The Imposter Syndrome In Writing And How To Solve It

Many people want to write but are stopped by the fact that they are not an expert on whatever it is that they intended to write about. This is falls under the category of the Imposter Syndrome and is very harmful to the career of an aspiring writer.

There is a healthy demand for writers to write about subjects of all kinds. From finance, technology, science, history, politics, entertainment and so on. There is a very long list of writing jobs that is coming out everyday.

This is because of the tremendous demand for online content as more and more readers are turning to the internet for their education and entertainment needs. If you think there is already a sea of information online, then you are wrong.

An online article that took a writer a day or even more to finish will be read in mere minutes by a reader. This is how much online content is easily consumed these days. Add to the fact that most readers scan only the information they need and not read the entire article, consumption of online content could just take a very short time, even less than a mere minute.

Another thing we need to consider is that there are more and more people posting online content in the hopes of making money. This is especially true that it has been proven that you could make money by posting content online.

To make a long story short, there is a healthy demand for writers who can write about a variety of subjects that they may or may not be an expert in. And this could be you, except you doubt your ability about writing an article you are not an expert in.

Imposter Syndrome is defined as the feeling of inadequacy for a certain skill or knowledge. It is a belief that you are not as competent as what others perceive you to be. While this definition is usually narrowly applied to intelligence and achievement, it has links to perfectionism as a state of mind.

A university professor might suffer this kind of destructive thought for example. While he is standing in front of a class and teaching, he might also be thinking that his students would soon know that he is not competent to teach the subject he is teaching.

As can be seen from this example, imposter syndrome can be a horrifying experience and this is the reason why many people refrain from doing activities that would display their skill or knowledge.

In terms of writing, there are many would be writers or professional writers already who would refuse to write out of the fear that someone would call them out to tell the public that the writer does not know what they are writing about.

This is especially serious considering the fact that many of the things written today ends up being available online. The thought of someone being humiliated because they have written about a subject they do not know anything about is very serious.

Before we proceed, it would be helpful to describe the current online writing market and why it is important for writers to get over their imposter syndrome. Simply put, this destructive thinking is not helping them to take opportunity of the many online earning opportunities available.

If you look at many online job boards for example, you would find that there is a constant demand for writers to write about varying topics. The beauty of it all is that there are even job posters who specifically inform potential job applicants that they do not need to be an expert in what they are supposed to write about.

To name all these online companies and job boards that require such writers is simply too many. But one can start by simply Googling the search keyword “content mills”. Google would already show you plenty of articles that list many online content mills.

In case you are a beginner writer and do not know what a content mill is, they are simply online sites that mediate between writers and those who need the services of a writer. Content mills have a negative image akin to that of a sweatshop.

This means that writers are being paid little for the hard work or writing that they do. Though they have a negative image, they are a staple source of income for many writers. There are even writers who claim that their entire livelihood is being funded by content mills.

But you do not have to use content mills. There are many online companies and even media companies that require the services of a writer who can write about a variety of topics that they are competent enough in writing.

In the more formal term, writing competency is about the ability of the writer to write properly. This means that they are good with spelling (or has a spelling checker tool), they know good grammar (or has a grammar checker tool), must know how to use structure sentences, and so on.

Another term associated with writing competency is about the knowledge of the writer in the topic they are writing about. For example, if a writer is writing about nuclear physics it is assumed that the writer has a good knowledge of nuclear physics.

Writing about nuclear physics could seem like an extreme example, but I stated this on purpose to make it clear that not everyone could write just about anything. It may seem that I am contradicting myself, but hear me out.

The imposter syndrome is a feeling of inadequacy and not a feeling of complete ignorance. A newly graduate student of nuclear physics may experience imposter syndrome, but an electrical engineer teaching about nuclear physics is a fraud.

One public secret about online content and just about any media content is that it is continually rehashed and improved until its original form is almost new. This applies to all kinds of subject matters found online.

This is the reason why so many online articles have something in common about them. Sad to say that often, the content of one article is almost identical to the content of another article. It seems that they have the same sources or one copied the other.

