Day job: English professor, Nonfiction writing coach; Building: Writer Science—Studying the art and science of expert writing, sharing what I learn
Busan, Republic of Korea
Joined March 2021
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Also the way 'add a slide' has a 'help me choose' section, that would be useful in the checks section too
And for the vertical flow check, I think there's something in the way I've been formatting my slides that isn't getting picked up.
Been editing this video all day and just realized I’ve got a booger hanging out.
Can Claude fix this? 😅
What a week 📈
Just crossed 5k subs on YouTube
Whatever I've achieved, I achieved through writing.
I grew up in a fishing village of 700 people. Writing was my way out.
I wrote my way into the school newspaper. Then the regional newspaper gave me a column.
I didn't have good grades, so I wrote my way into university. Wrote my way through it too.
When I got to Montreal, I didn't speak much French; so I handed out a CV that said I was an English writer. In Quebec, I would have had better chances of finding a job if I was a one-armed paperhanger. Yet somehow, I got a call back, and thus began my first job as a copywriter.
I spent my life learning the craft of writing, because I needed to. Writing wasn't just self-expression. It was a tool that bent the world to my will.
And I spent my career teaching it to people who needed it too.
Then came AI.
Everyone told me, this is it. Pack it up. Writings over. Learn to code.
My students agreed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince undergrads that it was worthwhile to write, because the classroom environment is such an artifice. In the classroom, you can't simulate the conditions that make writing matter.
This channel has been my way to connect with people who understand that writing is thinking (and AI is not).
I think it's incredible that 5,000 of you have rallied around this message. Thank you for being here.
This writing tutorial just blew up on YouTube—70k+ views in 7 days.
It features four frameworks that reflect the cognitive patterns readers use to interpret your text.
When you use consciously the patterns that readers expect intuitively, your writing becomes a lot more clear.
When you're an expert, you use writing as part of your thinking process. You're not merely transcribing thoughts you've already thought before; you're generating new knowledge.
So your thoughts, in this early phase, are a total mess.
Like a set of Christmas lights, the expert writing process begins by untangling the web of ideas in your head into a linear pattern that makes sense to the writer.
But a text that makes sense to an expert writer—one that takes the shape of their thinking—is of little use to a reader. Indeed, the patterns that experts use to think about their subject actively fight against the patterns readers use to understand.
The name of this fight is interference, and it's why experts can't write well.
Just crossed 5k subs on YouTube
Whatever I've achieved, I achieved through writing.
I grew up in a fishing village of 700 people. Writing was my way out.
I wrote my way into the school newspaper. Then the regional newspaper gave me a column.
I didn't have good grades, so I wrote my way into university. Wrote my way through it too.
When I got to Montreal, I didn't speak much French; so I handed out a CV that said I was an English writer. In Quebec, I would have had better chances of finding a job if I was a one-armed paperhanger. Yet somehow, I got a call back, and thus began my first job as a copywriter.
I spent my life learning the craft of writing, because I needed to. Writing wasn't just self-expression. It was a tool that bent the world to my will.
And I spent my career teaching it to people who needed it too.
Then came AI.
Everyone told me, this is it. Pack it up. Writings over. Learn to code.
My students agreed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince undergrads that it was worthwhile to write, because the classroom environment is such an artifice. In the classroom, you can't simulate the conditions that make writing matter.
This channel has been my way to connect with people who understand that writing is thinking (and AI is not).
I think it's incredible that 5,000 of you have rallied around this message. Thank you for being here.
Sort of, but you can’t just let the words wash over you, you need to perceive the meaning. In applied linguistics it’s know as the Input Hypothesis youtube.com/watch?v=J_EQDtpY…
