*My takeaways:* 1. This course is not about writing rules 3:04 2. Stop thinking about rules and start thinking about readers 3:55 3. The problems that domain experts have in their writing 4:00 4. Domain experts use writing to help themselves with thinking 4:51, if they don't do it this way, they can't think to the level they need 5. The challenge: the way that experts do their writing (to help with their thinking) is different to the way that readers can understand 6:53 6. The consequences 8:10 - 1. readers need to slow down and re-read many times 2. readers can't understand or misunderstand 3. readers give up 7. Readers read things that are valuable to them 11:52 8. Writings need to be clear, organized, persuasive and VALUABLE 13:45 9. Valuable to the readers of a research area (not everybody in the world) 15:20 10. An example of comparing two writings 17:16 11. Writing is not about communicating your ideas, it is about changing readers' ideas 21:24 12. Nothing will be accepted as knowledge or understanding until it has been challenged by people who have the competence to challenge 23:24, this determines the readers of our writing 13. A piece of writing is important, not because it is new and original; It is because it has value to some readers 25:16 14. What does the world of knowledge look like 28:00 15. Every research communities have their own code to communicate VALUE 31:30 16. Why does it take 5-6 years to get a PhD? 34:30 50% of the time is used to know the readers in the field 17. Using these words to show that you are aware of the research communities: widely, accepted, and reported 35:24 18. Flow/transition words can help to make writing preservative and organized: and, but, because, unless, nonetheless, however, although, etc. 36:00 19. Do things under the code of the communities 42:00 20. Another example 44:25 21. The function of a piece of writing is to move a research area forward, not to be preserved for 500 years 46:54 22. Writing is not about to express what is in our head, it is about changing other people's thoughts 48:50 23. The instability words that create tension/challenge: anomaly, inconsistent, but, however, although 54:00 24. Bad writing style: backgroud+thesis 55:07 and a better style: problem+solution 56:18 25. Learn the language code from the target publications 1:01:30 26. Literature review is used to enrich the problem 1:02:50 27. Problem vs background 1:06:47 28. Gap in the knowledge is dangerous 1:08:45 29. Identify the right readers (research communities) is important, but it could be difficult for interdisciplinary research 1:11:57
Notice how the lecture is constructed like how he believes writing should be: Tells us immediately there's something wrong with how we've been taught, identifies the problem, know the reader (academics) and the problem they face in their field; why they should care. Great stuff.
OMG, I found this video browsing, and this professor hooked me with his class. He made me want ot BE in his class. I am an IT teacher, and I am absolutely amazed by Mr Larry. The world needs more teachers and professors like you, who show your passion for teaching others with the knowledge that you have. Have a good and blessed day.
"You think writing is conveying your ideas to your readers, it's not..... It's changing their ideas." This is brilliant! Thanks so much! This should be required viewing for PhD Students!
@@stephenfraser9036 Thank you! I'll will look for more from him. Watching it again a year later, it's every bit as valuable now as the first time I watched it.
No flashy slides, no modern day tools just a man with a chalk and an understanding of his subject. Man these teachers and their lectures makes you think that studying a class on the most boring topic can be really wholesome and interesting. What the hell were my teachers doing in college. Teachers make you like or dislike a subject Period.
I suspect what your teachers were doing in college (per this lecture), was getting paid. It’s a rare lecturer that cares about their students as deeply as their salary, tenure, stipend, research grant, etc.
that might be the situation in the USA, in the UK I have rarely encountered the same situation. This guy comes across as making huge assumptions concerning the use of the English language and professional educationalists. As for people from Oxford and Cambridge who cannot write, get real 😂
I took some notes * **Step 1:** use your writing to help you think. * **Step 2:** * you think writing is communicating your ideas to your readers. It is **not**! Nobody cares what ideas you have. * use your writing to **change** your readers ideas. Change the way they see the **world**. * This goes for your expert readers too. They don’t care too. * If it doesn’t **change** their world view, it’s not valuable. * If it’s not valuable, the rest is **useless** * Order of importance 1. Valuable 2. Persuasive 3. Organized 4. Clear * Value lies **only** in the readers, not in the thing. * The patterns you use for step 1 and 2 are different. * Try this: * **circle** every word in your writing that is creating value to the readers. * guess what? soon you will have your own list of **invaluable words** to check your own writing against. * The horrible **irony**: the language we use is of stability and consistency. But your readers are searching for language of instability, inconsistency, and tension. * Use language to show your readers there’s a cost on them or if the instability is solved, there’s a benefit to them. * Use transition word to create **tension, instability** to challenge their ideas i.e. bad: hey readers, I’ve read your stuff and wow..., i know what you think **and here’s** what i think... i.e. good: hey readers, I’ve read your stuff and wow, i know what you think **but there’s** little thing you’ve got here, it’s wrong... good tension words: inconsistent, but, however, although * You can’t be persuasive if you don’t understand your readers **doubt**. If you don’t know what they doubt, how are you going to change their world view? You must know **them** to predicate what they might say. * Every community has it’s own code. You must know what each one values. * Identify the people with power in your community. Give them what they want (i.e. build them up) **but** challenge them inside the terms of their code. It’s **not** about your individual voice, it’s about what’s valuable to your readers. * Structure * Layout in your first paragraph * **who** your writing too, * what you’re going to **argue** * what **question** you have you will answer * what’s **urgent** (i.e. people value reading about tension, trouble, bad stuff - instability) * Problem: what’s a **problem** your readers care about and they want to fix (not your problem). * Solution: * **Never** explain stuff. Don’t demonstrate to someone you understand it. Don’t reveal the inside of your head. No one cares! * Your goal is to move the conversation **forward**. Not to preserve your ideas indefinitely. Nobody will ready your work in a year. It’s **not** about you, it’s about them.
Next step is to look for learning systems. Some steps are reducing the words we're using when reviewing notes, linking the notes to a "big picture" to know how to use the information, visualizing thoughts through diagrams and maps and connecting ideas through maps like multi-flow maps, so we can better visualize the cause-effect relationships.
I'm a new English teacher in high school. I teach reading, writing, and speaking. I appreciate this lecture. I feel like I owe you money for enjoying this lecture for free.
Yes it is! I struggle with writing bcs my mind is about the reader rather than the professor who is always then history/background and Thesis. Not many faculty may like this approach and seem to grade grade on the clear, organize and persuade model. Maybe they need to watch this wonderful video.
Key ideas: 1. This video is about academic writing. 2. It's not about the content, it's all about the readers. Always think about your readers while writing. 3. See two models for knowledge at 28:00 4. The value of information lies in the value of the decisions they inform. Not all knowledge is valuable, in fact, most is useless. 5. Students grow up in a system that pays people to read their work, teachers don't care about you influencing their thoughts, they care about what's inside of your head so they can grade you. This sets students up for failure. In a professional environment, people don't care what's inside your head, they only care about how your thinking can influence theirs. People care about writing that challenges and changes their thinking. 6. Create tension while writing. Your goal is to challenge some idea the reader cares about. 7. Farmers have wheat, miners have coal, academics have their writing. Your writing is (likely) not something that will be read throughout future generations, just focus on impact in the here and now, focus on your readers and their thoughts.
Four years of undergrad, two graduate degrees, and this is probably - definitely - one of the most useful and helpful lectures on academic writing I've ever listened to. I wish I had taken this lecture before I did my masters. It would have saved me a world of suffering.
Beyond the schools, there is no other one who was paid to care about you and your writing. They don't "have to" read. They just read because it's valuable for them. What a precious statement for us to think, before any time we write.
