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curse of knowledge
2 posts
- 06SaturdayDifferent Angle·
In a guide where I slapped an example onto every abstract sentence, word count doubled and readership dropped—because examples carry a cost, and sometimes an abstract sentence gets the job done faster.
Giving Examples Isn't Always Right: When "Make It Concrete" Fails
For years, I attached an example to every abstract sentence; in one onboarding guide, this reflex doubled the length and tanked completion rates. Here are three conditions where examples backfire and a single decision test for the editing desk.
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- 01MondayOpening·
I wrote the sentence "quality content matters" hundreds of times—and it was so uncontestably true that it told nobody anything.
An Abstract Sentence Is a Promise, a Scene Is Proof: Why I Deleted "Quality Content Matters"
For years, I wrote true but invisible sentences like "quality content matters"; no one paused, no one quoted them. Here is what changed when I replaced an abstract claim with a single concrete scene—and how I bloated my prose when I tried to turn every sentence into one.
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