Copyright © 2005, 2009, 2019 Michael A. Covington
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How to Write More Clearly,
Think More Clearly, and
Learn Complex Material More Easily
Michael A. Covington
Institute for Artificial Intelligence
The University of Georgia

“I don’t think I’m really
all that intelligent,
but I have a talent for
amplifying my intelligence.”
— R. D. G., 1975

Amplifying your intelligence
How to…
• Write more clearly
• Think more clearly
• Learn more easily

My central claim:
These are connected!
Amplifying your intelligence
How to write more clearly
(and why you
should want to)

How to write more clearly
Why?
• People who write are powerful.
• In science, technology, or
management, you influence people by
writing things for them to read.

How to write more clearly
Why?
• Clear writing leads to clear thinking.
• You don’t know what you know until
you try to express it.
• If your writing is nonsense, maybe your
thoughts are nonsense too!

Misconceptions about writing
Myth: Writing is mainly about poetry and fiction.
Response: That would be like saying exercise is mainly
about ballet dancing!
Most of the writing in the world is for information.
It’s often done by people who don’t even like poetry
and fiction.

Misconceptions about writing
Myth: Writers are people who have memorized big
books of grammar rules.
Fact: Grammar is not the problem.
You are exposed to huge amounts of good English
every day.
If you know what you’re trying to say,
99% of the time you’ll say it grammatically.

Misconceptions about writing
Language (including grammar) is an
inborn capability of the human brain.
The living language comes first;
then people try to write grammar books
in order to describe it.
You don’t have to be able to name and
classify the parts of your language
in order to use them!

Misconceptions about writing
At most, an educated person needs help with
only a few small points of grammar.
Of a 100-page grammar book, you may need
3 pages, or less.
(Get people to help you figure out which 3!)

How to write more clearly
The unselfish perspective
Good writing is partly a matter of
character.
Instead of doing what’s easy for you,
do what’s easy for your reader.

How to write more clearly
The unselfish perspective
I’m not giving this presentation
(or writing this paper)
because I’m important.
I’m doing it because you’re important.

How to write more clearly
The unselfish perspective
I’m not going to demand that you
put up with my quirks
(bad spelling, bad organization, sloppiness).
I’m going to
package the information so that it
enters your heads as easily as possible.

How to write more clearly
Writing is
almost too complicated
for human beings to do.
We must
break up the process of writing
in order to make it possible.

The writing process
Five steps:
Planning (deciding what and how to write)
Drafting (getting it on paper once)
Revising (getting it on paper better)
Editing (fixing spelling, grammar, typing)
Formatting (choosing typefaces, layout, etc.)

Planning
Ask yourself:
Why am I writing this?
Who is the audience?
What does the reader know/expect/want?
How can I organize it?
What are the format and style requirements?

Planning
If you can’t envision the audience, try
using yourself as a sample.
If someone had needed to give you
this information 6 months ago,
how should they have done it?

Planning
Organizing a written paper
is just like designing a machine
or computer program:
Every section has its purpose
and is broken down into smaller sections
each of which has its purpose.

Planning
If you can’t figure out how to
organize your material, try this:
Write down ideas in random order,
then sort them.

Planning
You don’t have to plan – or write –
the sections in linear order.
I often write the introduction last,
after I know what it will introduce!

Drafting
In the drafting step,
get it down on paper –
not elegantly, not perfectly,
just get it down on paper
so you no longer have to
hold it all in your brain!

Drafting
During drafting,
don’t worry about
grammar, spelling, or format.
Concentrate on what you want to say
and how you’re going to organize it.

Drafting
Three rules for clear writing:
1. Get to the point.
2. Get to the point.
3. Get to the point.
Your reader won’t follow you
down a garden path.

Drafting
To keep things clear and readable:
State the main point before you
give the reasoning that leads to it.
(Unless you’re writing a detective story!)

Drafting
To keep things clear and readable:
Put the main point of each paragraph
in its first sentence.
That way, people can skim your paper by
reading the first sentences of the paragraphs.
Lots of them will !

Drafting
K.I.S.S.
(Keep it simple, stupid!)
Always use the
clearest, simplest language
that will do the job.
NEVER try to sound formal or sophisticated.

Drafting
If your paper isn’t full of slang,
it is already formal enough.
Don’t show off the big vocabulary
you think you have.
Stuffy writing is bad writing!
It lowers the power of your brain
and mine!

Drafting
What words should you
never use in writing?
Words whose exact meanings
you don’t know!
Never use a word unless you
know EXACTLY what it means.
(More about this later.)

Revising
Now the fun begins!
With computers,
we can revise anything,
any number of times, without wasting paper.
In the bad old days, it wasn’t that easy!