What about if the community code of people are a bunch of uneducated ghetto people that don’t understand what the writer wants to convey? Are writers supposed to learn the code of values from them to consider the writing of any value? People need to have certain education and codes of literacy to understand some writers. Otherwise, writers would become extensions of sometimes an elite of uneducated communities and they will be then expanding ignorance instead of knowledge. Humble opinion here.
you must be part of terrible communities. In the sciences it’s hard value, real knowledge (not some made up standards), higher truth/utility/explanatory power. Show me I’m wrong, prove what you say, push the ball forward… that’s the code and it’s correct.
I never thought I would find myself watching an entire 1 hour and 20 minute video on academic writing, but this was amazing. It will change the way I write my proposals and papers, and it will change the way I teach technical writing to my undergraduate students.
I read this comment before watching the lecture and found myself laughing throughout the whole video. I kept thinking this is what nature photography must be like - trying to keep a humming bird in focus.
As a PhD student struggling to write dissertation because so many mixed messages on the “how-to” UNTIL THIS LECTURE!! so many years in school, i have seen all he says here. Worthy Watching this video if only for this: “The function of your writing is to move your conversation forward.” At minute 47:00-48:00!!!
This lecture has saved me from so much future heartbreak and misunderstanding. We always think it is about pursuing the "big idea," but it is really about the process and the process of discovery. I am truly thankful. Thank you.
The main drift: 42:20: Identify people with power in your community and give them what they want. 47:40: The function of your writing is to move the conversation of that community forward. 53:30: Introduce instability into the conversation by using words like anomaly, inconsistent, but, however' in your writing 56:20: Identify a problem of your community (a specific set of readers) and move to a solution. 1:01: Show that the instability imposes a cost on them or conversely, if the instability is solved, offers a benefit to them. Identify any coded language of benefit and cost in your community and use it. 1:06: Think about the world in your process of writing, but you then need to alter the process and rewrite for your reader. 1:06: The more you can alter the process for your reader, the less painful the writing process will be and the more successful you will be. 28:53: The bottom line (in my words) is that your contribution to an ever growing body of knowledge (diagonal graph) will only dissipate in time, but being part of the osmosis of the mainly pale, male, stale community might lead to personal success: stability vs instability model.
I am also working as a freelance writer, couldn't attend college but thank God I am not deprived of learning about what I love due to all this amazing stuff available online. 💖
I was beginning to have serious doubts about my blog writing, why it wasn’t hitting the right cord with the reader, and then I accidentally stumbled on this video from a UA-cam recommendation list. Reminds me of the saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” These days, the technology is working its magic, the teacher came to life when I exactly needed it even though this is a video published four years ago. It’s surreal!
I am 23 minutes in and this is quite likely the best thing I've seen since joining YT so many years ago. I am watching it in little spurts because, unfortunately, my brain stops absorbing information after a few minutes. I don't want to miss a single word or let even the most minor concept go passed my brain without understanding.
I cried when I was watching this video. Don't know why. Maybe it's because after so long of searching how to write good scientific papers, this one finally opened my eyes. It doesn't mean the time spent on the other teachings are wasted, only this "clicked" ;) Thanks a lot!
Right at the beginning for me - you are using your writing to help yourself think. I do that every day, and I learned exactly the way he described (think then write.)
This is the single most important lecture on writing I've ever seen. Not limited to academia, I find it extraordinarily helpful in corporate environment as well, where you always need to persuade people from different organizations to join you for a change or an improvement.
He changed from “why do you think so?” to “why should I think so?” I like it that he practices what he preaches, and it is also good to see that even he is learning by doing. I feel encouraged.
This lecture spontaneously popped up in my queue literally as I’m 34k words deep in writing my first book. I have always been very conscious of the fact that I use my writing to help me think and I have ALWAYS believed that this was incorrect. I was taught to use outlining as a framework and to think first write later. This lecture was extremely validating for me. Wow I really appreciate this.
Comes with the principal quantity brings quality. Only by writing down one idea can you begin working on the next, stimulates your creativity very well.
I kind of disagree with his view on the outline. You should know on which aspects you should focus before writing a thesis, otherwise you have to delete entire writing segments because it actually doesn‘t fit into your thesis. As in, you have to know beforehand if you start with Adam and Eve or the 1950s.
20 pages into writing my first article but after watching this,I am start from scratch with no regret. Thanks a lot professor Larry and uchicago. looking forward to watching more of your lectures. worlds can't describe how incredble of a professor this man is and his and bestowes teaching unto us. i hope many more people, particularly students,will find this gem. my sincerest gratitude to all authorities who deci
I am an Advocate (barrister, lawyer) and I am deeply grateful for this valuable on-line class. I have never come across anything like this class, and I shall be applying it from this day forward. Even court papers can surely be more interesting lol.
If I were a teacher I feel like this would be a fantastic thing to encourage students to watch (and rewatch) before writing any paper, particularly before writing a paper on a topic they aren’t so jazzed about being tasked with covering. It’s cross-curricular gold.
Valuable lesson to respect your target audience, describe a problem that your audience is interested in, and convey the value of your solution to the problem and how it advances the audience's world view in a useful way.
I’m a PhD student of neuroscience. It’s overwhelming how he clarifies the function and structure of writing, and even more, process of academic progress (and how we should contribute to it). His talking itself is as educational as the content as the way he gave “tension” and caught the audience was impressive. I believe this is applicable to any field of science. Such a valuable 1 hour watching.
This talk is mindblowing. Before it gives you the reason why you're not effective at writing, then it gets into the methods to make it so. You need to know when to break the rules.
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disagree "no one cares whats in your head" me at work being pulled in a million directions due to people needing the info that is in my head.. Okay budd, what ever you say... People pay me for my good looks i guess... i must have gone wrong by never going to college and learning these profound life lessons
23:51 This hit hard. I now understand to some extent why academic writing is so terse. The goal of academic writing isn't to make the world understand your work, rather the goal is to contribute your findings to the body of accepted knowledge in your field. For your work to be accepted as a worthwhile contribution, it has to be challenged, tested, and trusted by the academic community. And the academic community consists of experts who read and think in terms of expert vocabulary and niche registers. If your writing does not contain the right terms, they might not even believe you have the level of knowledge required to write a paper on that topic. This might lead to a lack of recognition or outright rejection.
@@ti84satact12 Had no expectations. I watched 20 minutes of it. As it was all I could take. Then I had to read comments and see what others thoughts where. Did you really find this intriguing? Or you just pulling our legs?
The thing I like about Prof. McLenerney is that he points to real facts rather than ideal ones which are mostly seen in the books, or usual writing courses.
My most writings were used for expressing my thoughts and when I post them, they didn't get much response. Now I understand a piece of writing should serve to the audience and chanllenge their ideas. I'll work on that. Thanks for this class!
This is EXACTLY what is taught in copywriting and sales. Amazing how closely related or even DIRECTLY RELATED these concepts are and how the seem to Rule the Game REGARDLESS where they are used.
20 pages into writing my first article but after watching this, I'm start from scratch with no regret. Thanks a lot professor Larry and UChicago. Looking forward to watching more of your lectures.
I'm an artist trying to make it into the art market and my algorithm brought me this video. Kind of scary how useful it was. Now i know how to write e-mails for galleries, my artist CV and even a movie script I've been working on for a grant. Thank you for this video!
I am crying, I have listened to it over 10 times over the past 3 years now, still find it so valuable. I seriously own this guy a lot... Such a great lecture. I recommend to every of my friends.
My time of finding this video was impeccable. I start my dissertation in a month and in the process of putting together a business case... Language of value , language of cost / benefit, writing for the audience, code words for the reading community.
