OK, before you start writing let's take a moment to talk about writing strategies. And there are two tips
that I want to give you in this lecture.
And the first step is to start with an outline.
So why do you need to start with an outline?
Now suppose, just as an analogy, that you wanted to build a house.
Let's say that you're both the architect and the construction worker who builds the house.
Then one thing he could do is take some bricks and start building the house right away. But what will
likely happen if you do that
is that later you realize that "oh" the way you started doesn't really make sense.
And things that you thought would connect in the end don't really connect and you end up with a lot
of mess that you need to correct later. And therefore the way how people start with building a house
is not by putting bricks on top of each other but by drawing a blueprint.
Right?
And it seems like an extra step but this step actually makes sure that in the end everything works out
and that you save yourself from having to correct all the mistakes you made on the way. And the same
logic applies to writing. When people start writing text right away then often what happens is that they
later realize that the way they started doesn't make sense or things don't really fit together in the
way they thought they would fit together... and they end up wasting a lot of time correcting the mistakes
they made in the beginning.
Therefore, it makes more sense to start with an outline in which you write down in simple bullet
points what points you want to make in your text and in what order.
And I will walk you through the process of creating that outline and then turning that outline into
a text in the remainder of this course.
But before we do that there is one more tip I want to give to you, which is to write first and added later.
So what do I mean by that and why is it important?
Well, one of the things that cost people a lot of time is that they get stuck in a "writer's block" where
they just stare at the screen and they don't know what to write.
And very often the reason why they get into this writer's block is because they try to achieve too many
things at the same time.
They set the bar so high that they literally paralyze themselves.
So here's a way to think about it: if you set the bar for yourself too high,
so if you try to be too perfectionistic from the very beginning, you will end up just staring at your
screen not knowing what to do.
Whereas if you allow yourself to just write down whatever comes to your mind without really being that
critical about it then at the first step you may not end up with a great result but at least it's
a result that you can achieve in one step.
And then what you can do is you can edit it to make it a little bit better. And then edit it again and
again and again until you suddenly look at your paper and think "hey this is actually a great paper". And
honestly pretty much every great writer that I've met writes in this way.
And I know that it can be difficult to accept when your first version isn't that great but I can tell
you from experience that I've written some papers where people said in the end "this is really well written"
but you would be amazed to see how crappy the first version looked.
So don't worry if your first ideas and your first writing aren't that great.
Just trust the process: write and edit, write and edit... until you have a great paper.
Okay.
So the key lessons of this lecture are: 1. Start with an outline before you write actual text.
2. Don't be too harsh on yourself at the beginning.
Write an edit and edit an edit and trust that through repeated editing you will get towards a great
paper.
All right.
That's it with this lecture and I see you in the next one.