Revising
The goal of the revising step is to
make your writing clearer
and easier to read.
This is done mainly by finding
better ways to put ideas into words.

Revising
When revising,
pretend to be your own worst enemy.
Is there anything that
can be misunderstood?
If so, change it so that it can’t!

Revising
BEFORE: “Students may request…”
AFTER: “Students are allowed to request…”
OR ? “Students sometimes request…”
Which did they mean? Do they even know?

Revising
Make sure the main point of each paragraph
is in the first sentence.
A person reading just the first sentences
of the paragraphs
should get a summary of your paper.

Revising
Whenever possible,
shorten your sentences
by removing needless words.
Time taken to process an n-word sentence
is proportional to n3, or more.
Cut the length in half, and you make it
8 times easier to read. (Maybe.)

Revising
An example:
“One of the best things you can do for yourself
to improve your writing is to learn how to cut
out words that are not necessary.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“One of the best things you can do for yourself
to improve your writing is to learn how to cut
out words that are not necessary.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“One of the best ways to improve your writing is
to learn how to cut out words that are not
necessary.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“One of the best ways to improve your writing is
to learn how to cut out words that are not
necessary.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“One of the best ways to improve your writing is
to learn how to cut out unnecessary words.”
That’s a lot better.
Can we go further?

Revising
An example:
“One of the best ways to improve your writing is
to learn how to cut out unnecessary words.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“To improve your writing, learn how to cut out
unnecessary words.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“To improve your writing, learn how to cut out
unnecessary words.”
Keep watching…

Revising
An example:
“To improve your writing, cut out unnecessary
words.”
There! 25 words reduced to 8!

Editing
Editing is where you fix up the grammar,
spelling, and punctuation.
Guess what?
Your computer doesn’t know best.
It doesn’t know what you’re trying to say!

Editing
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation
are not a layer of added decoration.
They help express the meaning.
If you let a computer “correct” them,
you may not get what you intend.
“Spilling chequers or grate!”

Editing
What if you’re a “bad speller”?
Some exhortations…

Editing
Don’t be quick to label yourself a “bad speller.”
None of us were born knowing how to spell.
If you can spell
http://www.mydept.uga.edu/~bjones
you can learn how to spell its and it’s !

Editing
To become a better speller…
(1) Take the time to learn the spellings
in the first place.
(2) Don’t practice bad habits.
Whatever you normally write
will look correct to you!

Editing
To become a better speller…
(3) Recognize related words
(govern, government)
(4) Pronounce words carefully
or even comically
(significant, Cal-i-fornia not Cal-uh-fornia)

Editing
The difference between its and it’s
= the difference between his and he’s.
his = of him its = of it
he’s = he is it’s = it is
Likewise, who:whom = he:him = they:them.
This is my idea of how to teach grammar!

Formatting
With computers, we can make decisions
about layout and typography
long after we write the text.
And we all need to develop an eye for graphics!

Formatting
The basics:
• Keep it simple
• Keep it standard
• Avoid meaningless variation

Formatting
Keep it simple
Use familiar typefaces,
no more than 2 or 3 in a document,
each with a clearly defined purpose.

Formatting
Keep it simple
Use conventional roman type for text,
typewriter type for computer programs,
and maybe sans-serif type for headings.
Sans-serif type is also good for labels
and presentations.

Formatting
Keep it simple 
Needless decoration
distracts the reader
and
can look really stupid!
Never draw the reader’s eye
to anything
that is not
the main point.

Formatting
Keep it standard
Look at well-produced material
and make sure you’re
following accepted practices.
Don’t leave out anything basic, such as
page numbers or adequate margins!

Formatting
Keep it standard
This is not your grandpa’s typewriter.
Use italics instead of underlining.
Use a dash (—) instead of 2 hyphens (--).
Follow the standard practices of the printing
industry, not the limitations of the
typewriter!

Formatting
Keep it standard
Use either “smart quotes”
or "straight quotes"
but don’t mix them up.

Formatting
Avoid meaningless variation
A basic principle of communication:
The reader will expect every change
to mean something.

Formatting
Avoid meaningless variation
If you have 2 typefaces,
or different margins in different places,
there had better be a reason,
or the reader will waste a LOT of time
looking for one!

• So much for writing more clearly.
• Now for thinking more clearly…

Amplifying your intelligence
How to think more clearly
– Language
– Logic
– Epistemology

Language
We all use language
(or other symbolic representations)
to do most of our thinking.
Here are some
insights from philosophy of language.

Language
Earlier I said
not to use words
if you don’t know what they mean.
How do you know whether you know
what a word means?

Language
An answer:
You know what “dog” means
if you know how to look at things
and tell whether or not they are dogs.

Language
Or more generally:
You know what “dog” means if you know
how, in principle,
to tell whether things are dogs,
even if you can’t perform the test yourself.

