In 2017 he argued that the preparation and delivery of university lectures was of far greater importance for the academic than the student, adding: “If some voluntarily attending students become more erudite, more cultured individuals with a longer attention span, more aware of their intellectual heritage, more ardently wedded to their chosen subject or profession, this may be regarded as a fortunate by-product of what the lecturer has learnt.”
The same is true of writing articles. Just the necessity of sorting out the argument to be written down improves it.
That’s an oft expressed view. I have a vague memory of a famous scientist who remarked to a colleague that he didn’t know enough about a subject and therefore was thinking of giving a lecture on it. (Haldane?).
It’s a very common technique. In the computer programming field its called the cardboard programmer. Explaining the problem to someone else makes you think more about the problem and usually get a brainwave and understand it.
Teenage pupils used to be encouraged to write essay plans WIWAN (when I were a nipper).
WIWAN we had to write essays. I remember one exam (usual 3,000 words on the inside of a ping pong ball) where after about a page I realised I’d got it completely wrong and spent the next 2,500 words desperately rowing back on the nonsense I’d written.
Got an A.
lol, obviously not academic articles. Virtually everything in the academic literature for any discipline you care to mention is turgid, badly-written shite, even if it’s right. And so much of it isn’t.
You think Spud has gotten better from his years of practice?
aaa
“Science self-selects for bad writing.” Stephen J. Gould.
As he often demonstrated.
That may be because real™ scientific articles must conform to a very specific template. And that template does not exactly lend itself to writing magnificent prose…
Besides that.. the vast majority of scientists are not Writers. The more so if they’re any good.
See also Rubber Duck Debugging.
Virtual walk through in my early programming days.