On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:39:03 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>> Yes, good mics aren't cheap.  Nor is an appropriate place.
>>
>> Similarly, when writing, a good editor or technical reviewer isn't
>> cheap.
> 
> I consider myself to be moderately good at explaining complex ideas.
> What I utterly suck at is writing anything of any significant size. 

That just comes with practice.  Practice that includes feedback that you 
learn from, that is.

> I'm
> not good at deciding what order to explain stuff in. (And I've very
> indecisive...)

That also comes with practice and feedback.  What really helps is to 
understand your audience - which requires asking prospective members of 
your audience what their experience is in the field you're presenting on.

> Having somebody else review it helps. They're the ones who point out
> that you've neglected to explain something because it's just so utterly
> obvious to you that you forgot somebody else wouldn't necessarily know
> this.

Exactly.  I've said before as a subject matter expert, it is hard to 
recognise what an audience doesn't know unless you're consciously aware 
that you know more than the audience.  What's intuitively obvious to you 
is so because of your experiences - but your audience may not have the 
same experiences.

> I haven't had the pleasure of working with a professional editor yet.

It can be really good - just depends on the editor.

>>> I'm sure most of it is fairly easy if you actually know what to look
>>> for.
>>
>> Well, either it's easy or it's hard.  The reality is that it's easy or
>> hard depending on one's experience and expertise.
> 
> Yeah. Logically, there must be books and courses and things somewhere
> which explain how to do this properly. I mean, professional sound
> engineers don't just pop up out of the ground. They have to learn from
> *somewhere*. Chances of you or me finding this information? Negligible.

GIYF:

http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Sound-Engineer

5 seconds with Google turned that up.  No, it's not actually that 
difficult to learn how to learn something.  Based on that article, it 
seems the bottom line of the suggestion there is apprenticeship.

>> First rule of getting people to think you're good at something:  Don't
>> tell them you suck at it.  Let them form their own opinions.
> 
> Well, it depends on whether you want credit for other people's
> ignorance, or credit because you actually did something worthwhile...

If they walk away knowing more than they came in with, then you did 
something worthwhile.  Doesn't matter why they didn't know it beforehand.

Jim

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