14 Comments

This is probably one of the more tiring pieces of writing I have read in a while. What does that mean? I am actually learning something, it's supposed to be hard. Thanks for sharing!

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I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this comment 😅 but I sincerely hope the article is at least a bit helpful 😃. It was hard to write for sure 🤗

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It's helpful. Just need some effort to read it all...

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Haha that means I could have done better then 🤗

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It is great to see this framework evolve over time. I remember when you first wrote about it last year. This refined version is excellent. Thanks for sharing.

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This is the kind of post I always keep on "save" !!

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🤗

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Great to see your whole process written down. I know I’m an outlier on how I write, as I spend a lot more time in the “thinking” stage and organising things in my head, and then I write a “strong first draft”, which is always very similar to the final article. I’ve always written like this, including my PhD thesis, say

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Hey, if it ain't broken, don't fix it ❤️

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Awesome framework!

As much as I'm familiar with the concept of "vomitting out a crappy first draft," I still tend to get stuck during Step #3 when my inner editor kicks in and starts nitpicking. Sometimes, I can switch him off and get into the flow of just writing out the thoughts, so he can return later and improve stuff. But I often struggle to get through this without switching back and forth between writer and editor, and it's exhausting. Gotta work on that.

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I feel you. This is why I do must of my first draft by talking instead of writing. I just record myself, use whisper, and then a minimal prompt that just removes filler words. Almost a 100% brain dump. Now if only I had an editor with that incorporated.

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I also tried this approach. I even have a Recorder app that came by default with my Google Pixel that transcribes the words automatically and does a pretty decent job of it. Then I tried stuff like throwing the text/brain dump into an LLM and asking it to extract key points and create an outline, but I still find that the process somehow ends up taking longer than just doing most steps yourself. Maybe it's a matter of letting go, but I just can't get myself to use most of AI's written input.

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I have cases where that happens, I try two or three times from scratch and end up scrapping the whole thing and just sitting and writing straight from zero to the first draft. I think what happened is that I unconsciously did the outline in my head. That's why I treat this "framework" as a suggestion more than hard rules.

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It's very well aligned with the framework for Critical Thinking I've developed of Knowlege Gathering, Logical Structuring, and Critique. Fundamentally, writing should BE critical thinking because it a way to form, unform, and reform ideas as you pointed out.

https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/do-you-really-think-critically

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