Comment by 1024core
7 years ago
Author mentions "axial precession" repeatedly without explaining it. 2/3 of the way down comes this gem:
> it is worth explaining what exactly axial precession is.
This kind of writing just irritates me.
7 years ago
Author mentions "axial precession" repeatedly without explaining it. 2/3 of the way down comes this gem:
> it is worth explaining what exactly axial precession is.
This kind of writing just irritates me.
Perhaps that should have been defined earlier, but I enjoyed the article.
I think it is ok. It is a kind of suspense.
i'm bothered a bit by the fact that in the cartoon animation the earth appears to rotate only two or three times during an entire 25,000+ year axial precession cycle.
I didn't know about axial precession and that visualization was what made it clear for me. Literally a picture that is worth hundreds, if not thousands, of words.
It’s a bit like a camera capturing the wheel of a fast moving car such that it appears to be rotating very slowly.
Those of us who have known about axial precession for decades don't need to see it redefined in every article. ELI5 gets old after a while.
Right, but if the author thinks it needs to be explained, based on the audience, then it should be explained before it is referred to.
After learning more about how to write well for your audience I've become more forgiving for this kind of thing. Writing well involves a lot of tradeoffs.
The article is more of a story and explaining axial precession distracts from that story. It is better suited explained later in amongst the rest of the diagrams and illustrations.
The problem then is how do you tell your story and include axial precession?
For readers like me who already know the term and sort of grok the concept we don't need early explaining. What I did need is the later graphic / explaining once the author started to link the concept in with other concepts not discussed until later.
So either follow the rigid explain first rule or have it clustered where it is relevant and useful.
Im not particularly going to judge either way there.
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