Have the courage to express your opinions and make your articles loud and clear

The trouble with writing partners

I remember one night, I happened to meet a friend of “Vista Writing Companionship Program” online. On a whim, I chatted with her on LINE and asked about her current situation and study progress.

This friend told me that she wanted to write some professional articles related to work, but her writing progress was very slow.

I asked her: “Where is it stuck?”

She told me that she wanted to refer to some foreign marketing trends and cases, and then sort out her own opinions, and then write a blog article to share with everyone. However, after several attempts, I found that this requires more time to prepare… Let alone writing an article within half an hour, it may take several times the time and it is not enough!

Well, that does sound quite distressing!

I continued to ask: “So, your problem is that your data collection speed is too slow? Or does it take too long to interpret this foreign information? Or after reading these professional information in foreign languages, it takes a long time to convert it into your own articles?”

These three writing problems are indeed very common, but there are ways to overcome them! Therefore, I must first figure out where this partner encounters a bottleneck before I can prescribe the right medicine…

She thought for a while before answering me: “It’s mainly about interpreting information and converting it into your own ideas. These two parts are the easiest to get stuck on.”

She also mentioned: “I feel that I am not confident enough to express my own [viewpoint] bravely (https://www.writing.cool/2020/02/viewpoint.html).”

Listening to this colleague talk about the bottlenecks he encountered in content production, it reminded me of the days when I was still working in the media many years ago. For a long time, I had to get up early every morning to read foreign news, and then write five reports in one go before picking up my backpack and taking the bus to work.

It is conceivable that if my hands and feet are not fast enough, five articles may take a long time to write!

Some friends have heard me talk about this past event, and their first reaction was: “What? Five articles!” Yes, it is a bit overwhelming to write five articles in just two hours, and it is still a routine job day after day.

Recalling this past event, I am actually very grateful for the training the company gave me at that time. It not only cultivated my ability to read a lot and write quickly, but also allowed me to establish an effective framework and routine for content production.

Going back to the problem our partner encountered, it seems that collecting information is not difficult for her. The problem is how to interpret the information in these professional articles, which may take a lot of effort! A more severe test is yet to come. After mastering the opinions of foreign experts, how can we cultivate our own opinions and insights? How to write it down and turn it into a powerful article?

Method to dismantle the article structure

If you have similar troubles, I would suggest that when reading professional articles, you should not just read them word for word, but also be able to dismantle the structure of the entire article and read between the lines to deduce the author’s true intention in writing the article.

For example, I often watch Neil. Badel Article written by Neil Patel, an Indian-American. Although he is young, only in his early thirties, he is already a top expert in the fields of SEO and digital marketing. Taking his recent article “How to Think About SEO” as an example, the focus of the discussion is to teach everyone how to think and practice search engine optimization.

If you only spend five to ten minutes reading it briefly, you may only pay attention to some SEO tips he introduced, but if you can carefully dismantle the structure of his article, I believe you can get more inspiration. For example: his way of subscribing, the way he builds knowledge points, the way he promotes his own services…etc., they are all worth observing and learning.

Be brave enough to express your opinions

After talking about how to interpret information, let me talk about how to write your own opinions?

My Facebook friend, who is also a professor at National Taiwan University [Ye Bingcheng] (https://www.facebook.com/pcyeh.NTU?utm_campaign=Vstar&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter) once mentioned: “[The value of composition](https:/ /newtalk.tw/news/view/2019-01-28/200773?utm_campaign=Vstar&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter) is that everyone can think freely and express freely… If you can have your own opinions and make sense, it is a good article. ”

Many people don’t know how to write their opinions, but that’s not the case. Based on my observations of teaching [Copywriting Course] (https://www.writing.vc/) for many years, the crux of most people’s problems is not that they “don’t know how to write their thoughts”, but that they “don’t have the confidence to express their opinions.”

This is also what our “Vista Writing Companion Program” partner mentioned: “I feel that I am not confident enough to express my own opinions bravely.”

In fact, since you are talking about your own opinions, you don’t have to worry too much about right or wrong. There are no standard answers to many things, and it is difficult for us to directly determine whose problem this incident must be - but if you can make sense, just express your opinion.

Someone once asked me: “Teacher, what should I do if the article I wrote is not comprehensive enough?” Well, if I really made a mistake or expressed it incompletely, there is no need to worry too much! As long as we can bravely apologize and correct our remarks or articles as soon as possible, it will be fine.

Expressing your opinions is really important and not as difficult as you think. Just like Professor Ye Bingcheng said, if you can explain some truth, it is a good article.

Previously, I helped my colleagues from the Tainan City Government hold a writing class called “You Can Write When You Come”. As a writing coach, I naturally hope that every student can “write as soon as they come in”! But I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage friends who read this article to “just write”!

Let’s work hard together on the road of writing!

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