Summarising is tough. Extracting the main points and leaving everything else, all without the changing the message? That's hard work.
The alternative? Walls of impenetrable text, endless ramblings, confusing information, all seemingly intent on making you space out.
What's even tougher, though, is simplifying.
Not only do you have to emphasise the main points, you have to make them easier to grasp. Often, you have to use a different vocabulary and sentence structure to do this.
Which means that, not only do you need to be good at summary, you have to own a certain finesse and elegance in the language, understand the audience, and be ruthless in your quest for clarity.
These aren't skills you can pick up in a couple of days, hence the rarity of good editors and communicators.
So, the next time you see or hear a well-crafted, polished, easy-to-grasp message, thank these precious individuals.
Even if you only do so in your heart.
Being the Curious Kid Taught Me Many Things. Some Good, Some Not so Good.
I was the curious kid in school.
Not just in terms of wanting to explore and find out more, but also in the other sense - a bit of an oddball and, though some find interesting, most find difficult to understand or relate to.
It never really bothered me that people didn't "get" me, because I didn't really "get" people either.
I remember writing (in a now-lost exercise book) that I found it frustrating to be unable to discuss things with my peers. I can't remember the exact words, but I recall something about nuclear fusion and the future of human civilisation and energy use.
And that being pre-Internet days, it took a lot of effort to find information in the library.
The good thing was that I learned to refine search terms.
It was an old search system (was it a Dynix?), and our libraries had an octopus mascot on the welcome page. Not sure if anyone else remembers this. It was quite similar to the picture attached to this post.
And when the Internet became widespread, the search term practice I've had since I was a kid turned out to be incredibly useful.
Instead of learning to communicate with people, I somehow learned to communicate with computer systems instead.
And today, with AI and machine learning, more and more people are learning to communicate with computer systems.
Who would've thunk?
Of course, I eventually learned to communicate better with people, but that's a story for another time. Though I say so myself, it's a pretty interesting one.
From Enthusiast to Expert, Now You Need to Be a Communicator. Of Your Expertise.
Something strange happens when a person gets interested in a topic.
They think about it constantly, immerse themselves in it, and learn as much about it as they can.
As a result of this constant exposure, they pick up new information, jargon, ways of looking at things, ways of doing things, and so on.
And then they try to explain what they know to people 'on the outside'.
And the 'outside people' don't quite understand, or they don't 'get it'.
If this has happened to you, you have crossed the line.
Into the realm of expertise.
And communicating your expertise effectively is the next step you'll have to take.