It is Friday, so this is a slightly longer article: as for the title, jump to the last section, or wait a couple of thousands of words.
The purpose? Describing through practical cases how writing could be used to improve the learning experience- and, on the flip side, how writing could actually obfuscate information, while formally releasing everything that is required.
The principle being: first, observe; then, judge- if you do the other way around, you risk a selective observation, and to focus only on what you already saw before, ignoring new possibilities.
This is a side-effect of acting based on experience (i.e. patterns): if the communication is structured around what sounds familiar to you, you can be easily mislead into ignoring information relevant to your decision.
