Cultural bias is very much a thing.
I would like to understand why the reverse is "jumping the gun". I am assuming the arguments have not changed, the reasoning remains the same. Why is a mere change of order "jumping the gun"?
The remaining arguments are more likely to be accepted or rejected based on what you know conclusion is. So instead of asking "is this true", people will start either with "I am looking for nitpick cause I see this is going toward bad conclusion" or with "yeah sure, it shows what I think".
However, they will still feel like they evaluated arguments on merit. If the conclusion is last, people can and some will go back to arguments to bias them, but it is easier to see what they are doing.
By articulating the reasons, methods, and considerations that went into a decision, you're slowly and softly building an argument. Individuals are less likely to have an instinctive reaction to something this way. At the very least, it's proven (yes, as in measured) to be the case here.
It's like having an abstract or a blurb to briefly summarize for management.
Similarly, if you need someone to take action based on the result, you don't put it at the end where nobody's going to read it. You put it at the beginning, first thing, and then build up the background.
How could you read anything without knowing the point in the beginning. Even research papers start off with an abstract.
> How could you read anything without knowing the point in the beginning. Even research papers start off with an abstract.
It is pretty easy to read email or argument without knowing the conclusion up front. You just read on. Research papers are specific writing with specific rules. I dont really think they are in general example of good or persuasive writing.
It makes no sense for this "culture" to think less of research or any writing that intends to persuade because it starts with a introduction or summary. Anyone who starts with a summary of what is going to follow will be a more effective communicator. They would be missing out on lots of writing that is done this way.
Your first paragraph or sentence will always be an introduction. If you choose to not take advantage of it to set the context of what follows the writing will be more confusing or require a second read through. Its like wandering through a forest vs following a trail map. At work, writing something that needs automatically needs a second read through is a problem.
I guess i have hard time believing this culture exists the way is presented, and isn't being misinterpreted.
> It is pretty easy to read email or argument without knowing the conclusion up front.
Its not, that was the point of the thread were commenting on
> Research papers are specific writing with specific rules. I dont really think they are in general example of good or persuasive writing.
This is one example, it has rules because those are effective at communicating. How can you just write it off like that? With no reason other then you think it doesn't count?
This is a non-argument. In the US, writing is considered effective if you put the bottom line up front. GP wrote that BLUFfing is considered offensive in their culture. Now you respond that lots of people like BLUFfing.
Now you say it's not culture-dependent but a universal truth that BLUF is better.
Well, other cultures disagree.
The post that I responded to suggested having an intro with a summary of what's to follow is offensive
That argument does not make sense.
> It makes no sense for this "culture" to think less of research or any writing that intends to persuade because it starts with a introduction or summary.
And it does not make sense for you to look down at writing that puts conclusion to the end going with arguments first. It is just an habit and meaningless difference, that is all.
> This is one example, it has rules because those are effective at communicating. How can you just write it off like that? With no reason other then you think it doesn't count?
Researchers and their papers are not effective at communicating. That a thing that researches complain about periodically.
In any case, corporate mail is not research paper. Among other things, it is supposed to be significantly shorter. Just like it is not newspaper article.
Interesting book on this topic: The culture map, by Erin Meyer. (https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Map-INTL-ED-Decoding/dp/16103...)
It has a whole chapter on this topic: 3 - Why versus How, the art of persuasion in the multicultural world.
Anything you write will always have a first sentence or paragraph. Your saying it's offensive to use that to give an overview of what's to come and to set the tone of the writing?
The difference according to the book is that if you want to convice an audience of something, e.g, result of a study, americans are more interested in the results and how to apply it. Germans want to understand how you got to the results, what the process was behind it so they can understand that your results are correct.
Can I ask what culture you're referring to?
You need to learn how to restructure your writing. Most logical people naturally write in a way where it’s premise, premise, premise, conclusion. Instead, you need to write conclusion, premise, premise, premise.
One way I’ve found to help my team learn to write this way is to institute a rule that any writing longer than 3 paragraphs has to have a TL;DR at the top that is no more than 3 sentences. This gets people over the hump of putting the big ask up front and then after a few weeks, they start naturally writing that way.