Words can't describe how incredible of a professor this man is and his bestowed teaching unto us. I hope many more people, particularly students, will find this gem. My sincerest gratitude to all authorities who decided to post this lecture on public media. 🙏💗
As professor of of rhetoric Booth noted most memorably you have to be somebody to compliment somebody who is somebody so when man we just watched says your work is so complicated he is referring to an objective standard that doesn't require we respect him this early in his talk to feel good about what he has said and find what he is saying important. He apologizes later on in talk arguing necessity for this type of pa pandering essentially saying this is not the about the science of writing this is about changing the paradigms of others who are The architects of the present paradigm. He says we call two things writing but essentially defines them as two different things entirely. In order to avoid people not understanding what he is saying he creates the vertical in the horizontal a completely empty category that is later filled in concretely with examples. If you can imagine getting straight A's and being angry horrified shamefully getting it into the trash as quickly as possible without making a scene doing so you understand the difference between payi no,ng people to tell you that you are fine and paying peoplee to tell you what you need to hear. So he has this captive audience and he breaks the rules that he has created to deliver some body blows and poke some eyes out to save some lives while he has the chance.
sure you can learn things all the same, but not the rubber-stamp or make the connections, the value in universities is not primarily about acquiring knowledge, it's about networking with the right people and making relationships that can be useful 10,20,30 years down the road, in an elite university, your classmate might become a judge, professor or minister in government in the future, that might be useful to you in the future, your fellow UA-cam classmate can't. Organisations need qualifications to look presentable to clients, you can be as knowledgable, but without the paper cert, they can't employ or promote you.
Rarely will you find that much valuable information packed into one single lecture. Larry McEnerney's teaching is applied directly within the lecture: He starts by identifying the audience, by seeing the value in scientific writing, a fact that many members of the audience might not value themselves but of which they think they should. Once the listener feels identified, even praised, Larry creates tension and points out how that style of writing is useful to the one who is writing but useless to the reader. Here he captures the attention once again by providing a tangible solution. The solution will require some people to change how they see their writing, but by giving very easy examples of the cost this problem has and the benefit lies in the solution, the audience is willing to listen and even accept his proposition. Thank you!
Wow, I am blown away. Dr. Larry McEnerney's video clearly showed what mistake I am making in my thinking and writing process. An exceptional contribution - "What value is there for the reader community? why should they care to read?" that's a life lesson applicable to any work. Thank you.
I am also translating it into a business context!! It’s such a fantastic framework!! I am remembering the adage to “listen to your customers… what do they want/nee”…and “your salary is commensurate with the value you bring.”
What an amazing piece of content this is. You talk about value and you provide it. I´m from Argentina, and now in my 40´s I realized I love writing, I have love for sharing what I consider valuable, what I do not have is an specific background in communication or writing besides dedication at reading, particularly about human decision processes and behavior. So I have read dozens of books, watched hours of talks, and I´d like to share this with other people, but then I discovered I do not know how to do it in the proper manner , or more relevant way. This is pure gold, because I realized some times I just try to convince people about myself, and how valuable is the information I have to share with them, instead of trying to solve a problem they have. Thanks again, and sorry for any mistake in writing.
Key concepts (that I've also found in other fields like marketing or entrepreneurship): Understand your audience Speak their language Find their problem Give them a solution Keep them engaged
Spend 5 minutes each day reading a couple of paragraphs from great essayists such as Charles Lamb, Mathew Arnold, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Jack London - and read the non-academic writings of Schopenhauer - (Schopenhauer’s serious academic philosophy is pessimistic.) - read a little of Plato - (avoid phoney’s such as Bertrand Russell and Foucault and Derrida.)
I'm 30 mins in this lecture and I am blown away by what Larry is teaching. You are a wizard in turning average writers into dynamic informers of value to the target readers. Thank You!
I took the Little Red Schoolhouse course with Larry when I was at UChicago. That course was the most transformative, useful class I ever took. I copied all of my class notes and keep them at my work desk in case I need to reference them, and I use the writing principles I learned from the course daily. Thank you for this wonderful class!
@@neao7707 I don't think that would be a great idea without Larry's permission, BUT Steven Pinker's "A Sense of Style" has much of what this class taught.
Yes. I was listening to this and immediately reflected on my time in the Little Red Schoolhouse course. In my years at Chicago I instinctively absorbed this way of thinking about writing that was taught to me in the summer before I started there as a graduate student.
What I absolutely LOVE about this fellows class....is his KNOWLEDGE and THOUGHT ABOUT field of knowing....of the outer realm....writers need to consider. Like a Sociological assessment of the environment your pitching to or aiming for. Just fantastic.
I didn't see other people commenting on a very relevant point. The ideas are great, and he tries to make a point for all of them, but what really makes the best case for him, is that the lecture is actually structured according to what he was teaching. That's something where many other professors miss the mark.
I woke up from a really long sleep and this had played just about all the way through, good to know my subconscious knows how to write effectively now.
What makes readers read might be the same reason that makes people watch. I spent almost an hour and half to watch this video. Yet, I did not skip any minutes and watch the video until the end. Because this video is VALUABLE. For those who struggle to write an academia piece, this video worth your time.
Moving into a PhD this video was randomly suggested at the perfect time. I'm actually amazed at how much of this I already include in my writing, particularly the community and value aspects. However, Larry explains things in ways I've never considered before, while adding so much more. His passion is something I hope we can all learn from. Go well with your writing folks. Kia kaha!
For a guy who didn't go to college, but is learning off the internet, I wish I was in this class. Mr McEnerny (I don't blame you if you say McEnergy) class is so intriguing, true, and authoritative.
Holy hell, I just realized why I suddenly started getting good at writing freshman year of undergrad. This guy's advice is exactly what my parents said to me: "find out what they want, and give it to them"
I remember fresh out of college as an engineer with my first position and thought I knew how to write Capital requests with great detail and clarity. My very wise Engineering manager sat me down and explained the reality of upper levels of management who were going to review my detailed requests. He talked to me the same way as this professor's lecture explaining what would be required in writing in order to get upper management to approve my Capital requests. I was forever grateful and may he rest in peace.
@@bangmachiv Take the time to listen to the professor's lecture and digest what he is saying for he does a far better job explaining the details than I can.
Writers everywhere need more work like Larry's to be recorded and shared; there are too few accessible, comprehensible resources teaching these principles, and that's to the detriment of all disciplines.
His lesson is a lot like what i learned in my design/market classes. Have everything you make have a purpose, a meaning and design it with the target audience in mind to serve the purpose you want to achieve
This guy is amazing. I am finally hearing somebody saying things it's been taking me 40+ years to figure out. Like that teachers read students' papers because they have to earn their paychecks. But I have one counterexample there: At the start of a class by endowed chair Professor Maxime Greene (Teachers College, Columbia Univ.) I told her I wanted to write a paper on something in which I had a passionate interest for over 10 years including life experience ("Morality in modern architecture") *instead of* the course work and exam. She told me to go do it and since she had to give a grade, I got an "A+" on the paper and an "A" for the course. I put my heart in that paper and I doubt anybody anywhere ever thought what I wrote. I sincerely think we both learned from both the medium and the message (ref.: Marshall McLuhan), even if me far more than she.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I understand this professor's concern; I frame it in the ferocious current job market. However, I can't think of writing as simply functional. Again, in a university context characterized by competitiveness, makes sense. But I do believe personal writing has its own value, maybe not to get funding, that's right.
@@ventana100 My second even better writing experinece: I got a 2nd class doctorate (EdD) where my dissertation sponsor literally left me alone. Between the time he said he thought "there might be a dissertation" in my proposal and me handing him some 250 sheets of paper with even the page margins to spec, I had no other contact with the school than tuition feed. Nobody was jerking me around. It was sink or swim. I bought an early Mac Powerbook ($3500 not cheap! 40 megabytes of disk storage and a monochrone screen!), all the books in my bibliograhy, got 2 years off from my job with no pay but access to the corporate computer, and my pet cat. What I wrote was not strictly functional. It was a work of art like Bob Dylan says the lyrics of many of his songs come to him and he takes inner dictation. Some of the sentences are almost [James] Joycean andthe whole thing is reflection on the teacher-student relationship and also sel-freflection. I didn't need a Larry McEnerney. How many peole can sincerely say / write -- that? www.bmccedd.org/w/images/1/18/Muse_190.jpg
Thank you so much sir, im a postgrad student struggling in writing a research paper and i've been stuck for a long time. Watching your class have give me hope and restructure my mentality on how im looking at the whole research right now. Hope you'll always be healthy and surrounded by joy. Thank you.
