How To Write Like You Know What You’re Talking About
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
I’m going to start this post by revealing a dirty little secret about professional writers, although I don’t know how “secret” this is. Almost none of us are subject matter experts in the lion’s share of topics we write about. Most of the time, on most topics, I feel like I’m faking it
But that’s perhaps not quite fair to me and to other people in my position. For one thing, with most of the client work I do, I’m not writing under my own name. Most of the tech writing I do is actually ghost written, with a person who is an actual authority on the subject in question credited as author. And when I am writing under my own name about subjects I know little to nothing about, I’m always sure to quote people who are experts on the subject, as I do for my work for Covenant Health and others. In all cases, I’m not actually pretending to be an expert.
I was recently tasked with writing a blog post on the subject of expertise. I felt particularly out of my depth on this one, as I’ve never truly felt like an expert on anything. In the past, I’ve been a travel writer, a business writer, and a writer on legal topics, and now I focus largely on technology, and am an expert on exactly none of these topics. Even when it comes to writing about the craft of writing itself, like I do on this blog, I don’t really feel like an expert, as I’m not a grammarian or a professor of creative writing or any other authority figure. I’m just a journeyman wordsmith trying to figure stuff out as I go along.
Still, it pays to be able to write with authority on subjects on which you’re not an authority. For this, solid writing chops combined with a cursory, Wikipedia-esque knowledge of your subject matter can stretch a long way.
Wikipedia Is Your Friend
I’m one of those weirdos who reads Wikipedia for fun. Much of the time, this is on subjects I’m personally interested, like ancient history, linguistics, and cosmology, but I also spend a lot of spare moments reading up on subjects I’m currently engaged with at work. While I realize I’ll never rise to the ranks of subject matter expert on a subject like web development, I still endeavour to know more than the average person who isn’t a developer. Same with the medical topics I write about. I’ll never be a physician or a nurse practitioner, but I can still know more about a subject than most people.
This is where the Wikipedia rabbit hole can be very helpful. When I start reading a Wikipedia article on, say, a tech topic, I’m usually only a few words in before I bump into a term I’ve never heard before, or that I’ve heard before but don’t know what it means. Fortunately, that term will probably be linked to another page, so I follow that, and then the same thing invariably happens. Eventually I will get to the point where I arrive at terminology that I already have a grasp of and I can back-track my way through the pages, ultimately getting back to where I started, and the process begins again.
Of course, Wikipedia rabbit holes can easily get off-topic very quickly. I myself am prone starting out reading a page on static web pages and within a few clicks find myself reading about, say, Vajrayana Buddhism or the economy of Greenland. Everything interests me, and this can be a problem. But with enough focus, a deep dive into Wikipedialand is a great way to cultivate a surface-level knowledge of a topic, and in particular its vernacular. Wikipedia is an unparalleled repository of content written by subject matter experts, which is exactly what you want.
So Is ChatGPT.
AI has a long way to go before it is able to produce a blog post that isn’t mind-numbingly generic. Any time I’ve asked ChatGPT to write a blog post on Subject X, it’s given me practically the same post in terms of style and structure, with only the topic changed. Still, though, I marvel at the fact that we now have technology that can generate a blog post on most subjects in a matter of seconds. When I tell prospective clients that I’m a “fast writer,” I now have to qualify that with the words “for a human being.”
After you’ve done your Wikipedia plunge, it’s then time to ask ChatGPT to write a blog post/white paper/case study/web page/essay on whatever subject you’ve been tasked with writing about. If you can more or less understand what the AI generates, you’re ready to move on to the next step of this process, which is talking to an actual human subject matter expert. If not, it’s time to go back to Wikipedia or whatever other knowledge source you’re relying on. Repeat this process until you basically get it.
Talk to an Actual Human Being.
While Wikipedia and ChatGPT are immensely useful tools in this process, it would be very unwise to attempt to write something destined for public consumption without speaking to at least one actual human subject matter expert. Depending on the complexity of the subject matter or the length and depth of the piece of writing, you’ll likely want to talk to more than one person. Perspectives on any given subject vary, and you want as broad a perspective as you can in order to offer a fresh take on something.
Picking people’s brains is easier now than it’s ever been. Thanks to AI transcription tools, you no longer have to take your own meeting notes if you’re on Zoom, Teams, or whatnot. That said, it still pays to figure out your questions beforehand and proceed in some sort of logical order, or else you’ll be combing your 19-page transcript for the relevant nuggets of information for ages only to realize there were a bunch of things you forgot to ask about. Also, be sure you save your transcript somewhere where you’ll find it. I’ve lost meeting notes before, and it’s very frustrating to all involved to have to redo a conversation like this.
Of course, not all subject matter experts are created equally. Some are better at explaining difficult concepts than others. If I can be forgiven for using gender stereotypes, I’m usually more inclined to go with a female subject matter expert than a male one (ESPECIALLY in the tech world) because I find women are generally better at communicating concepts in clear, plain language without resorting to industry jargon. Of course, this isn’t always the case, and when you work with a client long enough, you’ll get to know who the best brains are to pick on various subjects.
The other crucial reason for involving subject matter experts in this process is to have somebody you can run your finished written product past to make sure it actually makes sense. In my work for technology clients, this is absolutely essential, as a single wrong word or mistyped line of code can completely derail whatever it is I’m trying to write. If you’re able to, it’s beneficial to run what you’ve written past at least one of the people you spoke to before as well as somebody else who knows the subject matter but wasn’t involved in your prep.
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the blog posts I write for clients are ghost-written, with an actual subject matter expert credited as author. In such cases, it’s especially important to work closely with the credited author to ensure you capture their voice as well as the information they’re seeking to communicate. I quite enjoy the ghostwriting process, as it feels kind of like I’m playing a character and experimenting with different voices. In this, and in any capacity where you’re distilling complex information into plain language, it pays to be a good listener and a good asker of questions.
Don’t Panic!
None of what I’ve described here is tantamount to cheating. Being a writer is its own profession, and for most writers, writing about anything other than writing itself invariably involves venturing outside your domain of expertise. Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman who never served in the military or in intelligence services before producing The Hunt for Red October and building a career writing about these topics. J.K. Rowling was a researcher and secretary for Amnesty International when she dreamed up the Harry Potter universe. We all start somewhere.
If you’re good at writing and doing research and fastidious in your fact-checking, you can write about just about anything. And as with learning languages, the more different subject matters you’ve delved into and written about, the easier it becomes to take on something new. After two years and a bit writing about the Drupal content management system, I would still be useless at writing code for it, but I can now readily talk about the system in a way that makes sense to both developers and lay people who just want a functional website. It doesn’t take that long to get there.
Of course, as a writer it pays to develop relative expertise in certain subjects, especially ones that are a) interesting to you and b) of value to the general public. If for no other reason, it seems like a waste to do all that research into a topic that you’re never going to write about ever again. Having written extensively on content management systems and palliative care, I’ve become known as a relative expert (well informed for a non-expert) on these topics and naturally attract more work related to them. It makes sense to seek out certain lanes and stick to them.
Then again, most writers will at some point be called upon to write something on a topic they never would have imagined writing about before and probably never will again. This has certainly happened to me a handful of times. If this happens to you, there’s no need to panic—just follow the steps I describe here, and you’ll be fine.
Got a topic that needs writing about? Wanna throw a monkey wrench in my professional life? Contact me today and try me. Seriously. I’m up for it!