Language
Dilbert’s boss wants
“an object-oriented database”
but he does not know
what makes a thing a database
or what makes it object-oriented.
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!

Language
Our knowledge of word meanings is
sometimes imprecise.
Do you know what “elm” means? …
Language
Levels of knowing the meaning of “elm”:
(1) It’s a tree.
(2) It grows in the USA and looks a lot like an
oak or maple.
(3) It’s exactly so-and-so…

Language
Is it ever legitimate to use a word
without knowing its exact meaning?
Maybe.

Language
Example 1:
I can tell you there are elms in
New Haven, Connecticut,
even though I can’t identify them myself.
I am relying on other people’s authority for
the correct use of the word.

Language
Example 2:
The clerk at Radio Shack knows they sell
things called capacitors,
identified by certain numbers.
He/she can sell me a 22-F, 35-V capacitor
without knowing what a capacitor really is
or what the numbers mean.

Language
Example 3:
Dilbert’s boss wants an
“object-oriented database.”
(Relying on reliable authority,
or just making a fool of himself?
The difference is sometimes subtle!)

Language
The important thing is that
you should know whether you know
what your words mean.
Do not get used to
putting words together in familiar ways
without understanding them!

Language
How do you know
what a sentence means?
Largely, by knowing
how to find out if it’s true or false.
The test may be impossible to perform,
but you should have an idea
what it would be.

Language
Example:
“All dogs are brown”
can be proved true by examining all the dogs
in the world and finding them brown,
or proved false by finding one black dog.
If you don’t know that, you don’t know what
“All dogs are brown” means.

Logic
Oops!
We’ve strayed from
philosophy of language
to
logic.
Let’s keep going…

Logic
Some sentences, such as
“Murder is wrong,”
cannot be proved true or false
by physical tests.
I don’t think this means they are
“meaningless” or “neither true nor false,”
only that they are different from
sentences about physical facts.

Logic
Some sentences, such as
“There are invisible, undetectable
elves all over this room,”
really are meaningless;
there is no imaginable way
to prove them true or false.

Logic
Some sentences that sound very deep,
such as,
“Everything happens exactly the way
it was fated to happen,”
may be just as meaningless as
the sentence about elves.

Epistemology
Epistemology is the study of
how to acquire knowledge
by observing the world around you.

Epistemology
The goal is to end up
believing things that are true
and
not believing things that are false.

Epistemology
Your epistemology has gone wrong if you
disbelieve things that are true,
or if you believe things that are not true.

Epistemology
“Scientific method”
is part (not all) of epistemology.
Epistemology
How to form beliefs based on evidence:
(1) Propose a belief (a hypothesis).
(It should be something that, if true, would be
worth knowing, not a waste of mental effort.)
(2) Try to confirm it.
(3) Also try to disprove it.

Epistemology
Stages:
(1) Conjecture or guess
(2) Opinion; belief supported by evidence
(3) Firm belief, thoroughly tested against evidence and
still holding up
This looks like science, but is actually
applicable to thinking about almost anything.

Epistemology
Really important point
(from Sir Karl Popper):
A belief isn’t warranted unless you
could have known if it’s not true.
That is, there should be some way that
you could tell if it were false.

Epistemology
Popper’s principle implies:
(1) Your guesses and opinions need to be
testable.
They have to say what will not happen.
Beware of vague predictions that are compatible
with any outcome!

Epistemology
Popper’s principle implies:
(2) It’s your job to
test your opinions against evidence.
You should always be looking for evidence that
your current beliefs are not correct.

Epistemology
Example:
If you believe all dogs are brown,
you must not only look for brown dogs,
but also look for dogs that aren’t brown.

Epistemology
Fortunetellers, quacks, and salesmen
want you to
only try to prove your guesses true
and
not try to prove them false.
Covington’s Law of Medical Research:
Somebody will get well
no matter what is done to them.

Epistemology
Now let me attack some
widespread and fashionable
epistemological mistakes
from the late 20th century.

Epistemology
Misconception:
“It’s OK to believe anything you want, because we
never really know anything; it’s all just opinions.”
Fact 1:
Our knowledge of the world is incomplete.
Fact 2:
Nonetheless, the world is objectively real.

Epistemology
If you step out in front of a bus,
it will run over you,
even if you can find people
whose opinion is different.

Epistemology
Misconception:
“If there are good arguments on both
sides of a controversy, then the question
is undecidable.”
Response:
The evidence for one side can still be a
lot stronger than the evidence for the
other.

Epistemology
It is important to be able to
understand and present sympathetically
a position that you do not agree with.
If people believe something,
they probably have a reason
worth knowing about
even if they’re mistaken.