Recently, I could barely finish watching 15 mins of youtube videos but this teacher here carried me in his narrative until I finished watching more than 1 hour of UA-cam videos! Isn't he amazing like I'm so impressed! So there is nothing wrong about my state of mind it's just that the videos that I have been watching is not as valuable as this man here is selling me. It work! His methods worked on me. Mind blowing!
because he could have said it all in 10 minutes rather than 80 minutes with far less theatricality (which most of these old professors don't realize is borderline unbearable for those of us trying to learn efficiently)
Also, take a journalism/newswriting course. You'll learn the virtues of: Writing with brevity. How to convey real-life and current affairs in an informative-narrative structure. How to fact-check. How to self-edit. How to investigate beyond just the use of the internet. Having your writing formally edited with the idea being to prove your news article is fit to print and worthy of mass consumption ;) It's good stuff.
As a second-year in undergrad, this Professor/Doctor is amazing. The delivery and simplicity of the lecture is beyond amazing, and the content is worth/more valuable than gold. Amazing lecture, I wish I would be able to physically sit in his class and go to his Office Hours
Today's is my lucky day ! After scrolling thousands of websites and reading infinite articles I am finally here! I have spent days finding something like this! Thanks Larry! Now I am going to cry!
This is one of the most VALUABLE videos on UA-cam by far!!!!! It is so good, I would classify it as a conspiracy theory video because they do not teach you this anywhere. This is occult information!!!!!
For me, this was a video that opened my eyes and allowed me to develop my online course from what was a lesson about plain language/plain English to the benefits of applying plain language in the appropriate context and the business justification of adapting language styles. In fact, this video caused me to redesign my whole course! I strongly recommend you watch this video, bookmark it, and visit it several times to remind yourself about the real reason for why we write - to inform the reader while understanding what the reader wants, not what we want as writers. Outstanding content.
hey man. great lecture. I'm studying for the GED and this video was recommended and I watched the whole thing. I dropped out of high school in grade 9 and have never written anything. so when he's like "forget everything you've learned" i was like "done". Watching as someone who has never written anything this was very interesting, Sadly you do need to know those rules and how they work before you can throw them out the window. I love the focus on value, you must convince the reader that this info is valuable to them and that is true in all aspects of life.
*My takeaways:*
1. This course is not about writing rules 3:04
2. Stop thinking about rules and start thinking about readers 3:55
3. The problems that domain experts have in their writing 4:00
4. Domain experts use writing to help themselves with thinking 4:51, if they don't do it this way, they can't think to the level they need
5. The challenge: the way that experts do their writing (to help with their thinking) is different to the way that readers can understand 6:53
6. The consequences 8:10 - 1. readers need to slow down and re-read many times 2. readers can't understand or misunderstand 3. readers give up
7. Readers read things that are valuable to them 11:52
8. Writings need to be clear, organized, persuasive and VALUABLE 13:45
9. Valuable to the readers of a research area (not everybody in the world) 15:20
10. An example of comparing two writings 17:16
11. Writing is not about communicating your ideas, it is about changing readers' ideas 21:24
12. Nothing will be accepted as knowledge or understanding until it has been challenged by people who have the competence to challenge 23:24, this determines the readers of our writing
13. A piece of writing is important, not because it is new and original; It is because it has value to some readers 25:16
14. What does the world of knowledge look like 28:00
15. Every research communities have their own code to communicate VALUE 31:30
16. Why does it take 5-6 years to get a PhD? 34:30 50% of the time is used to know the readers in the field
17. Using these words to show that you are aware of the research communities: widely, accepted, and reported 35:24
18. Flow/transition words can help to make writing preservative and organized: and, but, because, unless, nonetheless, however, although, etc. 36:00
19. Do things under the code of the communities 42:00
20. Another example 44:25
21. The function of a piece of writing is to move a research area forward, not to be preserved for 500 years 46:54
22. Writing is not about to express what is in our head, it is about changing other people's thoughts 48:50
23. The instability words that create tension/challenge: anomaly, inconsistent, but, however, although 54:00
24. Bad writing style: backgroud+thesis 55:07 and a better style: problem+solution 56:18
25. Learn the language code from the target publications 1:01:30
26. Literature review is used to enrich the problem 1:02:50
27. Problem vs background 1:06:47
28. Gap in the knowledge is dangerous 1:08:45
29. Identify the right readers (research communities) is important, but it could be difficult for interdisciplinary research 1:11:57
Thank you!
Thank you so much. Reading your comments first guides my watching
I watched till 50 mins, then just lost the flow because seemed too repititive. Thanks for the timestamps. It helped.
Thanks that was very helpful 🤗👍
You are legend 🙏 thanks for your time and effort
Notice how the lecture is constructed like how he believes writing should be:
Tells us immediately there's something wrong with how we've been taught, identifies the problem, know the reader (academics) and the problem they face in their field; why they should care.
Great stuff.
It is!
cela exige plein de compétences que je n'ai pas
His whole career follows this pattern. Guaranteed
OMG, I found this video browsing, and this professor hooked me with his class. He made me want ot BE in his class.
I am an IT teacher, and I am absolutely amazed by Mr Larry.
The world needs more teachers and professors like you, who show your passion for teaching others with the knowledge that you have.
Have a good and blessed day.
Bruh i dont even that good at english and he hooked me on topic with his speech.
"You think writing is conveying your ideas to your readers, it's not..... It's changing their ideas." This is brilliant! Thanks so much! This should be required viewing for PhD Students!
This should be required for highschool students
This should be required for EVERYONE.
Mic drop
It's low-key scary, but it's odd that's it's the truth? Makes you think whether it's manipulation and lie, but it's your story.... confusing af lol
This guy needs a Patreon account. I feel like I owe him money. There's a shocking amount of useful information in this lecture.
His name is Larry McEnerny, he teaches at the University of Chicago. I took a class from him. There are a lot more of his lectures you can find
@@stephenfraser9036 Thank you! I'll will look for more from him. Watching it again a year later, it's every bit as valuable now as the first time I watched it.
I feel you because I want to support him after listening to his introduction.
where what when? show me
This guy needs to teach public speaking.
No flashy slides, no modern day tools just a man with a chalk and an understanding of his subject. Man these teachers and their lectures makes you think that studying a class on the most boring topic can be really wholesome and interesting. What the hell were my teachers doing in college. Teachers make you like or dislike a subject Period.
I suspect what your teachers were doing in college (per this lecture), was getting paid. It’s a rare lecturer that cares about their students as deeply as their salary, tenure, stipend, research grant, etc.
Teachers have a big influence on weather children like school or not, not just a subject. 😢
that might be the situation in the USA, in the UK I have rarely encountered the same situation.
This guy comes across as making huge assumptions concerning the use of the English language and professional educationalists.
As for people from Oxford and Cambridge who cannot write, get real 😂
I took some notes
* **Step 1:** use your writing to help you think.
* **Step 2:**
* you think writing is communicating your ideas to your readers. It is **not**! Nobody cares what ideas you have.
* use your writing to **change** your readers ideas. Change the way they see the **world**.
* This goes for your expert readers too. They don’t care too.
* If it doesn’t **change** their world view, it’s not valuable.
* If it’s not valuable, the rest is **useless**
* Order of importance
1. Valuable
2. Persuasive
3. Organized
4. Clear
* Value lies **only** in the readers, not in the thing.
* The patterns you use for step 1 and 2 are different.
* Try this:
* **circle** every word in your writing that is creating value to the readers.
