Welcome to Medium
You may be wondering why you’re here. You’ve been instructed to create a profile on a site you’ve (likely) never heard of, (likely) never used, and (likely) don’t care about. Yet.
But trust me on this. Medium is a site you’ll tell others about, use profusely, and care deeply about. Why? Because Medium will help you, as a student entering university, learn to read and write.
Now, before you get angry and assert that you already know how to both read and write, let me explain. You’re enrolled in my INTD class, so you’re obviously a smart individual. No one would question that. And the fact that you just finished reading the previous sentence guarantees that you’ve read material before, so there’s no doubting that either. And finally, while I’ve likely never read anything you’ve written, I’m willing to bet at least one email, text, tweet, or status update has been created by your dexterous little fingers.
So if you already know how to read and write, how can this website help? In two ways:
First, Medium will help you produce better content
We’ve already established that you’ve (more than likely) written material before. Without knowing you all that well, I’m going to guess though that the content you’ve produced has been mostly directed towards friends you’re connected with through social media. I could be wrong (it’s happened before) but I’m also going to guess that you haven’t written very much for anonymous people. That will change through Medium.
On Medium, you’ll be tasked with posting at least one article about a topic you’ve conducted research on. You’ll also need to use ‘tags’ to label the content in ways that direct interested parties toward it and help them find what you have to say. Tags will connect your article on a given topic to all the other articles written about that same topic. Knowing this in advance — and the fact that your article will be publicly visible to everyone on this site — will help you get comfortable producing content for anonymous people who are interested in what you have to say.
That’s fundamentally different than writing either informally for emails and social media or formally for high school papers and cover letters. So while you’ve most likely written for people in the past, this may be the first time you’ll write for people who a) don’t know you personally; but b) care (and sometimes very deeply) about the topic you’re writing about. This is incredibly important: you’ll need to think in advance about your audience, about the content that already exists on a given topic, and how your opinions/values/beliefs contribute to the dialogue.
I promise, being able to tailor content to specific audiences is something you’ll take with you throughout university and into the wider world. As a skill, you could even add that to a résumé.
Second, Medium will help you read better content
This is technically true — there’s a lot of really great content on Medium and I encourage you to find it by following people, publications, and topics — but far more important is the fact that Medium will help you develop your skills as a reader. This sounds silly, I know, because we’ve already established that you know how to read.
What I mean is this: through this Inquiry course, you’ll develop the skills needed to critically and thoughtfully engage written content. That’s different from passively moving your eyes from left to right and taking in the words on a page. In this course you’ll learn how to tell when someone’s being thoughtful and sincere, when they’re being narrow and biased, when they’re being informed and informative, and everything else in between. That’s fundamentally what this course is designed to do. Medium is simply the playground we’ll use to flex our critical reading and writing muscles.
For instance, sometimes you’ll come across a wonderfully written article that reflects your opinions perfectly and you’ll want to recommend the story to others. Sometimes, you’ll want to go further and add your voice to the discussion by contributing a story, experience, or thought to further the dialogue. Or, sometimes, you’ll be so taken aback by the brashness, the audacity, the nerve of the author that you’ll feel an undesirable urge to craft a response that’s deeply critical of their position and all the really important stuff that it overlooks.
In any case, you’ll have the opportunity to do that here.
So, how exactly do you do it?
Getting Started on Medium
There are a series of wonderful posts that will help you set up your profile, source content you’re interested in, and write thoughtful articles.
I would start by reading through this excellent guide, written specifically for people in a university setting. For the short and sweet:
Sign up for an account, either using Facebook, Twitter, or email
Read!
Write!
Up the ante on your posts with these handy tips and tactics
For additional help on all things Medium, check out their FAQs, Help Center, or drop me a line.
