One of my favourite books of 2024 was William Zinsser’s Writing to Learn. In his book, Zinsser highlights the connection between writing as a tool for learning, regardless of the subject.
Rana, thank you for sharing this article. I joined Substack about a month ago and I've been thinking since then about how writing and thinking go together and how we might communicate better. Many of the articles I've written relate to thinking and communicating better, and your article gives me good ideas and suggestions for writing in the future. Keep up the good work!
Excellent post and good food for thought. I’m going to add this book to my list and look through my unused journals and notebooks. I’ve always found that I retain what I’ve learned by writing it down; your post is a good reminder to get back to that habit and make it intentional and consistent.
I have always felt that writing things out helps me think through them better and organize my thoughts, but I hadn't considered closing the loop and making something (like a video, blog post, etc) actually helps me retain it better! I have put this book on my to-read list, thank you for this article :)
Good Article, thank you! I was thinking lately about the benefits of writing, i think that beyond learning, we are permanently looking for words that describe faithfully our situations and the situation our society is going through, we can't solve a problem without name it at first the describe it, writing is a way to become eloquent enough to make the right diagnosis of things.
Thank you -this is a really interesting and thought-provoking post. Logging the key messages , takeaways and principles of a non-fiction book is a very good idea. I've just bought James Clear's Atomic Habits (perhaps the last person in the world to do so !) and I can see how the journaling idea could work for a book like that. How do you approach a journal for a non-fiction book?
I actually find non-fiction the easiest to journal about (it’s the primary genre I read). I like to split up the page based on key concepts/ideas, important definitions, and any graphs or frameworks I found interesting. I also include a section at the bottom to write down my overall thoughts of the book + give it a rating on a scale of 10!
Ah ok - that makes sense. I can see that makes it much easier to re-visit the material, re-establish the main themes, and dig deeper for new themes and ideas. Journaling a fiction book sounds much harder ?
i will have to read this book, thanks so much for writing about it!
i find that i have NO memory for facts, but i will form an opinion on whatever i'm learning about and remember just that for years-- with no data to back it up! XD
also, i write a little bit about learning journals! mine is mixed in with my bullet journal.
Great post! I do have certain notebooks for certain things, but I generally prefer just note papers! I have stacks of papers all over my desk and room:)) not organized but I somehow know where to find what I look for sometimes:)) I don't know, reading your post made me want to switch solely on notebooks for the sake of being well organized and also eventually write what I learn to publish.
Since my handwriting is not the best (I am a physician after all!), I started taking notes in a word document. If I can't access that easily, I take notes on my phone app and then transfer it to my word doc. I organize the word doc by year and then reflect back on the books I read year by year!
I enjoyed read this post. Reiterates to me the importance of writing because it really does organize our thinking. Sometimes, writing makes me realize things that my brain wasn't quite ready to acknowledge!
I didn’t really connect that I was “publishing” my learning. But I suppose I’ve always been doing that in voice overs and silly texts on socials. Here is my space where I’ve been doing a whole lot more of sharing, but I’ve never considered it published. But it totally is! Great post ❤️
Wow! I’ve gained so much motivation from this article. A couple years ago, I started learning journals and a social media page to present what I learn, but quickly became overwhelmed. That motivation has come back to try that again. Being aware that being able to paraphrase or teach a topic/concept is a great indicator that you have understood it. One thing that I have began that I think will help as well is creating a set curriculum for a topic I want to learn to stay focused too. But this article is amazing. I’ll be rereading this again and again as inspiration.
I've never written before, but i really want to try. I just don't know how to start or how to get used to writing. I want to write about the things I'm learning and about my thoughts and emotions too, but i'm not sure where to begin.
Rana, thank you for sharing this article. I joined Substack about a month ago and I've been thinking since then about how writing and thinking go together and how we might communicate better. Many of the articles I've written relate to thinking and communicating better, and your article gives me good ideas and suggestions for writing in the future. Keep up the good work!
Thank you (again!). Looking forward to reading more of your work this well as well!
Excellent post and good food for thought. I’m going to add this book to my list and look through my unused journals and notebooks. I’ve always found that I retain what I’ve learned by writing it down; your post is a good reminder to get back to that habit and make it intentional and consistent.
Thank you Katie! Glad you resonated with the post. Happy reading!
I have always felt that writing things out helps me think through them better and organize my thoughts, but I hadn't considered closing the loop and making something (like a video, blog post, etc) actually helps me retain it better! I have put this book on my to-read list, thank you for this article :)
You’re very welcome 💌 I hope you enjoy it!
Good Article, thank you! I was thinking lately about the benefits of writing, i think that beyond learning, we are permanently looking for words that describe faithfully our situations and the situation our society is going through, we can't solve a problem without name it at first the describe it, writing is a way to become eloquent enough to make the right diagnosis of things.
Thanks for sharing! Writing to learn is one of the reasons I started my Substack!
You’re very welcome!
Thank you -this is a really interesting and thought-provoking post. Logging the key messages , takeaways and principles of a non-fiction book is a very good idea. I've just bought James Clear's Atomic Habits (perhaps the last person in the world to do so !) and I can see how the journaling idea could work for a book like that. How do you approach a journal for a non-fiction book?
I actually find non-fiction the easiest to journal about (it’s the primary genre I read). I like to split up the page based on key concepts/ideas, important definitions, and any graphs or frameworks I found interesting. I also include a section at the bottom to write down my overall thoughts of the book + give it a rating on a scale of 10!
Ah ok - that makes sense. I can see that makes it much easier to re-visit the material, re-establish the main themes, and dig deeper for new themes and ideas. Journaling a fiction book sounds much harder ?
I used to teach my teachers that "writing is the crystalization of learning".
i will have to read this book, thanks so much for writing about it!
i find that i have NO memory for facts, but i will form an opinion on whatever i'm learning about and remember just that for years-- with no data to back it up! XD
also, i write a little bit about learning journals! mine is mixed in with my bullet journal.
Thank you for this article , Rana 🥰
Great post! I do have certain notebooks for certain things, but I generally prefer just note papers! I have stacks of papers all over my desk and room:)) not organized but I somehow know where to find what I look for sometimes:)) I don't know, reading your post made me want to switch solely on notebooks for the sake of being well organized and also eventually write what I learn to publish.
Since my handwriting is not the best (I am a physician after all!), I started taking notes in a word document. If I can't access that easily, I take notes on my phone app and then transfer it to my word doc. I organize the word doc by year and then reflect back on the books I read year by year!
I enjoyed read this post. Reiterates to me the importance of writing because it really does organize our thinking. Sometimes, writing makes me realize things that my brain wasn't quite ready to acknowledge!
I didn’t really connect that I was “publishing” my learning. But I suppose I’ve always been doing that in voice overs and silly texts on socials. Here is my space where I’ve been doing a whole lot more of sharing, but I’ve never considered it published. But it totally is! Great post ❤️
I am so grateful for this article. And the timing? Perfect. Thank you.🙏
Wow! I’ve gained so much motivation from this article. A couple years ago, I started learning journals and a social media page to present what I learn, but quickly became overwhelmed. That motivation has come back to try that again. Being aware that being able to paraphrase or teach a topic/concept is a great indicator that you have understood it. One thing that I have began that I think will help as well is creating a set curriculum for a topic I want to learn to stay focused too. But this article is amazing. I’ll be rereading this again and again as inspiration.
I've never written before, but i really want to try. I just don't know how to start or how to get used to writing. I want to write about the things I'm learning and about my thoughts and emotions too, but i'm not sure where to begin.
Thank you, Rana. I’ve been thinking of reading books on writing and your article appeared at the right time.