Re:Wikipedia’s Science Articles Are Elitist
by nils-m-holm on Friday October 13, 2017 @10:22AM
(#15465909)
Ok, so let's be more precise.
What I expect an accessible work to do is to explain things using terms that are as simple as possible. This does not mean to explain it like the reader was a child but, most of all, to avoid one simple pitfall:
Imagine you learn A, then learn B (which builds on A), and finally learn C (which builds on A and B). Now you have the knowledge to explain A more correctly and elegantly in terms of C, and you do so.
However, your beautiful and correct definition of A depends on C, which depends on B, which depends on A. So your reader has to understand C in order to grasp A and A in order to grasp C.
This pitfall has nothing to do with necessary complexity -- not avoiding it is simply bad didactics.
What I expect an accessible work to do is to explain things using terms that are as simple as possible. This does not mean to explain it like the reader was a child but, most of all, to avoid one simple pitfall:
Imagine you learn A, then learn B (which builds on A), and finally learn C (which builds on A and B). Now you have the knowledge to explain A more correctly and elegantly in terms of C, and you do so.
However, your beautiful and correct definition of A depends on C, which depends on B, which depends on A. So your reader has to understand C in order to grasp A and A in order to grasp C.
This pitfall has nothing to do with necessary complexity -- not avoiding it is simply bad didactics.