How to edit your own lousy writing (2017)
The mathematician Gauss said, "You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length."<p>This is what almost everyone on the internet gets wrong these days, especially writers on medium and other blogging platforms, but also writers on the BBC and the Guardian. Their articles are too long and padded.<p>I guess I can't fully blame them. Google prioritizes lengthy texts as a signal of being authoritative and comprehensive. Most texts these days are twice as long as they need to be.