* guess what? soon you will have your own list of **invaluable words** to check your own writing against.
* The horrible **irony**: the language we use is of stability and consistency. But your readers are searching for language of instability, inconsistency, and tension.
* Use language to show your readers there’s a cost on them or if the instability is solved, there’s a benefit to them.
* Use transition word to create **tension, instability** to challenge their ideas
i.e. bad: hey readers, I’ve read your stuff and wow..., i know what you think **and here’s** what i think...
i.e. good: hey readers, I’ve read your stuff and wow, i know what you think **but there’s** little thing you’ve got here, it’s wrong...
good tension words: inconsistent, but, however, although
* You can’t be persuasive if you don’t understand your readers **doubt**. If you don’t know what they doubt, how are you going to change their world view? You must know **them** to predicate what they might say.
* Every community has it’s own code. You must know what each one values.
* Identify the people with power in your community. Give them what they want (i.e. build them up) **but** challenge them inside the terms of their code. It’s **not** about your individual voice, it’s about what’s valuable to your readers.
* Structure
* Layout in your first paragraph
* **who** your writing too,
* what you’re going to **argue**
* what **question** you have you will answer
* what’s **urgent** (i.e. people value reading about tension, trouble, bad stuff - instability)
* Problem: what’s a **problem** your readers care about and they want to fix (not your problem).
* Solution:
* **Never** explain stuff. Don’t demonstrate to someone you understand it. Don’t reveal the inside of your head. No one cares!
* Your goal is to move the conversation **forward**. Not to preserve your ideas indefinitely. Nobody will ready your work in a year. It’s **not** about you, it’s about them.
Thanks a TON, Tom!
Awesome 😊👍 thank you!!!
Next step is to look for learning systems. Some steps are reducing the words we're using when reviewing notes, linking the notes to a "big picture" to know how to use the information, visualizing thoughts through diagrams and maps and connecting ideas through maps like multi-flow maps, so we can better visualize the cause-effect relationships.
Thanks
Most helpful comment I have read. Thank you.
I'm a new English teacher in high school. I teach reading, writing, and speaking. I appreciate this lecture. I feel like I owe you money for enjoying this lecture for free.
This is not very applicable to high school essays though, isn't it?
As a paid freelance writer if you want to be read, every word is valuable. I'll pass it to everyone i coach.
Can you provide with books for high school graduate( from 8-9th grade).
“The only reason my stuff was ever read is because someone had to because they were getting paid to.” That is quite an eye-opening statement.
The truth though!
Especially with that comma splice you dropped
?
Yes it is! I struggle with writing bcs my mind is about the reader rather than the professor who is always then history/background and Thesis. Not many faculty may like this approach and seem to grade grade on the clear, organize and persuade model. Maybe they need to watch this wonderful video.
I just read it for free.
Key ideas:
1. This video is about academic writing.
2. It's not about the content, it's all about the readers. Always think about your readers while writing.
3. See two models for knowledge at 28:00
4. The value of information lies in the value of the decisions they inform. Not all knowledge is valuable, in fact, most is useless.
5. Students grow up in a system that pays people to read their work, teachers don't care about you influencing their thoughts, they care about what's inside of your head so they can grade you. This sets students up for failure. In a professional environment, people don't care what's inside your head, they only care about how your thinking can influence theirs. People care about writing that challenges and changes their thinking.
6. Create tension while writing. Your goal is to challenge some idea the reader cares about.
7. Farmers have wheat, miners have coal, academics have their writing. Your writing is (likely) not something that will be read throughout future generations, just focus on impact in the here and now, focus on your readers and their thoughts.
Thanks for ur notes
Thank you so much
حكونا ماطاطة
Damn! Thans for the notes!
Tons of thanks!!
Four years of undergrad, two graduate degrees, and this is probably - definitely - one of the most useful and helpful lectures on academic writing I've ever listened to. I wish I had taken this lecture before I did my masters. It would have saved me a world of suffering.
What's some of the other great lectures on writing you've listened to?
I am not worthy to even lick your shoes, sir.
@@neiljohnson7914 lol, what?
@@stan3943 he's got two graduate degrees.
@@neiljohnson7914 I saw that, lol. I'm wondering why that leads to you proclaiming that you're not worthy to "lick his shoes?"
Beyond the schools, there is no other one who was paid to care about you and your writing. They don't "have to" read. They just read because it's valuable for them.
What a precious statement for us to think, before any time we write.
You could start by putting quotes around the entire quote and not where he provided emphasis lol
No one, at any school, has ever been paid to care about me. Teachers were among my biggest bullies.
"You must know the codes of the communities that you are working in." Powerful.
And "the code" for all communities is apparently universal: "Flattery." True?
This reminds me of Wittgenstein's language games
What about if the community code of people are a bunch of uneducated ghetto people that don’t understand what the writer wants to convey? Are writers supposed to learn the code of values from them to consider the writing of any value? People need to have certain education and codes of literacy to understand some writers. Otherwise, writers would become extensions of sometimes an elite of uneducated communities and they will be then expanding ignorance instead of knowledge. Humble opinion here.
Obvious…
you must be part of terrible communities. In the sciences it’s hard value, real knowledge (not some made up standards), higher truth/utility/explanatory power. Show me I’m wrong, prove what you say, push the ball forward… that’s the code and it’s correct.
I never thought I would find myself watching an entire 1 hour and 20 minute video on academic writing, but this was amazing. It will change the way I write my proposals and papers, and it will change the way I teach technical writing to my undergraduate students.
the power of postmodernism =]
You’re so right, that time flew. Proof of his engagement and the value of the content to you and I, the audience.
@Dr Gordon Taub, of course, he demonstrated what he was teaching. Changing the reader's thoughts.
@Dr. Gordon Taub Do you also teach students in a university??
@@18890426 Yes.
The cameraman is the real hero of this lecture
bob polo So true.
Where's he at at 1:01:40 though? Napping.
Indeed. LOL.
Ok
I read this comment before watching the lecture and found myself laughing throughout the whole video. I kept thinking this is what nature photography must be like - trying to keep a humming bird in focus.
As a PhD student struggling to write dissertation because so many mixed messages on the “how-to” UNTIL THIS LECTURE!! so many years in school, i have seen all he says here. Worthy Watching this video if only for this:
“The function of your writing is to move your conversation forward.” At minute 47:00-48:00!!!
Did you finish your dissertation yet?
Yeah I think it really takes some of the pressure off right. You don't have to be this genius mind, justice it forward.
This lecture has saved me from so much future heartbreak and misunderstanding. We always think it is about pursuing the "big idea," but it is really about the process and the process of discovery. I am truly thankful. Thank you.
The main drift: 42:20: Identify people with power in your community and give them what they want. 47:40: The function of your writing is to move the conversation of that community forward. 53:30: Introduce instability into the conversation by using words like anomaly, inconsistent, but, however' in your writing 56:20: Identify a problem of your community (a specific set of readers) and move to a solution. 1:01: Show that the instability imposes a cost on them or conversely, if the instability is solved, offers a benefit to them. Identify any coded language of benefit and cost in your community and use it. 1:06: Think about the world in your process of writing, but you then need to alter the process and rewrite for your reader. 1:06: The more you can alter the process for your reader, the less painful the writing process will be and the more successful you will be. 28:53: The bottom line (in my words) is that your contribution to an ever growing body of knowledge (diagonal graph) will only dissipate in time, but being part of the osmosis of the mainly pale, male, stale community might lead to personal success: stability vs instability model.
Thanks for putting this together!
Thank you for this 🤗
That sounds good to me. Thanks.
I did not attend college for various reasons but I’m glad these classes are shown on UA-cam, it’s essential in life to learn how to write properly.
wherever in the world you may be, whatever you want to learn is available online. Just know what you want to learn, decide and search it online.
