This one is going to hurt: advice to new divers

[scubagal295]

While I understand the comments that exposition would be helpful, I woudn't add too much, if any. The point is to get the new diver to ask, 'Why?', after reading the advice, and learn from the pursuit of the answer to that question, not for you to provide the detailed explanantion. The poem doesn't say. 'Don't write poetry because: 1) it is exhilirating, but 2) frustrating, 3) mind-expanding, but 4) futile, 5) poignant yet 6) pointless, 7) richly rewarding, yet 8) economically unviable, and 9) condemns the poet to a life of isolation, 10) provides notariety but 11) provokes public criticism and 12) ultimately drives one mad.' Instead, it allows the reader to infer the rewards of writing poetry, by comparison to the rewards of a variety of other pursuits, some rationale, some bizarre, some unusual, some mundane. If a new diver asks 'Why would someone say that?', and seeks out answers from other divers, from a LDS, from SB, from other resources, they will benefit greatly from the experience. Likewise, while I understand saspotato's comment, if a female diver is put off by the title, 'So what?' That is not a gender-biased comment. Rather, it appears that you are provding advice, for those who might care to consider it. If someone chooses not to consider it, so be it. If one of my daughters were to say, 'I won't read the poem because it is obviously intended only for men', I would conclude that, with that attitude, she wouldn't benefit from reading it anyway. And, if the title was changed to substitute 'women' for 'men', and my son made a similar comment, I would draw the same conclusion.

As an editor, I would suggest you continue to tweak the language, the words, the flow. Leave the exposition for others.

Oh my goodness, you must have been in my head. You said exactly the same thing I was going to! I absolutely agree on leaving the list short and sweet. IÃÎ the type of person who enjoys reading lists. I find them much easier to understand and more fun to read as you are allowed to go from topic to topic. If I find something interesting, like what is the difference between two types of fins, IÃÍl go look it up. By looking it up I'm probably going to get much more educated on the subject then I could by a sentence or two of your explanation. I find information presented this way is much more beneficial to me.
Also, being a female, I didn't give the title a second thought. I am in a program where there are 3 of us out of a group of 30 or so divers at our level. If I were to ignore or take offence to everything that was male specific, I would fail.

 

[Sas]

Also, being a female, I didn't give the title a second thought. I am in a program where there are 3 of us out of a group of 30 or so divers at our level. If I were to ignore or take offence to everything that was male specific, I would fail.

It's not offensive, that is not what I was getting at. If I saw that title I would think it irrelevant to me. There is a lot of stuff on the net about diving and often I just skim through things so would have just passed that article by normally, presuming it was advice for men. For one thing, I don't think there is a huge amount of stuff that is gender-specific in diving and if I saw an article about advice for females, I'd probably ignore that too.

 

[edasque]

Well, the title was coined from the poem by Bukowski. I thought it was funny and intriguing and I explained it in the end. Obviously, nothing I wrote was specific about any gender.

 

[Thalassamania]

Select your Open Water instructor carefully. - Yes
Forge a relationship with your Local Dive Shop - that assumes there is a shop that wants a two way relationship
Meet local divers - Yes
CyberDive a bit but not to excess - Yes
Don't rush your recreational scuba training. - But get your AOW and rescue and buoyancy training done as quickly as possible, when you finish all those you will be at about the level of an Open Water Diver from back int the day.
Forget the PADI Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving. Get a copy of the NOAA and US Navy Manuals.
Prefer paddle fins to split fins. - Yes
Learn the Frog Kick - No ... from the get go but don't forget to develop a strong flutter kick, you are going to need it the first time you have to make a mad dash through heavy breaking surf.
Focus on Buoyancy and Finning. - Yes
Do not get into the water without dive insurance. DAN comes to mind. - Maybe
Learn to plan a dive and dive your plan - Yes

 

[Diver0001]

I'm sorry, I have to break with the heard on this.

I'm not a fan of sites where people present opinion and facts all mixed together without supporting things with reasoning.

I think your site would be a lot better if you wrote down "these are my top 12 opinions" and then lead the reader through your logic to reaching that opinion.

That would be thinking divers.

Otherwise what you're giving your readers is yet-another-list-of-opinions that they won't be able learn anything from.

I'll give you a concrete example of what I mean. Take the opinion about paddle fins. Fortunately you indicated that it was an opinion. But the reader doesn't know if you've ever even *tried* split fins or if you just don't like them for some other reason. Perhaps you're DIR and you're not allowed to like split fins for religious reasons..... When I read things like this I always think to myself "here is yet another 'gear guru' advising against buying gear they don't own and has probably never tried".

I know that sounds harsh but in 99% of cases, when someone says "split fins suck" you can guarantee that they don't own split fins so you can also guarantee that they don't know what they're talking about. The same can be said of all similar bits of advice.

If that's not the case, then you should outline your experiences with split fins and with paddle fins, make some kind of comparison based on your experiences in different environments and lead the reader through why you settled on paddle fins as your choice. Doing *that* would be helpful to someone reading it. If it turns out that you just don't like split fins because they look funny (or for whatever reason) then maybe it would be best to look for another opinion where you have the experience to back it up....

Obviously I know nothing about your experience so I'm not saying that you *don't* have a reason to say some of the things you say but I'm trying to give you a way to think about how to think about it....

Good luck.

R..

 

[edasque]

I understand your opinion. It wasn't the point of the article though. It was to be a list of what I think are good advice. Yes, I don't justify them but when you give advice to someone, sometimes you don't. This is what my opinion is, what my experience taught me.

You'll see that on thinkingdiver's other articles, we write in depth and justify our thought process. It's not the case on this article, different philosophy as remarked on by previous posters here.

 

[boulderjohn]

This is just a general comment I would make to anyone who is presenting unsolicited advice to new divers.

I have developed a lot of personal preferences over the years, but I am also fully aware that people who are at least as qualified as I (and in some cases much more qualified) have different opinions. I therefore hesitate to push my opinions on others without making it very clear that others legitimately disagree.

Let's talk about BCD's as an example. In any given year, I will use a jacket, a back inflate, and a backplate and wing with pretty good frequency each. (I can explain why, but that is not the point of this message.) I prefer either a back inflate or backlate and wing over a jacket, but I know expert divers with thousands of logged dives who prefer jackets. I have seen thousands of divers in resorts from Thailand to the Caribbean over the years (check my profile to see where). My guess is that 98% of them were wearing jackets. Nearly 2% were wearing back inflates. In those resort areas , I have seen fewer than 10 divers total in BP/W's, and most of them were people I hooked up with ahead of time through ScubaBoard.

I would therefore hesitate to promote my BCD preference to new divers without trying to give a fully objective explanation. I would hesitate to imply in any way that it is wrong to dive with equipment different from mine, since a lot of people seem to be getting along just fine the way they are.

The same can be said of all kinds of diving-related options.

There are things we can talk about for certainty, like the importance of buoyancy control and certain safety issues. There are others that are purely personal preference, and it is best that students know that.