Writing is personal
The following blog post was written with Kelly Shen and was borne out of many conversations over the years discussing how best to support one another in our work and how best to mentor our students.
Have you ever been reading some critical—but valuable—feedback on a piece of your writing and suddenly felt your total self-worth and last shred of confidence go flying out the window? You’re not alone in feeling this way. One of the many reasons people struggle with writing is because it is such a deeply personal act. When an audience judges your writing, it can feel like they are really judging you. But, reading is a personal act as well. Understanding how your writing will have a personal impact on your reader can help you become a better writer.
Writing is how we express our knowledge and share our ideas and new theories. So when a piece of writing isn’t well received by your audience, it’s easy to start thinking that your ideas are bad, or even worse, that you’re not good enough to be in academia in the first place. But, your reader’s negative response to your writing isn’t necessarily about your ideas, and it’s almost certainly not about you. Instead, a reader’s negative reaction likely has more to do with how you have communicated your ideas through your writing.
If you find yourself thinking, “it’s not MY fault; they just didn’t get it”, the reality is, you are the one who doesn’t get it. Great ideas can quickly get buried by poor grammar, ineffective structure, or unclear logic. For instance, if you’re putting clauses in the wrong spots in a sentence, you are making it harder for your reader to understand your meaning. Even if they can sort it out on their own—say, by using context to unpack which object you are actually intending to modify—the effort required to understand the meaning of the passage might be unnecessarily high. Likewise, if you jump back-and-forth between topics, or if you assume your reader knows more than they do and leave out critical information, you’re asking the reader to do too much of the work to understand what you are trying to convey. When the act of reading becomes too effortful for too long, your audience will start to lose interest, or worse, they will become frustrated. These feelings will then be translated into “I didn’t like this”.
The good news is that writing is a skill. And like other skills, your writing can be improved. But it requires empathy. For yourself and for your reader.
First, give yourself empathy by recognizing that writing is not a measure of self-worth, nor of intelligence. Writing is challenging because you are trying to assign words to your thoughts. Some people think in words, but other people think in pictures, or in abstract concepts. This translation from thoughts to words can take time and multiple iterations. Consequently, your first draft may be a stinker. That’s ok; that’s even expected. Use your early drafts for idea generation (what I like to call a ‘brain dump’), and edit later so that you don’t inadvertently restrict the flow of ideas just because the sentence constructions aren’t yet perfect.
Practice empathy for your reader by asking yourself, what does my reader need to know, and in what order? Writing isn’t just self-expression; your reader should be top of mind. Think of writing as conversation between you and your reader as if they were in the room with you. In fact, giving a presentation to an audience before you begin writing can be helpful in structuring the logic flow for maximum understanding, as you may tend to keep your audience at the forefront of your process more naturally when you prepare a presentation as compared to writing a manuscript. Tuning into the non-verbal behavior of your audience (i.e., a furrowed brow, a frown) can tell where your narrative needs work—maybe you needed to define a concept earlier, maybe you needed to provide more background on the method, or maybe your hypotheses weren’t clear. With this feedback in mind, how might you best structure your writing? Your writing can further improve by asking your colleagues to review your work and embracing their feedback. Engage in a dialogue with them that is centered on their reading experience—what parts did they enjoy and why? What sections did they not like, and what were they thinking and feeling in those moments? Remember, reading is personal too. Use your peers’ personal insights to apply focus to your revisions.
Writing is a deeply personal act, but a piece of writing is not a reflection of your value—nor is it ever just about you. At its core, writing is about connection. It creates a link between you and your audience, and it is a tool that can spark insight, shape conversations, and spur action. When you shift your focus to your reader’s needs, your writing will become clearer and more impactful.
If you’re struggling with your writing, I’d love to help. Let’s get on a call and chat about how coaching can help support your writing and academic success!
Next week: Seeking external validation will eventually make you miserable
