A course that actually improved my writing

It’s been so long since I started to feel actual hope while battling with terrible imposter syndrome in my communications career.

When I am faced with the white blank page to write a newsletter or an announcement post, I have to fight every muscle fibre pleading me to flea. It was exhausting; my mind was seeped in self-doubt.

I consumed so many courses and books, and even though I made some progress, the starting line was still within sight. Frustration and despair ensued. How was I going to get out of this?

By some dumb luck, I came upon the Good with Words specialization on Coursera—I took it almost as a way to give myself one last chance at a communications career. And this specialization changed my life. It gave me a fighting chance and showed me I could develop my writing skills if I was equipped with the right techniques and concepts.

It’s hard to say just how grateful I am to this program, so in my messy attempt to express it, I want to talk about this course and why I loved it so much. There’s a lot to we can all takeaway, from its course structure to teaching style, so this post is not only helpful to those seeking to improve their writing, but also particularly helpful if you want to start your own course.

Let’s get into it!

How to actually design a MOOC that keeps you coming back

Have you ever signed up for an online course only to abandon it after watching the first 5 minutes? It’s a dreadful feeling to sit down and ‘study’. This wasn’t the case for Good with Words; I always looked forward to learning from Professor Barry—even when I didn’t feel like studying. As soon as I open his videos or reading materials, I get sucked right in.

Opening with a rude awakening: you can’t write just because you’re smart

The first teaching material presented opens with the following from the instructor, Professor Barry:

Why do you think that, just because you are smart, you can write?…Yet no one thinks just because they rocked the LSAT, they can paint.

I held onto the belief that not writing well equated to being stupid. So it was a relief to hear Prof. Barry say that writing is a skill that needs to be cultivated and it’s unnatural to assume anyone can write well.

It was clear to me that Prof. Barry pays attention to the misconceptions students have about writing and debunks them. An instructor that’s this dialed into what’s going on in a student’s mind is worth learning from.

A teaching style where students have a stake

Learning from a MOOC is an isolating experience because you don’t meet other students and don’t engage in live discussions. So, I was very happy to see that throughout the program, Prof Barry includes recordings of his in-class lectures for students.

He enforces an unusual teaching style where he asks his students to read his slides, creating a means to have conversations with them. Students are called out to read off the slides and help articulate their significance. Although I watch these clips while lying on my sofa, it feels like I am sitting in the lecture right beside the other students. But wait—there’s more. He takes it to the next level by selecting the students to answer his questions.

Here is a transcript from one of his lectures taken from his book, the Syntax of Sports:

• Prof. Barry: Where’s Mr. Boh?
• Mr. Boh: Here.
• Prof. Barry: Good. I saw that you listed “tailgating” in the hobbies section of the résumé you submitted. I’m guessing that means you’re a big Michigan football fan?

Prof. Barry went to the lengths of reviewing student’s resumes to engage with them on a personal level. In the instance above, he is setting up the scene for the superbowl game that Michigan played against South Carolina Gamecocks in 2013. As an avid football fan, Mr. Boh was well positioned to explore the language used to describe the game outcome from both team’s perspective.

This teaching style keeps the students on their toes a bit because anyone could be asked to answer a question. It makes the class a tad bit thrilling.

Consistent structure creates predictability

As someone who loves structure, I appreciated how consistent the course was.

The Good with Words specialization includes four courses, each lasting up to four weeks, and each week guided by one hero concept.

Here’s a breakdown of course 1, week 2:

• Previously on
• Concept: Infinite Power of Grammar
• Concept: Passive on Purpose
• Concept: Positive No
• Concept: The Animal Farm Principle
• Punctuation and Professionalism
• Notes on Nuance
• Good Sentences

Previously on: The week starts by reviewing what was taught in the previous week. Then a few high-level concepts are introduced through videos and required reading. The week ends with three sections that target application and technique.

Punctuation and Professionalism: The building blocks of language comes back to grammar, which is required to write well. The material isn’t dry by reviewing the different parts of speech. Instead, Prof. Barry targets common writing mistakes such as comma splices and how to use coordinating conjunctions.

Notes on Nuance: This is slightly more zoomed out than the previous section. It focuses on the small and subtle words that can take your writing to the next level. For example, I learned about different ways of using ‘as’, ‘if not’, ‘at best, at worst’, and ‘equally’ (for those paying attention, I used ‘equally’ in my introduction)

Good Sentences: This is one of my favourite exercises, where I had to pick a sentence from a selection of reading and write it down by hand. Writing good sentences requires reading them. This idea motivated me to subscribe to a news magazine so I could regularly consume sentences that were heavily scrutinized and refined by a team of editors.

