No More Misunderstandings: Paraphrasing – When, Why, and How | Hacker News Reader

No More Misunderstandings: Paraphrasing – When, Why, and How

smallbigideas.substack.com

117 pointsamitt30 comments

The author here seems to be using "paraphrase" to mean mean both "mirroring" (repeat back using speaker's words) and "paraphrasing" (repeat back using listener's words). I think there are contexts when each is appropriate.

For example, if I (speaker) am giving you (listener) instructions, it's good for you to paraphrase. That shows me how you are interpreting my language and that allows me to clarify. Mirroring doesn't allow for this because no new information is provided:

- Speaker: Could you sort all the files and destroy duplicates?

- Listener: You want me to put the files in alphabetical order and throw them out.

- Speaker: Yes, but by destroy I meant shred.

But there are cases where it's more important for the speaker to be understood. Perhaps they are feeling hard emotions and need to be heard, or (and I think this is the real use case for mirroring) when the speaker is still working through their feelings or thoughts on a subject. They are using speech, in a sense, to think.

- Speaker: I think it's bizarre that the PM wants to push this along so quickly.

- Listener: You think it's bizarre that the PM wants to push this along so quickly?

- Speaker: Well... not bizarre. It's just surprising because there is no external deadline for this work.

Here mirroring gives the speaker an opportunity to see how their words sound coming back to them and it gives them an opportunity to clarify and add.

> They are using speech, in a sense, to think.

Oh yes, indeed they are. I never truly understood why some people close to me would just dump random issues at me, repeatedly, and actively refuse any attempt at guiding the conversation towards a possible solution. I knew I was supposed to handle it by emphasizing and letting them vent out, but I never could quite understand the frame of mind that goes behind this talking to vent out...

...until recently, during one of such conversations, hearing about the same problem for the 10th time this month, it clicked: I realized that they're doing the exact same thing I do with "brain dump" text files - up to the same phrasing, and "melody" of speech. Those people are just unloading their train of thought to sort it out, and the listener's role is just to be there and pay attention.

(I say "those people" not as a negative, but only because I'm not like that; I think I've lost the ability to use talking to think when I learned to use a text editor for that purpose.)

Sounds like the old trick of "write down your question, and you'll probably know the answer".

I think it works because writing (or talking) engages different parts of the brain than thinking.

To paraphrase(!), in a way you're paraphrasing your thoughts when speaking. I think I do this a lot while programming, and certainly rubber ducking (or the human equivalent, a quick sanity check with a colleague) seems to be a good way to do this.

So you just dump your thoughts into a text file, and that's helps you clarify them and clean your head?

I see what you did there. ba doom cha!

Never thought of doing that in a text file - I'm gonna give that a try

If the issue is unresolved and emotional, it will be repeated.

If the issue is emotional or unresolved, it will fester.

If it's resolved, blame has been assigned.

It's how you are treated that may or may not make it worthwhile.

Verbalising a problem helps you check for assumptions. See "talk to the duck"

To avoid misunderstandings the important bit is for the listener to rephrase in their own words according to their understanding.

That's key and is what your first example illustrates.

Your second example sounds more like questioning the speaker.

Anyone remember Donald Rumsfeld's style?

He weaponized paraphrasing.

A reporter would ask "Have you contacted the tribal chiefs, to work out a plan?"

He would respond with "Have I given the enemy our strategic planning brief? Lord, no!"

> “Studies in labor-management negotiations demonstrate that the time required to reach conflict resolution is cut in half when each negotiator agrees, before responding, to accurately repeat what the previous speaker had said.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg in Nonviolent Communication.

Followed by:

> Paraphrasing minimizes misunderstandings. At the end of a conversation, you and the speaker will leave with the same interpretation, which will reduce the need for a follow-up.

"Accurately repeat" vs "Paraphrasing" – quite the contradiction there.

I'm really not a fan of paraphrasing. It shifts the burden on your counterpart to understand you accurately, and it can be annoying, even destructive of a train of thought. Practice accurate quoting and non-leading questions instead! To take this to an interesting extreme, check out Clean Language [1], a style of questioning that make it as hard as possible to insert assumptions into your questions. A blog post of mine 'My favourite Clan Language question' [2] helps explain its relevance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_language [2] https://blog.agendashift.com/2019/01/18/my-favourite-clean-l...

I kind of disagree. If I "parrot" (Accurately repeat) the original statement, it does not in any way demonstrate understanding, only memorization/note-taking.

Restating, summarizing, or paraphrasing, shows that I understand sufficiently that I can describe it in my own words rather than memorization.

Day in and day out I find that my team members who accurately repeat a statement of problem or solution, may not have a clue what it actually is. Only by asking them to summarize or paraphrase, do we both discover that there's a lack of actual, internalized understanding.

(in negotiations, discussions or conflict, it's also an opportunity to focus and agree on key points; accurately repeating may include any percentage of stylistic content)

>I kind of disagree. If I "parrot" (Accurately repeat) the original statement, it does not in any way demonstrate understanding, only memorization/note-taking.

>Restating, summarizing, or paraphrasing, shows that I understand sufficiently that I can describe it in my own words rather than memorization.

That's absolutely correct. Restating the concept(s) presented definitely provides confirmation that they have been heard and understood[0].

I'd only add that doing so may also alert the other party to a lack of understanding, requiring further discussion, which is arguably as or more useful than just assuming you are understood.

[0] See what I did there? :)

Agreed. My coworker recently shared[0] with us, which is largely jsut an expanded part of the TPS section. "Yes, I'll send over the TPS report this evening" doesn't solve the confusion around what "TPS" stands for.

If nothing else, paraphrasing helps you disambiguate term you didn't consciously recognize as ambiguous.