I am also working as a freelance writer, couldn't attend college but thank God I am not deprived of learning about what I love due to all this amazing stuff available online. 💖
I am so grateful for all the classes and audible books that help me grow. What a marvelous treat to learn at any age.
Very nice speech
Same here. I am self-studying at home.
The way he slams the chalk down and walks away is the most badass academic equivalence to a mic drop
I was beginning to have serious doubts about my blog writing, why it wasn’t hitting the right cord with the reader, and then I accidentally stumbled on this video from a UA-cam recommendation list.
Reminds me of the saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears”
These days, the technology is working its magic, the teacher came to life when I exactly needed it even though this is a video published four years ago. It’s surreal!
lol, algorithms got you pat
I think the second part of that saying is, "when the student is really ready, the teacher disappears"
Nick MaGrick so be it, man!
d b 😆 that’s really pessimistic
@@MrAmitArun really man?? I think that's the exact opposite of what it means..
I am 23 minutes in and this is quite likely the best thing I've seen since joining YT so many years ago. I am watching it in little spurts because, unfortunately, my brain stops absorbing information after a few minutes. I don't want to miss a single word or let even the most minor concept go passed my brain without understanding.
"New and important isnt the goal - the writing has to be valuable" - one of the best lectures seen ever
This video is about so much more than only effective writing. It is about making information valuable to society.
I cried when I was watching this video. Don't know why.
Maybe it's because after so long of searching how to write good scientific papers, this one finally opened my eyes. It doesn't mean the time spent on the other teachings are wasted, only this "clicked" ;) Thanks a lot!
aahmazzing !!Im excited now...
hannah zhan: Your comment is why I decided to pause and watch this video rather than moving on. I'll let you know how it was ;)
Right at the beginning for me - you are using your writing to help yourself think. I do that every day, and I learned exactly the way he described (think then write.)
hannah zhan
So hope to read of your success.
I agree...it does clicked
This is the single most important lecture on writing I've ever seen. Not limited to academia, I find it extraordinarily helpful in corporate environment as well, where you always need to persuade people from different organizations to join you for a change or an improvement.
I LOVE THIS MESSAGE:
You think writing is conveying your idea - NO - it's changing THEIR ideas.🙊
I read this comment a second right before he said it 😂
Me too. Super powerful. And it sticks.
powerful
He changed from “why do you think so?” to “why should I think so?” I like it that he practices what he preaches, and it is also good to see that even he is learning by doing. I feel encouraged.
speaker uses a few empowering quotes to bring valuable ideas to his listeners...
👍
This single lecture contains more insight and wisdom than all those I attended during 5 years of graduate school combined.
This lecture spontaneously popped up in my queue literally as I’m 34k words deep in writing my first book. I have always been very conscious of the fact that I use my writing to help me think and I have ALWAYS believed that this was incorrect. I was taught to use outlining as a framework and to think first write later. This lecture was extremely validating for me. Wow I really appreciate this.
Me too,I did always consider such sort of thinking before watching this lecture .
Comes with the principal quantity brings quality. Only by writing down one idea can you begin working on the next, stimulates your creativity very well.
Me too! I've always inhaled information and then written it out first before going back to edit and I also thought it was wrong.
I kind of disagree with his view on the outline. You should know on which aspects you should focus before writing a thesis, otherwise you have to delete entire writing segments because it actually doesn‘t fit into your thesis. As in, you have to know beforehand if you start with Adam and Eve or the 1950s.
ua-cam.com/video/7VClJsgQpbs/v-deo.html ETG
20 pages into writing my first article but after watching this,I am start from scratch with no regret. Thanks a lot professor Larry and uchicago. looking forward to watching more of your lectures. worlds can't describe how incredble of a professor this man is and his and bestowes teaching unto us. i hope many more people, particularly students,will find this gem. my sincerest gratitude to all authorities who deci
I never comment on videos but I have to say that you are an incredibly compelling speaker.
Yes he is i really enjoyed this lesson. I learned that when i write that i should write with my audience in mind
I am an Advocate (barrister, lawyer) and I am deeply grateful for this valuable on-line class. I have never come across anything like this class, and I shall be applying it from this day forward. Even court papers can surely be more interesting lol.
Best of luck
Right, I’m a trainee solicitor and found this so amazing , even ended up taking notes.
Updates could you show us a before and after of your work
Larry McEnerney: Please give us more! I cannot explain the value I received from watching this.
If I were a teacher I feel like this would be a fantastic thing to encourage students to watch (and rewatch) before writing any paper, particularly before writing a paper on a topic they aren’t so jazzed about being tasked with covering. It’s cross-curricular gold.
I rarely see a video here, at youtube, that, after it is finished, I say "that was not a waste of time". Watching this video was time well spent.
Valuable lesson to respect your target audience, describe a problem that your audience is interested in, and convey the value of your solution to the problem and how it advances the audience's world view in a useful way.
Yes. Tact goes a long way.
@Hello The Generalist, How are you doing?
@@lydiaanderson2870 Great, thanks. How are you?
This lecture changed my perspective on everything I had ever written. This is gold. Should be compulsory in engineering and technology.
After the expert Circus the medics made of COVID 19. It would be a waste to mandate this for medics.
yeah because you were indoctrinated until now
I’m a PhD student of neuroscience. It’s overwhelming how he clarifies the function and structure of writing, and even more, process of academic progress (and how we should contribute to it). His talking itself is as educational as the content as the way he gave “tension” and caught the audience was impressive. I believe this is applicable to any field of science. Such a valuable 1 hour watching.
word salad.
he delivered this lecture in a way that was valuable to the audience
It was valuable to yo mama!
well they're paying for the class they want the A
@@TeamPill over a million people watched this, the majority probably not even from Chicago. they're the audience too
This talk is mindblowing. Before it gives you the reason why you're not effective at writing, then it gets into the methods to make it so. You need to know when to break the rules.
This goes so far beyond writing... this is like a lesson on life
this goes foes a lesson to existence, baeb.
Right!!
Everything you learn, is a lesson for life. _non scolam, sed vitam discumus._
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disagree
"no one cares whats in your head"
me at work being pulled in a million directions due to people needing the info that is in my head..
Okay budd, what ever you say... People pay me for my good looks i guess...
i must have gone wrong by never going to college and learning these profound life lessons
23:51 This hit hard. I now understand to some extent why academic writing is so terse. The goal of academic writing isn't to make the world understand your work, rather the goal is to contribute your findings to the body of accepted knowledge in your field. For your work to be accepted as a worthwhile contribution, it has to be challenged, tested, and trusted by the academic community. And the academic community consists of experts who read and think in terms of expert vocabulary and niche registers. If your writing does not contain the right terms, they might not even believe you have the level of knowledge required to write a paper on that topic. This might lead to a lack of recognition or outright rejection.
It got to be similiar level of receivers otherwise never be agreeable with
And the center is the reader.
You write in terms of the reader and adapt your style to that end.
I expected a boring lecture. This was actually intriguing and fun to watch
Daniel Ibarrondo nah it wuz boring
@@davidandrews2059 Wish he would point out fun parts! I agree it was boring.
I wonder if you had expected his lecture to be intriguing and fun, would you have concluded it was boring?
TI84SATACT Probably.
@@ti84satact12 Had no expectations. I watched 20 minutes of it. As it was all I could take. Then I had to read comments and see what others thoughts where. Did you really find this intriguing? Or you just pulling our legs?
The thing I like about Prof. McLenerney is that he points to real facts rather than ideal ones which are mostly seen in the books, or usual writing courses.
This is high level education. Can't believe I ran into this.
Not just write, this guy can speak!! Never been so invested in a 1 hour lecture.
My most writings were used for expressing my thoughts and when I post them, they didn't get much response. Now I understand a piece of writing should serve to the audience and chanllenge their ideas. I'll work on that. Thanks for this class!
