3.1 Reflection on Article Writing

??????????????????: For Northern hemisphere schools we embark on a new academic year. For Southern hemisphere we march towards the end of one. Having taught in only Northern hemisphere calendars I always find August a good time to reflect. It's NH teachers' New Years resolution time as it were. So it's apt my writing reflection should fall in this month.

Learnings

• (For a summary read the topic sentences of each paragraph - a 1-minute read) at the top of my articles isn't adding value. I've seen other Newsletter writers make great use of emboldening their work to expedite reading for those in a rush e.g. The Disruption Advisor. It is much more effective for me to read. Besides, the article linked is great for getting into the different reading levels, but reading the topic sentences is just how most people skim read. At this point, its addition is bordering on patronising.
• My polls have been going well in some aspects and not in others. One poll I wrote I'd like dearly to blame on sleep deprivation given how trivial the options were that I offered you. But alas it was probably a genuine mistake. I endeavour to give you consistently more insightful polls going forward.
• Hyperlinks! The last article I published had the wrong hyperlink where the poll should be. As a result we only got 2 responses for it. Kicking myself for this one since I've already learned this lesson and had hyperlink checking in my editing process. However I now schedule these articles in advance and only put the polls out a week beforehand. So if I've written the piece before the poll goes out, which is always the case, I must remember to edit the hyperlink afterwards. Will think on a system to help with this.

Pats on the Back

I'm going to say perseverance. Learning isn't linear, and I begrudge this fact at times. In an abstract setting this frustration is actually addictive for me and drives my curiosity. However in project based learning with a tangible outcome it can be just as it is, frustrating. I believe meeting this frustration is a valuable practise for me.

Let's Review

I have more subscribers! ... but less impressions and less article views.

Hypotheses & Questions

Less impressions means I'm not turning up in people's feeds. I always thought the algorithm favoured articles that have more interaction, but some of my highest interactive articles have the lowest impressions. So what unlocks higher impression rates on LinkedIn?

Subscribers are being drawn in by activity outside of my newsletter, then once subscribed don't read the articles...I'm guilty of this one myself for others' newsletters. Wait, come to think of it, I don't get notified of the newsletters I'm subscribed to when new articles come out. Is this happening to you for Edu??criptive?

My articles have less views simply because they're on topics no one wants to read about. In which case I need to understand better what it is you're interested in.

Poll Results

Caveat: These results are statistically insignificant and merely serve as a thought provocation.

Goal Monitoring

Armchair Advice

I have none this time. And it would be disingenuous to fabricate some.

The Last Word

As ever thank you for your time. Unfortunately you may only appear to me as a number in my data if we haven't interacted through comments or elsewhere. But being a previous math teacher, and dedicated to this newsletter, even as a number, you hold more value to me than your numerical quantity...so go forth and exponentiate...sorry, couldn't help it!