Good writing and good teaching

Published: Fri May 15 2026
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Good writing is achieved after many iterations of creation and revision. Especially for those of us who are far from being proficient writers.

Revision is key. You must read your text like a random member from your audience would. That means setting aside your own knowledge while trying to build a mental model based solely on what the text has revealed so far.

But it's hard to ignore what you know. This is one reason why achieving good writing is difficult. It's also the reason why teaching is hard: the curse of knowledge.

But now I see that's an obvious realization. Of course. Both writing and teaching are forms of communication. And all communication relies on the use of shared concepts. As an author, you aim to form a new concept in your audience's minds based on simpler concepts that you both understand. And those new concepts will be the basis for others, more complex. This is how knowledge expands, like a growing tree (an acyclic graph, to be precise).

A clear conclusion follows: If you know something your audience ignores AND you want them to understand it, you must find shared concepts. You must know their goals, mental models, biases. You need empathy. Those are the tools for building their new understanding.