In Praise Of Bulletpoints
- they are great
- most writing advice is bad
- it says "do XYZ", when really the hard part is knowing when to do XYZ or not
- But one of the few writing advices I really stand by (for most cases) is "write out a bunch of bulletpoints and only later come back and turn them into paragraphs
- Maybe this is just my brain but it's MUCH easier to actually get something down if you accept messy bulletpoints rather than finished paras
- and then much easier to turn bulletpoints into paragraphs than to turn nothing into paragraphs
- probably it also helps you structure and organize your writing into coherent essays, but most of the benefit is just making you get it done at all
- Often my essays would start as 10 min drafts like this, then I come back later and turn each bulletpoint into a readable para.
- but this time for the sake of embodying the argument I'm just sending you the bullet points