Writing about writing
How reflection in-action works for my posts.
Reflect the writing of one of your posts in-action. That was the task I got assigned in my “content strategy” master study programme at FH Joanneum. I have to admit, I felt a bit uncomfortable with it at the beginning. What’s the benefit for everyone except my university teacher (sorry jupidu, please read further, there is light at the end of the tunnel 😉) reading about it? And I have to admit, in my jobs as a journalist and content creator it was more about delivering lots of content in a quick amount of time. Reflection wasn’t really a thing during my tough, deadline-filled days.
Reflection as major part of the daily work
However, for my university task I read further about the reflection-in-action method introduced in Jutta Pauschwein’s post. She refers to Donald Schön and his book “The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action” and how she applied his principles for her own work. That made sense to me and I began to see some benefits for me and my work of writing.
So, what is reflection in action according to Schön? The reflective practitioner solves problems in his work by an exploratory approach. He uses role models and dignity that he has in his own practice or by learning from other clues. He comes to a result in which he recognizes a situation as something, also e.g. as something related to another situation.
Why do I write what I write?
So, when I wrote my latest blog post, I was reflecting my work while doing it. Why do I cover this topic? And why do I choose this headline, start with this word? I asked myself many questions for reflection. What came out of it? I got a clearer understanding why I choose certain topics:
1. They should have a clear value
I have to admit, I began to write my blog posts here on Medium because I have to during my studies. However, I never wanted to write some crap which isn’t interesting or useful to anyone. I’ve been working many years as a journalist and my main goal was that my articles are read by many people, because they deliver an unique information value to them. When writing something — no matter what — I always have that in mind.
Were my posts useful for you so far? I’d be happy if you let me no in the comments, if I’ve reached my goal also here on Medium.
2. They should invite you to read them
Thinking about the actual topic and the structure of the article is what takes most of the time for me. When the concept is clear, the writing itself is the quickest part. When it comes to writing, I also check afterwards if tone and language are easy and enjoyable to read. And: headlines have to be catchy and inviting to read further, of course. However, as I mentioned before they are still a promise to the reader — I’m convinced that catchy and being a promise don’t exclude each other.
3. It should reflect the subjects that matter in my job
In my blog posts I should write about something related to my studies. That’s not really a big deal for me as I started the master programme to gain some valuable knowledge for my work. When it comes to writing blog posts, I also filter the most important aspects of a topic for my work as a journalist or content creator. I try to bring in own experiences as I’m always interested in an active exchange with people working in the same fields. That’s also the reason why I never really hated writing a new post for my studies. Yeah, I admit knowing that I have to write something now didn’t make me look forward to that. But after I thought about which aspect of the subject can be beneficial for my own work, I enjoyed writing the posts.
And in the end, I have to admit that I pretty liked writing this reflection in-action. I made clear to me why my Medium posts look the way they look — which gave me valuable insights about my daily work in writing and creating content. (Hope you read till the light of the tunnel, jupidu😊)