Maybe the other party should have used less ambiguous terms, but "well the other person caused the problem with their language choice" solves the blame, not the problem.

[0] https://m.signalvnoise.com/dont-take-their-word-for-it/

I know it may frustrate at times, but instead of relaying instruction, I ask questions and challenge assumptions, though only if any ambiguity remains. Covering it up is the worse option.

There is no contradiction between accurately repeating and paraphrasing. You can do either or both or neither. Yes, paraphrasing is dangerous in your context (repeating to a 3rd party), but it's fantastic in the quoted context (confirming understanding with the 1st party, which can not happen if you repeat using the exact same words).

Agree. Paraphrasing and mirroring are two different ways of reflecting what the speaker is saying. Some situations call for both. In imago therapy (meant for couples), the script calls first for mirroring (repeating word for word), followed by a summary (to demonstrate understanding, and to seek clarification).

I know the examples in the article are just for illustration, but man that would get annoying pretty fast - common sense scaling back would make it better, but then once again, is everyone on the same page then?

And then we have the non-verbal world, like internet forums where tremendous amounts of interpersonal communication (and misunderstanding, leading to social disharmony) take place millions (billions?) of times per day...how well does this idea realistically transfer to that medium?

You can get to a point where you don't need to paraphrase, even when clarifying important details, but that usually happens when you've worked with someone for so long that you understand the intent behind their words close to perfectly.

Resolving misunderstandings on the internet is a good question -- it should be easier given that folks can usually edit what they want to say before publishing, and readers can read and re-read what's written. The __intent to understand__ seems to be the key thing in resolving misunderstandings here, both in online and in verbal communication

> The __intent to understand__ seems to be the key thing in resolving misunderstandings here, both in online and in verbal communication

Intent to understand is but one of many possible points of failure. The world is infinitely complex, but our minds have this nice feature where they hide the vast majority of that complexity from us. The problem is though, the simplification process is vastly different for each person, not to mention they are not working from the same set of data.

So when an internet discussion takes place, particularly on special topics like politics, the odds of each person considering the topic from the same perspective (with the same desired outcomes, etc) is very low. Add on top of that the fact that most people seem to lack realtime awareness of the simplification process running in their heads, leaving each participant in the discussion with the false impression that they are talking about the(!) facts(!), when the reality is very different.

Situations like this is where some variation of the recommended approach in TFA could perhaps come in handy, but people seem to be not terribly fond of speaking precisely and accurately, especially when it comes to politics.

I think the intent to understand isn't a point of failure, but a potential solution (if it goes hand in hand with humility) to the problems you mentioned -- the one where we all come with our own programming and are all susceptible to various biases that further entrench our existing beliefs, and the one where we are unaware of this programming. Ideally we're all rationalists who can hear each other out and come to an understanding, but it's hard to think rationally about politics. (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...)

> Ideally we're all rationalists who can hear each other out and come to an understanding, but it's hard to think rationally about politics.

I wonder if it's not just hard, but maybe even damn near (cognitively) impossible to be rational about politics, and other culture war topics. It seems to do very strange things to the mind.

> Teammate: Would you mind sending over this quarter’s product roadmap?

> Me: I see, so you want me to………sorry, could you repeat that?

> Teammate: Would you mind sending over this quarter’s product roadmap?

> Me: You want me to send over this quarter’s product roadmap. Yes, will do!

If I heard this exchange out of context I would sincerely assume it was between a human and a digital assistant circa 2015.

Not surprising. When we're short on mental bandwidth or distracted, we tend to act like a computer that's run out of cycles.

https://smallbigideas.substack.com/p/understanding-bandwidth...

This is something Marshall B. Rosenberg talks about a lot in his book Nonviolent Communication (the article even contains a quote as another commenter has pointed out).

I highly recommend this book to everyone. It's a little cheesy at times and reads like a self-help book, but the content is insightful and applicable everywhere.

Some of the biggest lessons I learned about communicating are to flip the interaction, which paraphrasing does well.

If I'm struggling to communicate something, the best approach is to listen carefully, paraphrase every point, and focus on what _they_ have to say first. I can't add to someone's knowledge if I don't know what's already there.

If I'm trying to understand something, it's often a good approach to take charge of the interaction, and actively 'assemble' the knowledge in my head. I can't add to my own knowledge without connecting it to what's already there.

I also find these things are nearly impossible to do well on the internet...

@vsri, yes, exactly! Paraphrasing is stating your interpretation of what you've heard and mirroring is reflecting back exactly what the speaker said. I didn't break down the two interpretations in this post to keep it simple, but from what I've learned and read, mirroring is especially useful in more vulnerable / emotional conversations. You want to help the speaker feel seen as they are, without placing any judgment on them (and your interpretation is a form of judgment of what they're saying). Paraphrasing helps in making the speaker feel heard, but it's more useful in driving clarity.

> No More Misunderstandings: Paraphrasing – When, Why, and How

You mean, no more misunderstandings by parroting the when, why and how?

Can someone give me a TLDR?

Just kidding - though I will say this type of behavior can sometimes fall somewhere between "Tricks to Sound Smarter at Meetings" and "what gives people feelings of power", so don't misuse it or misconstrue it being used on you as solely a positive force for understanding.

Two big takeaways (see? paraphrasing!):

Your tone should convey the desire to clarify and understand what the speaker said. If you don't have this desire, don't fake it.

“Studies in labor-management negotiations demonstrate that the time required to reach conflict resolution is cut in half when each negotiator agrees, before responding, to accurately repeat what the previous speaker had said.” - Marshall B. Rosenberg in Nonviolent Communication.

My tldr Paraphrasing saves time, which people value more than money.

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