2.0 Reflection on Article Writing

Preramble:?Welcome to our first reflection of the year. Where I let myself off the hook for in-depth reading, praise myself for my basic referencing skills and speak to you from the past. Who wouldn't want to read this?!

Mistakes were made

In my last reflection, I chastised myself for my lack of analytical reading.

I fully rescind this statement as I realise that my number one value in writing is transparency. Not expertise. I know that sounds suspect, but I have said it plenty, many people out there are more qualified than me to write on the topics I pen. I serve the apéritif. As such I will be stating the reading level with which I've engaged the references or further reading I suggest. This will allow you to gauge how reliable you feel my take is on the topic of an article.

The second of my mistakes was the headline of my last article: How to link industry specialists with teachers. It wasn't strictly a how-to. Instead of communicating the article's content succinctly through its headline I focused on language that might increase viewership. After looking into ways to increase viewership lately I found out 'how-to' is the most effective opener for an article...

This is fine if you have a genuine how-to article. However, shoehorning it in to get more views is disingenuous. I will still use the knowledge I have on increasing viewership, as one of my goals this year is to average 300 views per article, but I will not put this above the clarity of communication my articles should have.

Pats on the back

My references/further reading section has become more useful. I'm now consistently using the Author - Year - Title - Publisher format as well as hyperlinking these to the source. Yay me for basic referencing! To be fair as a math graduate this is still an incredibly unfamiliar practice :)

I would say my favourite of this bunch is 'How to tend to the emotional aspects of learning'. A lot of what I write is from my experience in education and ideas I or others have in improving the system. However, some of these can be lofty and as such, I don't get into the practical how-to as much. I want to do more how-to writing in the future as these can result in practical impact.

Let's Review

1. So for 2022 I missed articles for January, November and December. I didn't start until February in earnest so that explains January. In November and December, I found work to be quite stressful and my family had some personal events that needed my attention.
2. I endeavour to write 12 articles this year, 9 educational, and 3 writing reflections. In order to do this I'm actually writing a ton of articles well in advance now to account for the variability of life. An example of this variability was the birth of my second daughter in February :) Hence why at this moment in time I'm actually writing this reflection before her birth and the past tense is really throwing me through a loop! [I'm now updating it after her birth, welcome from March!]
3. I would like to know how the topic sentence structure is going for you? Please feel free to leave your responses in the comments below. The key goal of this structure is to allow you to decide if the full article is worth the read. So if you've read the topic sentences and decided not to read the article that is actually a success of the structure. By doing this I don't have to start the article with a dry summary.

Armchair Advice

I probably should have realised this one well before now. In teaching, I always had a few 'go to' lessons in a crisis that I could pull out of the bag.

Writing articles way before you intend to publish them gives you plenty of breathing room. That way you can be topical when something comes up you really want to communicate if you have the time. Whilst knowing you have an article already penned that could be used when you don't. Speaking of, keep an eye out for our AI podcast limited series:

If you're dipping your toe into article writing then I would say a few sporadic posts work well for finding your feet. But once committed it can be stressful keeping to deadlines. Build your bank.

The Last Word

I want to share my top three 2023 goals with you:

1. To expand upon a multi-reading level format for article writing that I'm working on. The topic sentence systematic method is the first step.
2. To reach a wider audience: 250 ?????? ?????????????????????? ???????? ???????? => ???????? 212 ???? ???? | > 300 views per article average => currently 250 | > 1000 ?????????????????????? ?????? ?????????????? ?????????????? => ?????????????????? 974 | | > 30% average ratio of impressions to views => currently 25.74%
3. To learn more from the newsletter's audience. This means finding ways to engage you in the comments and other avenues.

Thank you to everyone who has joined me on this journey so far. Your encouragement has greatly helped me improve my articles and I hope that has led to either entertainment or impact for the majority of readers.