Epistemology
Example:
The earth is round.
But some people think it’s flat,
and we should be able to explain
why it looks flat.

Epistemology
Misconception:
“It is unfair to say that anything is really better
than anything else.”
Response:
Because the world is objectively real, of course
some things are better than others, by any
reasonable criteria.
You’re not just “showing your cultural bias”
when you say so.

Epistemology
Misconception:
“You have no right to impose your beliefs on me.”
Response:
When you say that, you’re “imposing” a belief on me!
Lots of beliefs are “imposed” on us by evidence.

Epistemology
Misconception:
“If something isn’t subject to physical measurement
(or doesn’t fit in a preconceived system), it doesn’t
exist.”
Response:
If all knowledge depends on physical measurement,
then not only do you lose truth, beauty, and love,
you also lose mathematics, logic, and even
epistemology!

Amplifying your intelligence
How to learn
complex material
more easily
How to learn…
I’ll be brief because I’ve already
given you the tools.

How to learn…
1. Have goals and adjust them often.
2. Use a suitable learning strategy.
3. Insist on clear understanding.
4. Organize the knowledge for yourself.

Have goals…
You have to
want to learn something
and
have some idea what it is.
Don’t wait passively
for the teacher or textbook to
take you on a ride.

Have goals…
Because you don’t start out
knowing exactly what you’re going to learn,
you must constantly
update your goals
as the material is revealed to you.
Changing your goals is OK.
Not having goals is not!

Have goals…
Example:
We don’t read textbooks like novels,
just to see where they go.
We read textbooks because
we want them to tell us something
(incl. tell us what they’re going to tell us!).

Learning strategy
When a student finds my courses
unduly hard, it’s usually because of
the wrong learning strategy…
• Memorizing what should be deduced
• Deducing what should be memorized
• Skipping essential background
• Demanding background that isn’t there

Learning strategy
Different kinds of material
require different learning strategies.

Learning strategy
A learning strategy for history or literature:
• Main goal is understanding, not solving a problem.
• Secondary goal is familiarization with lots of things.
• There is no starting point – you can start anywhere.
• Read a lot of books and “get the big picture.”
• Many large trends but few explicit logical
connections. Effects and relations are often indirect.
• Careful reasoning is necessary but often not made
explicit; no formulae or theorems.

Learning strategy
A learning strategy for mathematical science:
• Main goal is clear understanding of key points.
• Important ideas are not so much learned as
rediscovered, often in a flash of insight.
• It is important to trace ideas to their sources
(remember who discovered them).
• You must take things in order; if you skip a chapter,
or even a page of definitions, you’re lost.

Learning strategy
A learning strategy for engineering or computer
programming:
• Main goal is to apply science to solve problems.
• It’s easy to experiment to find out whether your
solutions work (especially with computers).
• You must learn things in order.
• No need to trace ideas to sources; any book that
gives you the information will do.
• Tendency to follow authorities blindly.

Learning strategy
A student who is only good at one subject
is often
someone who only has one
learning strategy.

Clear understanding
Insist on clear understanding!
My C and D students are
so accustomed to being confused
that
they don’t realize it isn’t normal.

Clear understanding
We’ve already talked about
how to know
whether you understand a word
and
whether you understand a sentence.
Put that knowledge to use!

Clear understanding
Learn the vocabulary,
and be precise about it.
If you don’t,
you can’t learn anything else.
Vocabulary is the key to the Internet.
If you can’t name it, you can’t Google it!

Clear understanding
If something is unclear,
don’t wait for it to clear up later.
Back up and get it clear.
(Find the first word you didn’t understand.)
Students who are lost
have always been lost longer
than they want to admit.

Clear understanding
If you guess anything,
you must test your guess immediately.
Not just whether it might be true…
but also whether it might be false.
(Remember epistemology?)

Clear understanding
Our educational system
encourages unclear understanding.
If 70% is a passing grade,
you can almost get by with
nothing but guesses and vague familiarity.

Clear understanding
70% knowledge of American history
is worthwhile, but…
70% of the multiplication table (with random gaps)
is almost useless!
People accustomed to incomplete learning
get terribly lost in rigorous, logical,
mathematical material.

Organizing knowledge
Don’t expect the teacher or the textbook to
organize the contents of your head for you.
Organize the knowledge yourself.
Make your own notes.
Pretend you’re writing a textbook!
That’s how I ended up writing so many books…

Organizing knowledge
Constantly
check your own understanding
in as many ways as you can.
Try things on the computer…
check other reference books…
quiz yourself…
try explaining the material to others.

Organizing knowledge
Learning is a lot like writing a book.
The goal is to build
a structure in your own mind,
not to absorb
something that somebody else gives you.
The knowledge in your mind is your own
creative product! We build our own tools.
THE END