andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1463 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I just wanted to add the above comment to Bob’s notes on language. Spoken (and, to some extent, handwritten) language can be much more expressive than the typed version. I’m not just talking about slang or words such as baaaaad; I’m also talking about pauses that give logical structure to a sentence. For example, sentences such as “The girl who hit the ball where the dog used to be was the one who was climbing the tree when the dog came by” are effortless to understand in speech but can be difficult for a reader to follow. Often when I write, I need to untangle my sentences to keep them readable.
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1 I just wanted to add the above comment to Bob’s notes on language. [sent-1, score-0.405]
2 Spoken (and, to some extent, handwritten) language can be much more expressive than the typed version. [sent-2, score-0.57]
3 I’m not just talking about slang or words such as baaaaad; I’m also talking about pauses that give logical structure to a sentence. [sent-3, score-1.06]
4 For example, sentences such as “The girl who hit the ball where the dog used to be was the one who was climbing the tree when the dog came by” are effortless to understand in speech but can be difficult for a reader to follow. [sent-4, score-2.859]
5 Often when I write, I need to untangle my sentences to keep them readable. [sent-5, score-0.691]
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same-blog 1 1.0000001 1463 andrew gelman stats-2012-08-19-It is difficult to convey intonation in typed speech
Introduction: I just wanted to add the above comment to Bob’s notes on language. Spoken (and, to some extent, handwritten) language can be much more expressive than the typed version. I’m not just talking about slang or words such as baaaaad; I’m also talking about pauses that give logical structure to a sentence. For example, sentences such as “The girl who hit the ball where the dog used to be was the one who was climbing the tree when the dog came by” are effortless to understand in speech but can be difficult for a reader to follow. Often when I write, I need to untangle my sentences to keep them readable.
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Introduction: Those of you who know what I’m talking about, know what I’m talking about.
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Introduction: Robin Hanson writes that he does’t use slang: I [Hanson] am not into slang. I want to talk to the widest possible audience, and to focus on timeless issues and insights, as opposed to the latest fashionable topics. I can see why people want to signal loyalty to their groups, especially in the military, but I have little confidence that this is good for the world as a whole. I don’t know anything about the military (I don’t think this really counts) so I can’t comment on that part, and I don’t see the opposition between slang and “timeless issues and insights, as opposed to the latest fashionable topics” (after all, Mark Twain used slang and he had some timeless insights), but I’d like to pick up on a slightly different angle here, which is the set of quasi-arbitrary choices we make in order to define ourselves. Robin Hanson happens not to use much slang and he uses this trait to define himself, not quite to stand out in the crowd but to put himself on one end of a scale. I
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Introduction: Mark Palko writes : I can understand the appeal of the cutting edge. The new stuff is sexier. It gets people’s attention. The trouble is, those cutting edge studies often collapse under scrutiny. Some can’t be replicated. Others prove to be not that important. Confirmation, on the other hand, is not sexy. It doesn’t drive traffic. It’s harder to fit into a paragraph. In a way, though, it’s more interesting because it has a high likelihood of being true and fills in the gaps in big, important questions. The interaction between the ideas is usually the interesting part. In this particular example, Palko is telling the story of a journalist who reports a finding as new when it is essentially a replication of decades-old work. Palko’s point is not that there’s anything wrong with replication but rather that the journalist seems to feel that it is necessary to report the idea as new and cutting-edge, even if it falls within a long tradition. (Also, Palko is not claiming that this
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Introduction: In old books (and occasionally new books), you see the word “Why” used to indicate a pause or emphasis in dialogue. For example, from 1952: “Why, how perfectly simple!” she said to herself. “The way to save Wilbur’s life is to play a trick on Zuckerman. “If I can fool a bug,” thought Charlotte, “I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.” That line about people and bugs was cute, but what really jumped out at me was the “Why.” I don’t think I’ve ever ever heard anyone use “Why” in that way in conversation, but I see it all the time in books, and every time it’s jarring. What’s the deal? Is it that people used to talk that way? Or is a Wasp thing, some regional speech pattern that was captured in books because it was considered standard conversational speech? I suppose one way to learn more would be to watch a bunch of old movies. I could sort of imagine Jimmy Stewart beginning his sentences with “Why” all the time. Does anyone know more? P.S. I use
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same-blog 1 0.95897937 1463 andrew gelman stats-2012-08-19-It is difficult to convey intonation in typed speech
Introduction: I just wanted to add the above comment to Bob’s notes on language. Spoken (and, to some extent, handwritten) language can be much more expressive than the typed version. I’m not just talking about slang or words such as baaaaad; I’m also talking about pauses that give logical structure to a sentence. For example, sentences such as “The girl who hit the ball where the dog used to be was the one who was climbing the tree when the dog came by” are effortless to understand in speech but can be difficult for a reader to follow. Often when I write, I need to untangle my sentences to keep them readable.
