You have expert insights – the length of the article. You will improvise the podcast during office hours, debate the guest middleman of the podcast and easily add a lively debate to dinner. Maybe you even draft a book from your expert perspective that starts with a careful case starting from your expert perspective. But when do you write your own expert? This stark idea may start to feel too complicated, too transit, or to be honest – an attitude towards 800 words, targeting the average audience.
That’s not a failure; it’s the feature of your training. Academics are trained to refine the ideas of peers rather than for non-professionals. You argue carefully, if not compact. You are citing carefully, not in conversation. But writing openly requires something different – wise men illuminate complex concepts in ways that intelligent readers can follow, feel and act.
Before you spend an afternoon, turn your expert insight into an 800-word article you sell in a newspaper or magazine, prepare your tests to achieve your ideas. It won’t replace compelling writing, but it may help determine if your ideas are ready to leave the workshop room and live convincingly on the comment page.
- Who cares? This is a tricky question, but not a cynical one. Just because something you’re fascinated doesn’t mean it’s important to the wider public. This is not a judgment on your topic. Remind you to find resonance. What are the risks besides your personal experience or corners of your subject? You don’t have to write about headlines that have already dominated. In fact, if your ideas surface or provide fresh lenses, that may be exactly what public discourse needs. Urgency is not always about volume; it is usually about insight.
So ask yourself: Who else outside of academia might find your ideas clear, challenging or useful? Who would look at your own experiences differently, or see someone else’s experiences for the first time? If they read what you want to say, who might make a difference in what affects their life, work, vote, or values? If your answer is, “Well, maybe more people should care”, then you might do something. But part of your task is to show them why.
- Why now – Why always? Editor likes a good news. If your ideas are connected to a breakthrough story, gain momentum in an upcoming decision or public debate, then work hard. But run quickly. In journalism, “timely” means submitting in hours or a day or two, not weeks. If something is happening right now and you have a new angle, start writing.
Of course, not every column requires news nails. If your idea tells a lasting problem or a slow problem and explains it with clear, pressing or surprising insights that it still has a shot. Just know that in the editor’s crowded inbox, PEG can help your work stand out. “Evergreen” columns may require harder work and landing to compete.
- Can you propose a case in the second paragraph? You don’t have to fool your arguments, but you have to speed up. Public readers and their editors have strong opinions about long and slow happiness. Spoiler: They don’t like them.
Try writing a work title for your work that is less than 60 characters. Then extract your argument into one or two clear, engaging sentences – no acronym, no jargon, no “hence” or “hence”. (Also, there is no “as Foucault reminds us.”) These sentences should appear as early as the end of the second paragraph. At first, this kind of task can make people feel simpler. But simplicity is not a betrayal of complexity. This is a key tool. You won’t flatten your thoughts; you can easily find them. If your work requires a detailed footnote or literature review, it may not be (yet).
- What is AHA? Your experts should provide insights that readers have not heard many times this week. If your gain is “you heard, but quoted”, then it still needs to be sharpened. Some of the best works offer a distortion, such as unexpected data points, strange but distinct comparisons, or perspectives that flip traditional wisdom to its head. You are trying to get the clever reader to think: “I didn’t think of it.”
- Are you writing to connect or are you impressed? You are not trying to prove that you have finished reading; you are writing to help others think differently. Your expert should feel like a clever conversation about coffee, rather than a cautious explanation in the lecture hall. You don’t have to be easy or powerful (unless that’s your style), but you should sound like a real person with a unique sound. This is not for leisure. This is about readable.
If your draft feels good for peer review, try to loosen the grammar. Ask yourself: How should I treat a smart friend who doesn’t share my training? Readers want active verbs, not hedges. When you are like someone who wants to be understood (not just quoted), you don’t dilute your thoughts; you land it.
- Will readers remember tomorrow? Good specialization not only informs it, it lingers. It leaves a trace, even a small mark, on the readers’ ideas. This could come from a vivid image, a shifting phrase or a question of what they think they know. If your argument is technically justified but without a lasting impression, it is worth asking: Do I know it will stay with the reader? What will be responded to in a debate or voting booth at a dinner table in a moment of uncertainty?
If your idea for the column has been done with these six questions, then be prepared to leave the seminar room. From there it’s all about shaping the work – horizontal structure, sharpening the language and leading by your point of view. The column does not need to say all you know about the topic. It only needs to be put forward a little in a way the reader remembers.
Not every idea belongs to a column page, but you may. Ask questions, trust your intuition, and then, when you are ready, write it down, shape it and send it.
And, if you want to help more along the way, sign up for my monthly newsletter. You will notice every new article in “Public Scholars” and practical writing skills, behind-the-scenes insights from my work, and inspiration from other scholars to find their voices in public places. Your expertise is difficult. What happens if you share your knowledge more widely?