I am impressed by the energy of this professor... That makes me want to watch the entire series.
Lies again? LA Liga
He's so enthusiastic he breaks the chalk!
This is EXACTLY what is taught in copywriting and sales. Amazing how closely related or even DIRECTLY RELATED these concepts are and how the seem to Rule the Game REGARDLESS where they are used.
Can you explain? Also, can you suggest some readings?
“Sell me this pen” (From the movie : wolf of wall st)?
I think that such an interpretation gets into the moral issues.. lol
ua-cam.com/video/7VClJsgQpbs/v-deo.html DGERGER
20 pages into writing my first article but after watching this, I'm start from scratch with no regret. Thanks a lot professor Larry and UChicago. Looking forward to watching more of your lectures.
I'm an artist trying to make it into the art market and my algorithm brought me this video. Kind of scary how useful it was. Now i know how to write e-mails for galleries, my artist CV and even a movie script I've been working on for a grant. Thank you for this video!
Wow what type of art do you make?
I am crying, I have listened to it over 10 times over the past 3 years now, still find it so valuable. I seriously own this guy a lot... Such a great lecture. I recommend to every of my friends.
Jane you done anything with it
My time of finding this video was impeccable. I start my dissertation in a month and in the process of putting together a business case...
Language of value , language of cost / benefit, writing for the audience, code words for the reading community.
Chiro chese chine nguva yacho. I have learnt a lot from the Professor.
My people
Words can't describe how incredible of a professor this man is and his bestowed teaching unto us. I hope many more people, particularly students, will find this gem. My sincerest gratitude to all authorities who decided to post this lecture on public media. 🙏💗
“The thinking that you’re doing is at such a level of complexity that you have to use writing to help yourself do your thinking”
As professor of of rhetoric Booth noted most memorably you have to be somebody to compliment somebody who is somebody so when man we just watched says your work is so complicated he is referring to an objective standard that doesn't require we respect him this early in his talk to feel good about what he has said and find what he is saying important. He apologizes later on in talk arguing necessity for this type of pa pandering essentially saying this is not the about the science of writing this is about changing the paradigms of others who are The architects of the present paradigm. He says we call two things writing but essentially defines them as two different things entirely.
In order to avoid people not understanding what he is saying he creates the vertical in the horizontal a completely empty category that is later filled in concretely with examples.
If you can imagine getting straight A's and being angry horrified shamefully getting it into the trash as quickly as possible without making a scene doing so you understand the difference between payi no,ng people to tell you that you are fine and paying peoplee to tell you what you need to hear. So he has this captive audience and he breaks the rules that he has created to deliver some body blows and poke some eyes out to save some lives while he has the chance.
Hi
True, so true. I am an avid thinker to the point that I think I will go crazy, if I don't get the thoughts out of my head and onto paper.
UA-cam University all the way.
Lol
joel diaz true though lol
Tell em
sure you can learn things all the same, but not the rubber-stamp or make the connections, the value in universities is not primarily about acquiring knowledge, it's about networking with the right people and making relationships that can be useful 10,20,30 years down the road, in an elite university, your classmate might become a judge, professor or minister in government in the future, that might be useful to you in the future, your fellow UA-cam classmate can't. Organisations need qualifications to look presentable to clients, you can be as knowledgable, but without the paper cert, they can't employ or promote you.
I've been enrolled since 2005.
Rarely will you find that much valuable information packed into one single lecture. Larry McEnerney's teaching is applied directly within the lecture: He starts by identifying the audience, by seeing the value in scientific writing, a fact that many members of the audience might not value themselves but of which they think they should. Once the listener feels identified, even praised, Larry creates tension and points out how that style of writing is useful to the one who is writing but useless to the reader. Here he captures the attention once again by providing a tangible solution. The solution will require some people to change how they see their writing, but by giving very easy examples of the cost this problem has and the benefit lies in the solution, the audience is willing to listen and even accept his proposition. Thank you!
Wow, I am blown away. Dr. Larry McEnerney's video clearly showed what mistake I am making in my thinking and writing process. An exceptional contribution - "What value is there for the reader community? why should they care to read?" that's a life lesson applicable to any work. Thank you.
I applied this course to my sales jobs. It's changed my life..
I am also translating it into a business context!! It’s such a fantastic framework!! I am remembering the adage to “listen to your customers… what do they want/nee”…and “your salary is commensurate with the value you bring.”
as a former sales rep i can def see how this is applicable in sales. a sales person main job is to expose a problem
What an amazing piece of content this is. You talk about value and you provide it. I´m from Argentina, and now in my 40´s I realized I love writing, I have love for sharing what I consider valuable, what I do not have is an specific background in communication or writing besides dedication at reading, particularly about human decision processes and behavior. So I have read dozens of books, watched hours of talks, and I´d like to share this with other people, but then I discovered I do not know how to do it in the proper manner , or more relevant way.
This is pure gold, because I realized some times I just try to convince people about myself, and how valuable is the information I have to share with them, instead of trying to solve a problem they have.
Thanks again, and sorry for any mistake in writing.
@Hello there, how are you doing this blessed day?
Key concepts (that I've also found in other fields like marketing or entrepreneurship):
Understand your audience
Speak their language
Find their problem
Give them a solution
Keep them engaged
No wonder. In our time knowledge is for sale
I am in the middle of my thesis writing & so grateful to have watched this video, now I am 100% clear about what my next moves are. Thank you so much!
I'm not a PhD student, but this was very interesting and enlightening into a world I may never dip my toes into. I do love perspective and insight.
Did you find ways to apply it in your own work regardless?
Spend 5 minutes each day reading a couple of paragraphs from great essayists such as Charles Lamb, Mathew Arnold, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Jack London - and read the non-academic writings of Schopenhauer - (Schopenhauer’s serious academic philosophy is pessimistic.) - read a little of Plato - (avoid phoney’s such as Bertrand Russell and Foucault and Derrida.)
I'm 30 mins in this lecture and I am blown away by what Larry is teaching. You are a wizard in turning average writers into dynamic informers of value to the target readers. Thank You!
I took the Little Red Schoolhouse course with Larry when I was at UChicago. That course was the most transformative, useful class I ever took. I copied all of my class notes and keep them at my work desk in case I need to reference them, and I use the writing principles I learned from the course daily. Thank you for this wonderful class!
Erin Fuller do you think you can share your notes with us? Please ? ☺️
@@neao7707 I don't think that would be a great idea without Larry's permission, BUT Steven Pinker's "A Sense of Style" has much of what this class taught.
Yes. I was listening to this and immediately reflected on my time in the Little Red Schoolhouse course. In my years at Chicago I instinctively absorbed this way of thinking about writing that was taught to me in the summer before I started there as a graduate student.
Will you share them please?- kevinratty@gmail.com thanks
What I absolutely LOVE about this fellows class....is his KNOWLEDGE and THOUGHT ABOUT field of knowing....of the outer realm....writers need to consider. Like a Sociological assessment of the environment your pitching to or aiming for. Just fantastic.
I didn't see other people commenting on a very relevant point. The ideas are great, and he tries to make a point for all of them, but what really makes the best case for him, is that the lecture is actually structured according to what he was teaching. That's something where many other professors miss the mark.
I like how he hooks you in and sells you the problem & walks through the problem to a solution
I woke up from a really long sleep and this had played just about all the way through, good to know my subconscious knows how to write effectively now.
bruh haha
*how to write valuably
“Identify the people with power in your community and give what they want" This is the purpose of this writing lesson.
He called it fascism. Look at today's news and political leaders lol.
I wanna be in his class every day, I learned a lot.
What makes readers read might be the same reason that makes people watch. I spent almost an hour and half to watch this video. Yet, I did not skip any minutes and watch the video until the end. Because this video is VALUABLE. For those who struggle to write an academia piece, this video worth your time.
