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The Two Learning Curves First Time Writers Need to Master

Eva Keiffenheim
The Brave Writer
Published in
5 min readNov 5, 2020
Photo: Joshua Welch/Pexels

Many new writers start with an illusory superiority. Naïve as I was, I expected my first article to be a hit. Journaling, academic work, and well-rated high-school essays made me overestimate my writing ability. Together with all the other writers who start with overconfidence, I was on top of what social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger label the ‘Mount Stupid.’

According to their research, incompetent people overestimate their own competence and, failing to sense a discrepancy between their performance and what is desirable, see no need to learn or improve. New writers know so little, they fail to see what they don’t know.

“We start at a disadvantage for several reasons. One is that when we’re incompetent, we tend to overestimate our competence and see little reason to change,” cognitive researchers Roediger & McDaniel write about this phenomenon. “To become more competent, we must learn to recognize competence when we see it in others, become more accurate judges of what we ourselves know and don’t know, adopt learning strategies that get results, and find objective ways to track our progress.”

Many new writers never get to this point. They quit after the disappointment of a bad performing first article. Or they gave up because of the daunting number of skills neccessary to become a prolific writer. While overcoming the first, I almost quit because of the latter. Comparing oneself to Niklas Göke, Michael Thompson, Ali Mese, or Megan Holstein can feel demotivating.

Yet, the few new writers that move past this point embark on an exciting learning path. Writing is one of the rare professions that offer a ticket to life-long learning. Here are the two learning curves that make writing worth mastering:

Curve 1: Learning how to articulate your ideas

Writing includes much more than writing. It’s not as simple as having an idea, writing it down, publishing, and watch it reach millions of readers. New writers often fail to acknowledge the micro-steps that are neccessary to move from idea generation to a well-articulated article.

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The Brave Writer
The Brave Writer

Published in The Brave Writer

The next generation of writers breaking barriers together.

Eva Keiffenheim
Eva Keiffenheim

Written by Eva Keiffenheim

Learning expert with 5M+ reads. Committed to building a fairer future, one narrative at a time. Start writing for millions of readers http://bit.ly/learnletter

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