I think it’s because, if asked for one’s opinions in front of an adult audience, it’s assumed that there is a background understanding of the issue, and you have to say something new, and what you decide to say says something about you. Whereas, if you’re explaining to a child, then you know they lack most of the background understanding, and so it’s obviously good to explain that.
With adults, it’s assumed there are things that people act like “everyone knows”, where it might be considered annoying to restate them, since it’s kind of like talking down to them. Whereas, the illusion or reality that “everyone knows” is broken when explaining to children.
This doesn’t sound quite right to me.
Do you have an example where you made a mistake that would be corrected by this framing?
I suspect that the problem you are thinking of is that of never even reaching the framing “explaining and refining your opinions” and that the marginal benefit of the children book framing is small. Who is asking for you to write 1000 words of your opinion of global warming in front of an adult audience? “In front of” sounds like real time, allowing much less that 1000 words. Where did the topic come from? Probably you are expected to respond to an ongoing conversation and thus focus on details that have already been brought up, rather than start from scratch. If someone writes a blog post on global warming and you are tempted to write a response, probably it is better to direct that motivation into writing sub specie aeternitatis. But that first decision is the hard one.
Added: I expect that the marginal benefit of the child audience framing to the quality of the explanation and refining to be positive but marginal, but the benefit to motivation more promising. But it’s easier to point to an example of writing the wrong thing than an example where of writing nothing.
Do you have an example where you made a mistake that would be corrected by this framing?
Someone asked me what I thought about what happened after the American Civil War. I said, vaguely, that Abraham Lincoln was involved, and actually didn’t remember more than that (during the conversation, not later). I think other framings would have caused me to give more information.
I expect “explain and refine your opinions on topic X” to yield less information about someone’s opinions and also be less fun to read than “how would you write a children’s picture book on topic X” for myself and also most smart people. This is partially because “explain and refine your opinions on topic X” sounds like a school essay prompt, which is writing for an adult audience that is judging you.
Have you tried both prompts yourself on some topic?
This doesn’t sound quite right to me.
Do you have an example where you made a mistake that would be corrected by this framing?
I suspect that the problem you are thinking of is that of never even reaching the framing “explaining and refining your opinions” and that the marginal benefit of the children book framing is small. Who is asking for you to write 1000 words of your opinion of global warming in front of an adult audience? “In front of” sounds like real time, allowing much less that 1000 words. Where did the topic come from? Probably you are expected to respond to an ongoing conversation and thus focus on details that have already been brought up, rather than start from scratch. If someone writes a blog post on global warming and you are tempted to write a response, probably it is better to direct that motivation into writing sub specie aeternitatis. But that first decision is the hard one.
Added: I expect that the marginal benefit of the child audience framing to the quality of the explanation and refining to be positive but marginal, but the benefit to motivation more promising. But it’s easier to point to an example of writing the wrong thing than an example where of writing nothing.
Someone asked me what I thought about what happened after the American Civil War. I said, vaguely, that Abraham Lincoln was involved, and actually didn’t remember more than that (during the conversation, not later). I think other framings would have caused me to give more information.
I expect “explain and refine your opinions on topic X” to yield less information about someone’s opinions and also be less fun to read than “how would you write a children’s picture book on topic X” for myself and also most smart people. This is partially because “explain and refine your opinions on topic X” sounds like a school essay prompt, which is writing for an adult audience that is judging you.
Have you tried both prompts yourself on some topic?