How to Write Usefully - Paul Graham  ## Metadata - Author: **Paul Graham** - Full Title: How to Write Usefully - Category: #articles - URL: http://www.paulgraham.com/useful.html ## Highlights - What should an essay be? Many people would say persuasive. That's what a lot of us were taught essays should be. But I think we can aim for something more ambitious: that an essay should be useful. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hhn2d8zp44yd4e69krs81t30)) - There's a trick for getting importance too. It's like the trick I suggest to young founders for getting startup ideas: to make something you yourself want. You can use yourself as a proxy for the reader. The reader is not completely unlike you, so if you write about topics that seem important to you, they'll probably seem important to a significant number of readers as well ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hhrgxrcnvh798rqq2ebfjs56)) - Precision and correctness are like opposing forces. It's easy to satisfy one if you ignore the other. The converse of vaporous academic writing is the bold, but false, rhetoric of demagogues. Useful writing is bold, but true. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hhqm7p0gq87p6345xpq47nzc)) - If you don't learn anything from writing an essay, don't publish it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hhrh1j03jya2ykkcgm6zyyv4)) - There's one other quality I aim for in essays: to say things as simply as possible ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hhrhc0384qedkeqjwrr2y3dp)) - the best advice is to write as simply as you can ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hhrhcwfg72ej68femyn89kkp))