,
5 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
A hill I will die on:
The phrase "TL;DR" is anti-intellectual and not a valuable part of Internet culture to invite into professional spaces. Try "Executive summary" or "Summary"; these produce value and don't discourage the creation of it by suggesting that folks write less.
The phrase "TL;DR" is anti-intellectual and not a valuable part of Internet culture to invite into professional spaces. Try "Executive summary" or "Summary"; these produce value and don't discourage the creation of it by suggesting that folks write less.
Concision is a property of much good writing but it doesn't just mean reducing word count, it means structuring documents to direct the appropriate amount of attention from the right readers to the important bits, appreciating the UX of screens, and respecting user attention.
An important part of respecting user attention: if you're currently writing the canonical place to learn about FOO, it should answer all of the obvious questions about FOO, rather than forcing the user to construct answers by doing forensic research into the FOO project.
And at the risk of stating the obvious, teaching coworkers to ask "What's the TL;DR on that?" is teaching them to explicitly tell colleagues "My attention is too valuable to consume your work product; repackage it for me."
Consider carefully whether that is desirable.
Consider carefully whether that is desirable.
"Oh no I ask colleagues for that." Start asking for a summary, a précis, the elevator pitch version, a tweet-sized version, etc etc.
