Bad Writing Habits

On a whim, I asked Claude to analyze my writing style. Here’s the result:

• I often use words like “seems,” “appears,” “probably,” and “should” to soften my tone. Using them in moderation is fine, but overusing them weakens the force of an argument
• A lot of sentence openings could actually just be deleted; readers don’t need you to announce what you’re about to say
• My sentences are often too long, with too much information packed in. Short sentences can create emphasis and give readers a chance to breathe
• Sometimes your best insights are buried in the middle or at the end of a paragraph. Move them to the front so readers are hooked at first glance
• Use fewer rhetorical questions and switch to affirmative statements

These suggestions are all common sense, but why do I still end up writing like this without realizing it?

It suddenly reminded me of “defensive writing.” If you state things too absolutely, trolls will pick holes in them.

To guard against that kind of attack, I got into the habit of adding softened expressions like “I think,” “should,” and “seems,” so that even if someone pointed out an error, I could say, “I didn’t state it that absolutely.”

But on second thought, unless you’re citing data or simply describing a fact (this coffee is 40 degrees), anything you write already includes “I think.”

In recent articles, I’ve already tried to reduce these kinds of expressions as much as possible, but there’s probably still room for improvement. Having AI help polish or trim these “defensive” phrases is actually pretty nice.

As the article “defensive writing” says:

What you need to defend against is “not” other people’s criticism, because that is impossible to defend against. No matter how careful, hard-working, neutral, or objective you are, you can never make everyone agree with you, and you can never satisfy everyone

If you genuinely say something wrong and get corrected, that’s a very valuable learning opportunity—just apologize and revise the article. As for trolls, just ignore them. Don’t sacrifice readability just to defend against vague criticism.

That sentence really woke me up.

I used to dislike expressing my own opinions, even my own preferences, because I was afraid people would think those weren’t traits “a software engineer” should have.

I wasn’t always like this.

When I was in college, I had another Pixnet blog dedicated to reviews of novels and personal diary entries. It was my outlet for freely expressing my moods and feelings.

My MBTI type is INTP (Logician), and it has never changed from then until now. But I consider myself one of the more F (feeling) people in the software development world, even though my wife still often says I have a very “straight male” way of thinking.

For example, on the day Abe Shinzo was shot, it seriously affected my work, and at one point I even felt like crying. In a democratic society, I don’t want to see this kind of thing happen.

I was surprised that the people around me seemed to keep working as if nothing had happened. Only my manager comforted me: “If you feel like you can’t work because of this, just take the day off. Mental health comes first.”

I’m still very grateful to that manager to this day.

In “Am I Being Useful?,” it’s mentioned that the admiration for the strong and the sense of superiority in tech circles come from fear.

Sometimes I can’t help feeling that this circle is absurd: even though it’s full of such smart people, the simple human need to express emotion and show vulnerability isn’t even allowed. The only remaining ways to prove yourself are technical depth, how many LeetCode problems you’ve solved, or whether you graduated from a top university.

You’re good enough. Really.

What I’d rather see is your imperfections, hear your life story, hear what you love, and learn what drives you to be here.