This man is an amazing teacher, I learned so much in the first 5 minutes than I have in all my years of thesis work.
The great thing is this lesson helps with presentations as well. The professor has a great sense of humor as well which is always nice.
Moving into a PhD this video was randomly suggested at the perfect time. I'm actually amazed at how much of this I already include in my writing, particularly the community and value aspects. However, Larry explains things in ways I've never considered before, while adding so much more. His passion is something I hope we can all learn from. Go well with your writing folks. Kia kaha!
For a guy who didn't go to college, but is learning off the internet, I wish I was in this class. Mr McEnerny (I don't blame you if you say McEnergy) class is so intriguing, true, and authoritative.
He's a doctor, not a mister. The man has a PhD.
@@zylo999 He is a mister too though, just as he is a man , a human being and a son. The commentor might not have noted his title.
It's been literally nine years and I am thrilled to listen this lecture. It is incredible, thank you.
Holy hell, I just realized why I suddenly started getting good at writing freshman year of undergrad. This guy's advice is exactly what my parents said to me: "find out what they want, and give it to them"
Yeah, my dad said the same thing. It's amazing how it makes more sense in hindsight isn't it?
I took it as being lazy in my writing.
Effective writing is an art. Good academic writing has the ability to change the world. It is the moral of this brainstorming session.
I remember fresh out of college as an engineer with my first position and thought I knew how to write Capital requests with great detail and clarity. My very wise Engineering manager sat me down and explained the reality of upper levels of management who were going to review my detailed requests. He talked to me the same way as this professor's lecture explaining what would be required in writing in order to get upper management to approve my Capital requests. I was forever grateful and may he rest in peace.
What exactly did your manager teach
@@bangmachiv
Take the time to listen to the professor's lecture and digest what he is saying for he does a far better job explaining the details than I can.
Writers everywhere need more work like Larry's to be recorded and shared; there are too few accessible, comprehensible resources teaching these principles, and that's to the detriment of all disciplines.
OMG I was stuck writing my dissertation prospectus and came across this. What a jewel. Thanks, for posting this and the manuscript !!!!
His lesson is a lot like what i learned in my design/market classes. Have everything you make have a purpose, a meaning and design it with the target audience in mind to serve the purpose you want to achieve
This lecture goes into my saved library for rehearing and reviewing again and again. There is much to learn in rethinking effective communications.
The most important aspects of the Internet's best lectures about writing!
Amazing how I went from listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song to watching a one hour lecture about effective writing
Paul Garcia Aye aye You’ve sailed into the fourth dimension
I started with the theme song to Friends, but yep, got here eventually.
Likewise!! :))
Same here Captain jack SPARROW 👌👌👌🥀
@@413222012 ommmmmko
This guy is amazing. I am finally hearing somebody saying things it's been taking me 40+ years to figure out. Like that teachers read students' papers because they have to earn their paychecks. But I have one counterexample there: At the start of a class by endowed chair Professor Maxime Greene (Teachers College, Columbia Univ.) I told her I wanted to write a paper on something in which I had a passionate interest for over 10 years including life experience ("Morality in modern architecture") *instead of* the course work and exam. She told me to go do it and since she had to give a grade, I got an "A+" on the paper and an "A" for the course. I put my heart in that paper and I doubt anybody anywhere ever thought what I wrote. I sincerely think we both learned from both the medium and the message (ref.: Marshall McLuhan), even if me far more than she.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I understand this professor's concern; I frame it in the ferocious current job market. However, I can't think of writing as simply functional. Again, in a university context characterized by competitiveness, makes sense. But I do believe personal writing has its own value, maybe not to get funding, that's right.
@@ventana100 My second even better writing experinece: I got a 2nd class doctorate (EdD) where my dissertation sponsor literally left me alone. Between the time he said he thought "there might be a dissertation" in my proposal and me handing him some 250 sheets of paper with even the page margins to spec, I had no other contact with the school than tuition feed. Nobody was jerking me around. It was sink or swim. I bought an early Mac Powerbook ($3500 not cheap! 40 megabytes of disk storage and a monochrone screen!), all the books in my bibliograhy, got 2 years off from my job with no pay but access to the corporate computer, and my pet cat. What I wrote was not strictly functional. It was a work of art like Bob Dylan says the lyrics of many of his songs come to him and he takes inner dictation. Some of the sentences are almost [James] Joycean andthe whole thing is reflection on the teacher-student relationship and also sel-freflection. I didn't need a Larry McEnerney. How many peole can sincerely say / write -- that?
www.bmccedd.org/w/images/1/18/Muse_190.jpg
You were being ridiculously theatrical, and that ,Sir, is why I watched until the very last second. Thank you!
@Peter Mortensen straw-manning and false dichotomy much?
Thank you so much sir, im a postgrad student struggling in writing a research paper and i've been stuck for a long time. Watching your class have give me hope and restructure my mentality on how im looking at the whole research right now. Hope you'll always be healthy and surrounded by joy. Thank you.
Recently, I could barely finish watching 15 mins of youtube videos but this teacher here carried me in his narrative until I finished watching more than 1 hour of UA-cam videos! Isn't he amazing like I'm so impressed! So there is nothing wrong about my state of mind it's just that the videos that I have been watching is not as valuable as this man here is selling me. It work! His methods worked on me. Mind blowing!
This is going to shape my writing for the future. It's not about you, it's about the community.
How is this video so unseen? Barely any comments but such a compelling presentation. Definitely a much needed wake up call, thank you.
There are robot-narrated videos about celebrities' sex lives that need watching, that's why! Ha ha...have nice day, Peace.
Not many comments because he is creating value!
Not a lot of people go into academia? People are interested in surface level knowledge and money, not challenging how we do certain things lol
because he could have said it all in 10 minutes rather than 80 minutes with far less theatricality (which most of these old professors don't realize is borderline unbearable for those of us trying to learn efficiently)
Also, take a journalism/newswriting course. You'll learn the virtues of:
Writing with brevity. How to convey real-life and current affairs in an informative-narrative structure. How to fact-check. How to self-edit. How to investigate beyond just the use of the internet. Having your writing formally edited with the idea being to prove your news article is fit to print and worthy of mass consumption ;) It's good stuff.
As a second-year in undergrad, this Professor/Doctor is amazing. The delivery and simplicity of the lecture is beyond amazing, and the content is worth/more valuable than gold. Amazing lecture, I wish I would be able to physically sit in his class and go to his Office Hours
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same, the gains would be undisputedly awesome
This man is very gifted in educating the next generation; A pleasant surprise when it comes to other college professors.
This is probably my 5th time watching this. This is one of the best thing I have found online. Thank you sir.
Every once in a while I watch this again. Gold.
Today's is my lucky day ! After scrolling thousands of websites and reading infinite articles I am finally here! I have spent days finding something like this! Thanks Larry! Now I am going to cry!
This is one of the most VALUABLE videos on UA-cam by far!!!!! It is so good, I would classify it as a conspiracy theory video because they do not teach you this anywhere. This is occult information!!!!!
For me, this was a video that opened my eyes and allowed me to develop my online course from what was a lesson about plain language/plain English to the benefits of applying plain language in the appropriate context and the business justification of adapting language styles. In fact, this video caused me to redesign my whole course!
I strongly recommend you watch this video, bookmark it, and visit it several times to remind yourself about the real reason for why we write - to inform the reader while understanding what the reader wants, not what we want as writers. Outstanding content.
hey man. great lecture. I'm studying for the GED and this video was recommended and I watched the whole thing. I dropped out of high school in grade 9 and have never written anything. so when he's like "forget everything you've learned" i was like "done". Watching as someone who has never written anything this was very interesting, Sadly you do need to know those rules and how they work before you can throw them out the window. I love the focus on value, you must convince the reader that this info is valuable to them and that is true in all aspects of life.