2 0.69804484 2023 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-14-On blogging
Introduction: From 1982: The necessary conceit of the essayist must be that in writing down what is obvious to him he is not wasting his reader’s time. The value of what he does will depend on the quality of his perception, not on the length of his manuscript. Too many dull books about literature would have been tolerably long essays; too many dull long essays would have been reasonably interesting short ones; too many short essays should have been letters to the editor. If the essayist has a literary personality his essay will add up to something all of a piece. If he has not, he may write fancily titled books until doomsday and do no good. Most of the criticism that matters at all has been written in essay form. This fact is no great mystery: what there is to say about literature is very important, but there just isn’t all that much of it. Literature says most things itself, when it is allowed to. Free copy of Stan to the first commenter who identifies the source of the above quote.
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Introduction: Govind Manian writes: I wanted to pass along a fragment from Lichtenberg’s Waste Books — which I am finding to be great stone soup — that reminded me of God is in Every Leaf : To the wise man nothing is great and nothing small…I believe he could write treatises on keyholes that sounded as weighty as a jus naturae and would be just as instructive. As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. There is so much goodness and ingenuity in a raindrop that an apothecary wouldn’t let it go for less than half-a-crown… (Notebook B, 33)
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Introduction: Even within the realm of writing-about-statistics, there are things I can say in a blog that are much more difficult to include in an academic article. Blogging gives me freedom. But I want to distinguish between two different sorts of frankness. 1. Obnoxiousness: In a blog I can write, “I hate X” as rudely as I’d like without needing to justify myself. 2. Openness: In a blog I can write about the limitations of my work. It’s a real challenge to discuss limitations in a scholarly article, as we’re always looking over our shoulder at what referees might think. Sure, sometimes I can get away with writing “Survey weighting is a mess,” but my impression is that most scholarly articles are relentlessly upbeat. Sort of like how a magazine article typically will have a theme and just plug it over and over. In a blog we can more easily admit uncertainty. Overall, I think blogs are more celebrated for feature 1 above (the freedom to say what you really feel, to be rude, par
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Introduction: Sophie Roell, who interviewed me for 5books (background here ), reports that 5books has become a book. Or, to be precise, that they have released a collection of the 5books interviews as an ebook . Interviewees include me, some people I’d never heard of, and a bunch of legitimate bigshots such as Ian McEwen and Steven Pinker. I’d say it’s fun and often unexpected bathroom reading, but then you’d need a book tablet (a “kindle”? What do you call these things generically?) in that special room. But then again, maybe you already do! P.S. You might be also interested in this list (from a few years ago). Comments are closed on that entry (I know there’s a way to get them unclosed but I can’t figure out how), so feel free to leave your comments/suggestions here if you want to opine on the best nonfiction books.
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Introduction: Matthieu Authier writes: I just read Genetic essentialism is in our genes . Here are a few papers from Kenneth Weiss about this missing heritability problem and genetic essentialism: Evol.Ant.2011 – Weiss – Seeing the forest through the gene-trees Genetics.2011 – Weiss.&.Buchanan – Is life-law-like
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