Duck Alignment Academy

Embrace the non-judgmental “why?”

People don’t make bad decisions on purpose. If you understand why a decision was made in the past, you make better decisions for the future.

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Overuse of footnotes, commas, em dashes, and parentheses suggest your writing may be unclear. Keeping sentences focused helps your reader.

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A decision log is a record that you leave for the future. It shares the context to save time when revisiting a past decision.

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Choose your words carefully. You want people to discuss the facts, not the wording.

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I’ll donate $10 for every ebook sale of my book on 8 March to Girls Who Code. For the rest of March, I’ll give $5 for every paper or ebook sale.

News

If you’re not clear about who is supposed to act, people will assume that it’s not them. Be clear so everyone knows what to expect.

Resources

Start with understanding the “why?” behind what you’re trying to measure. Then figure out the measurements, knowing they’ll be imperfect.

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Your prose is not code; it will not fail because you forgot a semicolon. Prefer being understood to strict adherence to grammatical rules.

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When you document how to execute a process, that ensures you’ll do it right the next time. This helps your future self and your successors.

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Acronyms can be confusing when they’re unfamiliar to your reader. Err on the side of explaining, even if you don’t think you need to.

Resources