The true meaning of writing - through your own language, use the simplest words to make one thing clear
Feynman's technique: It is to make one thing clear through one's own language, using the simplest rhetoric, preferably so that novices can understand it.
The true meaning of writing - through your own language, use the simplest words to make one thing clear
Fifteen years ago, when the Internet was not developed, it was almost impossible for ordinary people to get a lot of feedback by writing articles. Even if the articles were published in newspapers and magazines, they had to wait patiently for letters or letters from readers. Telephone. Today, it only takes a flick of a finger and the crackling sound of the keyboard, and after a few seconds, you will receive feedback or likes from readers. If the article is written well enough, the feedback will come flooding in like a tidal wave.
Every time I experience this kind of beauty, I will be grateful that I happen to live in the moment. This kind of welfare not only brings timely feedback, but also surprises and touches.
In fact, my writing style has always borrowed from Mr. Feynman's way of thinking.
The true meaning of writing - through your own language, use the simplest words to make one thing clear
Mr. Feynman and the Feynman Technique
Let me introduce Mr. Feynman first, he was a brilliant physicist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics! This is the most coveted academic honor in the scientific community. The reason why Mr. Feynman is excellent, in addition to his strong curiosity and thirst for knowledge, should also be related to his unique way of thinking.
Speaking of this, I have to mention Mr. Feynman's father Melville, who has unique insights in educating children. For example, he once read to Mr. Feynman as a child about dinosaurs from the Encyclopedia Britannica: "The dinosaurs were 25 feet tall and 6 feet wide." After reading this, he did not continue reading, but He stopped and said to Feynman: "Let's see what this sentence means. That is, if the dinosaur stood in our yard, it was tall enough to stick its head into the attic window. But because its head is smaller than The attic window is a little bigger, and if it is forced into the attic, it will break the window." Through this interpretation, the originally unfamiliar concept has something familiar as a reference.
Melville always used his own language to turn boring knowledge into something with practical reference. Feynman invisibly inherited a powerful learning skill from his father: translation, that is, no matter what you learn, you must strive to study it thoroughly. Exactly what is being said, what are they actually worth, and then express it in your own words.
It is because of this long-term unconscious training that Feynman has developed a unique habit of thinking. In the process of engaging in physical research, he will also ask colleagues to summarize clearly in the simplest words when reporting or explaining to him. Once it is over-explained or over-complicated, it means that he does not understand it thoroughly. The so-called Feynman technique is to make one thing clear through one's own language, using the simplest rhetoric, preferably so that novices can understand it.
The true meaning of writing - through your own language, use the simplest words to make one thing clear
use simple language
In fact, the Feynman technique is a widely applicable learning method, and writing is only a small aspect of the Feynman technique, because it touches on the most fundamental way that humans unpack information. I have been fortunate enough to systematically study the knowledge of applied psychology. In fact, there are two villains, "rational" and "emotional" living in the human brain at the same time. Rational villains are very advanced, but emotional villains are more powerful, so most of the time, our behavior is dominated by emotions, including information reception.
It's not hard to understand why everyone naturally likes easy, simple, pleasant things, such as reading or writing, we are more willing to listen to stories than to listen to reason. As long as they understand the principle of this level, I think anyone who writes will adjust their creative methods in time.
For example, first use an eye-catching title or story to arouse the interest and attention of the other party's "emotional villain", and then transmit the truth that you want to express to the "rational villain" through the "emotional villain". This is a very good strategy. This is also the fundamental reason why so many micro-headlines are written as flashbacks or interludes.
Also, most of us underestimate the role of metaphor as a rhetorical device in literature, when in fact it is our way of thinking and our cognitive tool. Knowing one thing from another is precisely the essence of learning! Because human beings often can only explain unknown things through known things, it is difficult for us to understand something that we have never been exposed to. And analogy is the bridge connecting the unknown and the known.
If you can use figurative analogy appropriately in your writing, you can simplify a lot of concepts and get them to identify and understand them in a peculiar way. At the same time, use analogies a lot, and try not to use other rhetoric except analogies and comparisons... If you practice this principle from time to time, you will gradually find that you not only write better, but also learn better
The true meaning of writing - through your own language, use the simplest words to make one thing clear
in own language
The core of Feynman's technique is "speaking in your own words", which is more critical than "speaking in simple words". Because only when we use our own language to explain what we have learned, can we truly mobilize all the knowledge we have learned, we can compile loose information into a system, and even improve cognition.
Unfortunately, many authors do not care about this, so that they have been on the surface of "knowledge transfer", "knowledge storage" and "knowledge statement" for a long time, and cannot reach the level of "knowledge conversion". For example, after reading a book, many people think that they have fully understood the book knowledge and completed the writing output after listing the framework system of the whole book. In fact, these are far from enough. Knowledge is your knowledge only if it helps you make practical decisions.
At this point, someone will definitely ask the question: Many views have been discussed by predecessors, and if you write them again, you will never be able to surpass them. Is there any sense in doing so? Regarding this question, you can refer to the answer of scalers in the book "Deliberate Learning": what you want to understand is born from your personal cognitive system; and what you see from the book is very easy to stay in being a Draw a bar in the notes, and think that you understand the level. Don't be afraid that it's already written in books, each of us can create a unique trajectory in the world.
Therefore, if a person really wants to grow, he must learn to output and learn to write, because the learning of "reading only and not writing" is incomplete, inefficient or even ineffective. And writing is useless if you don't learn to paraphrase in your own words.
Because of this, each of us should eventually strive to be a "professor". This is not to gain the status of a lecturer, but to be able to learn better, because "teaching" is the best "learning".