The course layout also incorporates various levels of scale. It doesn’t just cover broad concepts and leave you hanging with all these options. It balances that out with specific techniques that you can start applying right away. Concepts are necessary to anchor your thinking and give you language to structure how you work.

Above all else, what made this specialization special was the dedication of Prof. Barry to make writing exciting. I could sense that he cared about his students' success and involved them as much as possible so they were equally invested in the course. It was always fun to reach the end of each week and see recordings from his students summarize a specific concept they learned.

Becoming good with words

There were countless takeaways I had from the course. Out of all the concepts taught in the specialization, there’s one I think applies to all disciplines. It’s what grabs and maintains your attention; it’s what drives good storytelling; it’s the nuances that allows us to establish meaningful connections with others.

It’s the Power of the Particular.

Sean: [during a therapy session with Will]  My wife used to fart in her sleep.

Sean:  One night it was so loud, it woke the dog up.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Sean: She woke up and gone, like, “Was that you ?” I said, “Yeah.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Oh, God.

Will: She woke herself up ?

[LAUGHING] 

Sean: Yes. Oh, Christ. But, Will, she’s been dead two years and that’s the shit I remember. It’s wonderful stuff, you know ? Little things like that. Yeah, but those are the things I miss the most. Those little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. That’s what made her my wife. Boy, and she had the goods on me too. She knew all my little peccadillos…

– From the movie, Good Will Hunting

This scene from Good Will Hunting spotlights the small things that make love matter in a big way. It what makes deep, meaningful connections worth forging.

Let’s put this into context of good data viz design. We love to talk about storytelling. Why? I think it’s because readers like being led through a well though out narrative complemented with data presented in manageable chunks. It’s why annotations are so helpful, they help us make sense of things.

To put all this back into perspective of writing, let’s go through how my writing changed after learning this concept:

• 2022 winners announcement: After a two-year pause in the Information is Beautiful Awards, the Data Visualization Society (DVS) has been delighted to work with the Information is Beautiful team to continue the spirit of celebrating excellence across the field of data visualization.

  Thank you to everyone who joined us in reopening the Information is Beautiful Awards! We are very excited to announce the winners who took home trophies at tonight’s Awards ceremony.

• 2023 winners announcement This past weekend, we welcomed over 150 attendees for two days filled with data visualization inspiration and celebrations.

  The Day of Inspiration mini conference on Friday covered topics ranging from what a career in data viz looks like to communicating water quality data through sonic vibrations to questioning our data culture. Rest assured that if you missed some of the talks or want to revisit any of them, all talks have been recorded and will be uploaded to the DVS YouTube channel in the coming months. Make sure you’re following DVS on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and subscribed to the DVS newsletter (by joining as a member) so you know when they’re available.  

  The Awards Ceremony on Saturday revealed 27 category award winners out of 86 finalists and 13 winners across seven Special Awards. Winners traveled and tuned in from different parts of the world to receive their award and join the celebrations. This year, we received a staggering number of 900 submissions from over 50 countries and 485 unique creators; a true testament to the diversity of perspectives and skills from the data visualization community.

It’s painful for me to compare because I cringe at my older writing. It’s like night and day. The 2022 announcement checks all the boxes and delivers the necessary information, but 2023 paints a picture.

The Power of the Particular helped me get over my biggest hurdle, which is writing with a human touch. I tend to write robotically, so I was very happy to have found a way to un-ChatGPT myself, to write in a way only I can.

Forming a new relationship with words

I now look at words with more curiosity and intent. Googling words and idioms has become a habit now, even if I know what they mean. I want to get exact and to the point I can explain it someone else with ease. It’s as if I am learning the language all over again.

Writing still doesn’t come easy to me, but I’ve come to be less afraid of it. I feel reassured knowing I have a framework and a set of tools I can apply when I get stuck. Compared to before, I now know how to diagnose my problems. Now I can say “I need to be more specific”, or “I’ll write the shitty first draft so it doesn’t have to be perfect”, or “I need to vary the length of my sentences”.

It’s hard to do the specialization justice because it covers so much, but I hope I’ve conveyed to you how much it meant to me. If only Prof. Barry taught other courses, I would be miles ahead in my professional development!