on writing

The ambiguity of words complicates writing.

Especially technical writing, with ambitious objectives: 1) to communicate definite, specific, ideas; 2) well-enough, to result in the formation of sufficiently equivalent ideas in the mind of a reader.

Communication must also account for existing ideas – ideas, already present in the mind of a reader; prior knowledge, which might obscure, pollute, or corrupt the composition or contextual framing, of new ideas

“it is what we know already that often prevents us from learning” - Claude Bernard