HI Andrew, I've got another thought for you following on from Office Hours.
I've scanned this interview and it's full of useful information that somebody might need. Yes, it's too long for many people to sit down and read, but it's not too long for someone who needs to answer some of the questions you've asked. There are people out there who are having conversations with their hesitant relatives who will find this useful.
How about writing a concise interview on some really important points (keeping it under a 10 minute read), then having a second version with the full interview. You could space out the posting so the longer version came out a few days later. That way people who enjoyed reading a shorter interview would get something, and people who liked the more detailed one would get something too.
Also I hadn't come across Dr Dan before. I love watching great science communicators work.
Sorry for all the messages; I just went through my notes on today's Office Hours and I noticed that there's a lot of hype about some new feature. Do you know the deal with the new button? What does it allow you to do? Make captions? Why are people excited about that? I definitely want to use that feature as well if people are excited about it! :)
Thanks to that brilliant Read-o-Meter you sent me (https://niram.org/read/), I will include an estimate reading time at the start of each piece and provide a bulleted nutshell summary beforehand.
I want to thank you so much for sharing the Read-o-Meter with me because going forward I will start off saying:
- this piece is 45 minutes to read
- here is a quick bulleted nutshell to begin with
- after you read the summary make sure to hit the subscription button and subscribe!
Or something like that.
I'm just a little intimidated about summarizing a massive interview; some of my interviews cover a lot of ground and are not that easy to summarize, maybe.
No matter what makes the most sense, the Read-o-Meter is great, though; how accurate is its estimate of reading time, do you think?
Thanks for reading the piece and thanks for the valuable input!
I think you're right that I need to address the problem of digestibility. My own thought is the length seems to be logically irrelevant in a way, but I could be wrong. Let's say I post a 1000-page piece, but the first couple paragraphs are a quick nutshell of the basic ideas. Readers will definitely get past that "elevator pitch" at the start, won't they? And then there could be a subscription button after the "elevator pitch". So that might solve the problem.
But if that solution were implemented, why would anyone see the piece's 1000-page length and somehow not read the "elevator pitch" and then use the subscription button? Why would that 1000-page length deter people?
So that's what I'm curious about; let me know your thoughts! :)
HI Andrew, I've got another thought for you following on from Office Hours.
I've scanned this interview and it's full of useful information that somebody might need. Yes, it's too long for many people to sit down and read, but it's not too long for someone who needs to answer some of the questions you've asked. There are people out there who are having conversations with their hesitant relatives who will find this useful.
How about writing a concise interview on some really important points (keeping it under a 10 minute read), then having a second version with the full interview. You could space out the posting so the longer version came out a few days later. That way people who enjoyed reading a shorter interview would get something, and people who liked the more detailed one would get something too.
Also I hadn't come across Dr Dan before. I love watching great science communicators work.
Sorry for all the messages; I just went through my notes on today's Office Hours and I noticed that there's a lot of hype about some new feature. Do you know the deal with the new button? What does it allow you to do? Make captions? Why are people excited about that? I definitely want to use that feature as well if people are excited about it! :)
Hi Melanie,
Thanks to that brilliant Read-o-Meter you sent me (https://niram.org/read/), I will include an estimate reading time at the start of each piece and provide a bulleted nutshell summary beforehand.
I want to thank you so much for sharing the Read-o-Meter with me because going forward I will start off saying:
- this piece is 45 minutes to read
- here is a quick bulleted nutshell to begin with
- after you read the summary make sure to hit the subscription button and subscribe!
Or something like that.
I'm just a little intimidated about summarizing a massive interview; some of my interviews cover a lot of ground and are not that easy to summarize, maybe.
No matter what makes the most sense, the Read-o-Meter is great, though; how accurate is its estimate of reading time, do you think?
Sincerely,
AVW
By the way, check out Dr. Wilson's interesting video here about an NFL player's vaccination concerns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isP6waOEp2U.
Hi Melanie,
Thanks for reading the piece and thanks for the valuable input!
I think you're right that I need to address the problem of digestibility. My own thought is the length seems to be logically irrelevant in a way, but I could be wrong. Let's say I post a 1000-page piece, but the first couple paragraphs are a quick nutshell of the basic ideas. Readers will definitely get past that "elevator pitch" at the start, won't they? And then there could be a subscription button after the "elevator pitch". So that might solve the problem.
But if that solution were implemented, why would anyone see the piece's 1000-page length and somehow not read the "elevator pitch" and then use the subscription button? Why would that 1000-page length deter people?
So that's what I'm curious about; let me know your thoughts! :)
Sincerely,
AVW