The modern formatting addiction in writing

9 hours ago

The article discusses the modern addiction to excessive formatting in writing, comparing two styles: one with heavy formatting (Exhibit A) and one with normal paragraphs (Exhibit B).
Exhibit A is characterized by jerky fragments, bullet points, subsections, and nested lists, making it disorienting and hard to follow.
Exhibit B uses normal human language, organized into sentences and paragraphs, which is more relaxing and easier to read.
The author questions why many people and AI-generated content tend to favor the heavily formatted style (Exhibit A) over the more readable style (Exhibit B).
Possible reasons for the formatting addiction include: formatting being good for skimming (e.g., SEO content), quality being hard to verify in long-form writing, and formatting helping with organizing thoughts during the writing process.
The author suggests that formatting can be a 'bluff,' making poorly synthesized ideas appear more coherent than they are, both for humans and AI.
A proposed solution is to first write with formatting, then refine into paragraphs, and reintroduce formatting selectively if needed.
The optimal amount of formatting may vary with the length of the piece, with shorter works benefiting more from formatting.

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