as a syllogism it breaks down and perchance so does your logic. As a poster on Code Project with over 2200 posts you contribute to an online community. You most likely write to the conventions of the community you associate with, and I imagine those conventions are fairly stringent. Why would you cast aspersions on academic writers who are writing not for you, but their community? Similar to how you stumble or look for information within academic resources academics may be reading your writing in other venues. Why look there’s one now… Shhhh they spook easily. Academic papers and dissertations are written not for the public, but for a fairly small community who may number in the dozens or fewer. Academic papers are not about teaching, but about communicating to the scholar’s community research. The peer review and referee process for most scholarly papers is stringent, ego shattering, and stressful. A PH.D dissertation may have as few as a dozen reviewers who all are TRYING to make the material as difficult to comprehend as possible. Remember that a dissertation is expanding the science within its topic, and it is a final exam. Within your rant are the obvious feelings of a young inexperienced individual not necessarily comfortable with the world. Why the sour grapes over education? I usually see people who are belittling the significant investment in time, effort, and will power that higher education requires as people who don’t have those qualities. A degree is not proof that a person is smarter than anybody else. A diploma should represent a person’s investment in themselves. Those who denigrate the educational institutions and specifically the students are themselves with out hope. In your rant you suggest that you have never attended college. I’m not sure how the higher education system works in Canada, but I’m willing to bet it is quite similar to the United States. When you are sitting in class as a student you don’t understand the level of commitment an instructor has put into a class. Attempting to explain left-hand or right-hand grammars to freshman is fairly easy when compared to explaining the concepts of polymorphism and inheritance. You can be fairly certain that the discussion is not very high on the academic thesaurus level. Then what would I know.. 4 posts? ---
selil wrote: Academic papers and dissertations are written not for the public, but for a fairly small community who may number in the dozens or fewer. Academic papers are not about teaching, but about communicating to the scholar’s community research. The peer review and referee process for most scholarly papers is stringent, ego shattering, and stressful. A PH.D dissertation may have as few as a dozen reviewers who all are TRYING to make the material as difficult to comprehend as possible. Remember that a dissertation is expanding the science within its topic, and it is a final exam. I agree except I have seen many books in the Computer Science field have the same feeling to it ... vocabulary and structure being unnecessarily complex, as if they are trying to impress. If one is reading a dissertation, all bets are off, but a book should be comprehensible...