To commence a smooth writing process, it’s crucial to clarify the importance of writing to yourself and to dispel any inhibiting doubts. Let’s look at the main questions beginners often have. After that, it will be easier for you to systematically write and publish your posts.
Major misconceptions
- Overcoming the “I Have Nothing to Write” block. The most common opinion among beginners is “I have nothing to write” or “I have no ideas, so I don’t write.” This is not always true. This statement confuses cause and effect. Writing is not a process of simply transferring pre-existing thoughts onto the page. It’s an act of creating meaning through the formation of sentences. With the help of text you formulate and/or create these meanings. Therefore, until you start writing, of course, there will be nothing to write. At the same time, starting from scratch is not effective. It is more practical to work with your notes, thoughts that you wrote down earlier. Thinking through writing as a tool for thought starts with reading. This involves taking notes and capturing your personal insights, rather than solely seeking to discover novel ideas for the public. The practice is especially useful when you are studying, systematizing your knowledge or understanding a complex problem, when you need to form new meanings and thoughts in your head. This mode of operation of the brain is different from the situation when you write a detailed message to a friend how to get to your house. Like a journalist making a report, in this case the brain doesn’t think (in the meaning we have accepted), it gives a commentary on an already known event or situation.
- Reflection Through Writing: Invigorate Your Learning. The second most common misconception is that everything has already been written and “I will not say anything new”. You don’t have to say or prove anything to anyone. The role of a writing thinker is different from that of a blogger or journalist. The thinker through writing writes for himself, first of all. And the ability to write like a blogger or a journalist or a novelist is a completely different skill, in the process of learning new knowledge, it is not very important. Reflecting on the knowledge gained through writing is crucial in your learning process as a student. Your writing should be focused on forming your own thoughts and opinions on the topic at hand, rather than trying to imitate the style of a blogger or journalist. What really matters is the time and effort you put into reflecting and the number of posts you publish, as this will lead to a gradual improvement in the quality of your mastery in fields such as engineering, IT, or management. While writing blog posts may be your ultimate goal, the key to success is first practicing your writing skills through student posts. This will help you develop your own unique voice and content.
- Stop Delaying and Start Writing Today. The third problem is the tendency to delay posting. Often students say they haven’t studied the practice yet, haven’t read Ayrens’ book, or haven’t fully understood what scratch notes are. Therefore, they constantly delay the publication of the post. There is no need to delay the publication, it is important to publish a post immediately in the first week. Let this be the simplest and shortest post. You will see that nothing bad will happen.
- Taking the Risk: The Benefits of Publishing Posts Immediately. Another problem is when a student says that he writes only for himself and doesn’t want to publish a post. Even though writing for oneself is fine, it lacks the drive for improvement. As Naseem Taleb says, there can be no progress without taking a risk or “skin in the game”. This means that you’ll progress faster if you’re willing to put your post out there.
Few tips to help you take the first step and start writing student posts:
- Write only on the basis of previously written notes that you made while reading the textbook. Don’t try to write student posts from scratch!
- Use the practice of timeboxing when writing at least the first three posts: parsing notes based on the results of reading and determining a possible topic for the post (30 minutes); drawing up the structure of a future post (20 minutes); direct writing of the post (60 minutes); editing and publishing (30 minutes). Try to do this job for 2–3 hours. At the end of this time, you should have a post published!
- Don’t try to benefit others with your student posts, don’t seek to follow the recommendations of professional authors and editors that the text should be useful to the reader. The main reader is you and all your attention in the first posts should be directed to your thoughts, and “let the whole world wait”. Don’t try to rate your first posts, just post them in your first week of training in Aisystant educational program.
Use these guidelines to write and publish posts. Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.