Professional English is not perfect English.

Make readers care, trust, and act.

Jheng-Hong (Matt) YANG

Founder, Stencilzeit

Consulting, Engineering, and Technical Services around DataSys

ex: UWaterloo PhD · NAVER LABS Europe · TSMC R&D

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Knowledge and value

Who decides what counts as knowledge?

Old image

Knowledge as a wall

Static brick wall representing accumulated facts

Stable facts accumulate, one brick at a time. Your job is to add one more.

Professional reality

Knowledge as a community judgment

Dynamic community of readers, field beliefs, methods, and a result

A result becomes knowledge when a community sees how it changes what they can understand, predict, build, or decide.

Audience and attention

Communication is not passing out flyers.

Just distributing information

Flyers scattered toward an untargeted audience

Same message, random audience, hope someone cares.

Designing for attention

A student choosing online communication formats designed for attention

Reader, channel, timing, and format are part of the message.

Instagram TikTok YouTube Threads

Reader attention

Teachers are paid to read. Professional readers are not.

Teacher

Knows the assignment has value
Reads to evaluate your understanding
May continue even when bored

Experts

Has limited attention
Reads only if the text helps
Can stop after three sentences

The outdated reflex

Old forms create stability. Real readers search for instability signals.

Old reflex

Background → Definition → Explanation → Thesis

Useful sometimes. But it can delay the reason to care.

Professional pressure

What is unstable? Why does it matter? What changes?

The reader needs value before detail.

Why readers get lost

The text sits between two ways of seeing the world.

Chalkboard diagram showing text between the writer's write and think process and the readers' path toward the world

The practical tool

Turn information into value with four moves.

Belief

What do readers currently think, assume, use, or optimize?

Instability

What no longer fits, explains, works, or remains known?

Stakes

Why does this problem cost readers attention, time, accuracy, or opportunity?

Claim

What does your work now help readers understand, decide, or do?

Real example

Same topic. Stronger reader value.

Before: explains the area

Deep research agents solve complex information-seeking tasks through iterative retrieval, document inspection, and multi-step evidence synthesis.

Because retrieval is central, many systems rely on dense or neural retrievers, while BM25 is often treated as a weak baseline.

Do strong deep-research agents still require neural retrievers?

After: challenges an assumption

Retriever effectiveness is widely treated as the hard ceiling of information-seeking systems.

However, as LLMs become better at reasoning and tool use, systems operate through an agentic loop.

We risk overemphasizing retriever improvement while overlooking other opportunities.

Closing checklist

Before you send professional English, ask four questions.

Reader

Who decides whether this is useful?

Belief

What do they already think or expect?

Problem

What is missing, unstable, risky, or changing?

Change

What should they understand or do next?

References

References and further reading

Primary sources

VideoMcEnerney, L. (2014). Leadership Lab: The Craft of Writing Effectively. UChicago Social Sciences.youtu.be/vtIzMaLkCaM

HandoutMcEnerney, L. (2013). The Problem of the Problem. University of Chicago Writing Program, for The Ohio State University.u.osu.edu/.../UnivChic_WritingProg-1grt232.pdf

Professional English is not perfect English.

Who decides what counts as knowledge?

Knowledge as a wall

Knowledge as a community judgment

Communication is not passing out flyers.

Just distributing information

Designing for attention

Teachers are paid to read. Professional readers are not.

Teacher

Experts

Old forms create stability. Real readers search for instability signals.

Old reflex

Professional pressure

The text sits between two ways of seeing the world.

Turn information into value with four moves.

Belief

Instability

Stakes

Claim

Same topic. Stronger reader value.

Before: explains the area

After: challenges an assumption

Before you send professional English, ask four questions.

Reader

Belief

Problem

Change

References and further reading

Primary sources

Further reading