The Why, How, and What of Writing
A simple technique to write more effective data science articles.
You don’t become an instant top writer overnight. It takes practice. But more than that, it takes routine. When you begin to write, you typically don’t know where to start. This is true for almost every writer so don’t panic. The best and top writers, however, rely on their own little tricks to achieve effective writing — a formula of some sort. Although we may not be familiar with any of these magical writing strategies, the short formula below typically improves your writing. It has served me well for writing effective data science articles and even my machine learning research papers. This could work for other forms of writing as well. Think of this as a general formula. Here it goes!
Why
The objective of writing a piece is to get a message across, in a clear and consistent way. The first thing the reader wants to know is why this article exists? Why they are here reading and not elsewhere? You need to tell them right away by motivating the reason for the article, e.g., because you want to help them get better at writing, etc. The more specific this is the better. When you think of “Why”, think of objectives, goals, and why they are important for the reader — what is in it for them. They want to hear all the good stuff.
For example, when writing this piece I wrote a list of points I wanted to convey. They were “efficiency in writing”, “organized writing”, “consistent writing”, and “improve writing”. By establishing these broad points I wanted to convey, it helped me to stick to a few points to achieve consistency.
How
You have told your reader what they should expect and why they are here and not elsewhere. You have them hooked, they are listening. The topic should be clear by now. Now it is time to shift gears and begin to tell your readers how you plan to solve whatever issue you discovered and you wish to help them with. This defines the “How” component.
In the example above, we wanted to focus on “efficient writing”, so to answer the “How” of efficient writing, I proposed a general formula: Why, How, and What. It is the formula you are reading now. This begins to answer the “How” question. Don’t get too excited since the details are still missing. For now, the “How” helps to cement your point and adds structure to your writing. It helps to organize your thoughts and ideas. Notice that you also preserved, to some degree, the flow of the writing. It’s a formula!
What
If you have made it to this point, it proves that this formula for writing works. I use it to write my data science articles and research papers all the time. It’s a great formula to maintain rhythm in writing. But it takes a while to master!
As for the “What”, it was hidden all this while. The “What” are the extra details for each component of the formula proposed in this article. It helps to provide the reader with enough details and to give them what they want. The “What” helps achieve that reward experience. Notice that throughout this article, not only did I provide concise details for each section, I also engaged with the reader via examples. The examples are the substance, sort of like glue, sticking together all your points. It helps with the flow as well.
We don’t need another example for this section as we have come to the end of the article. On that note, an article cannot be “great” without a proper conclusion. Conclusions help to remind the reader why they came here, and why they should come here again in the future. See my conclusion below.
In this post, you learned a simple technique to write effective articles for different types of audiences: Why, How, and What. This general formula ensures that your writing remains consistent, preserve the structure of your writing, engage your reader, and converts you into a top writer. You have the keys, so now go and entertain and educate your readers.