Writers Compare Articles

And this is how writers become competent enough to write about something. Many writers do their research and compare the articles related to the subject they are writing about. The more articles talk about some information, the more that information gains credibility.

Let us use skin care as an example. For example a writer is a man and does not know much about women skincare. He is hired to write about acne on women. He does his research and finds out in one article that it is not correct to pinch an acne for it could infect the skin.

He does additional research and finds out that most articles about acne on women advises that it is not correct for an acne to be pinched. Thus, he makes a conclusion that pinching an acne is not correct.

Is he write to assume that an acne should not be pinched and then proceeds to write about it? Most probably, what the writer has done is what most writers do normally with their writing. But there is something more that needs to be done.

What the writer should have done is to see or verify if the writers of the articles are credible sources themselves. In our example of a male writer writing about women’s acnes, he should have used articles written by medical specialists especially dermatologists.

The Importance of Credible Sources

The importance of credible sources is very important especially if they are confirmed experts on the subject you are writing about. Going back to our acne example, the male writer may not know about women’s acne. But by getting his knowledge from a confirmed expert which is a dermatologist, he can safely assure not only himself but his readers as well.

And how does one safely assure a reader that what they are reading is credible? The answer is simple, by including the sources of the information of the article in the article itself. The male writer who wrote about an article on women’s acne may add the name of the dermatologist or the name of the actual article he took his information from.

If the readers have any doubts of the article writer’s credibility, all they need to do is to check the sources of the article writer. They could verify that what the writer has written is correct and true based from his sources.

Adding your sources for your online media content just makes sense for a variety of reason. These reasons can be psychological, to better inform your readers and legal concerns.

Psychological:

It is a well known fact that the more sources an article has, the more it would be perceived as true and complete. The saying: “The more the better” literally applies to online articles with many sources and links.

By adding many sources and links to your online article, it has the psychological effect of making your readers believe that you have consulted a lot of articles and information when you wrote your articles.

In essence, you are like an attorney submitting your evidence in court. In this case, your evidence that you writing is credible are the sources and links of your online articles. This must be why Wikipedia has established a following although there are people who doubt it’s content sometimes.

Wikipedia articles are full of links as well as sources. There is no doubt that if anyone has doubts on what is written in Wikipedia, all they need to do is consult the sources of their articles.

To Better Inform Your Readers

Continuing our use of Wikipedia as an example, it is very hard to finish an article in Wikipedia without clicking on a link to another link in Wikipedia. If you are in an article in Wikipedia about Europe for example, you would be swamped with links that are related to Europe.

A reader might just want to read about a summary of Europe, but Wikipedia ensures that they could go to other links which has further information about other things related to Europe. You can use this technique in your article also.

This makes your reader not only informed about the subject you wrote about, but of other subjects as well from different articles altogether. This has the effect of your links becoming complementary knowledge to the article you have written.

This means that even though you have just added a link, your link has the effect of making your article look very thorough. This is not playing tricks on your readers or using somebody else’s work. You are just providing more information than you have actually written in your article for your reader.

Legal Concerns

Lastly but still very important is the legal part of adding links and sources. You might be already aware of it, but everything that has ever been written is subject to copyright. You cannot just copy and paste words you found on other articles and add them to your article.

Although it is true that many writers reference words in other articles, there is a distinction between copying words and referencing them. The difference being copying being illegal while referencing is legal.

That is why most writers improve the information of the other articles they are using. A writer might see an article telling about “10 ways to improve your…,” they can legally expand the article to “15 ways to improve your…” and this would be all right.

It is not right when they copy the original article and just write: “5 ways to improve your…” without including the source of the original article. This could be termed as “plagiarism” or the copying of someone else’s work.

Though this is a crime, I have not seen anyone go to jail for it. This does not mean that you should consider plagiarism lightly. Copyright owners can be very vindictive enough that they would demand expensive compensation from the courts which could reach millions of dollars.

Imposter Syndrome is a very real threat to anyone trying to express their knowledge or skills. It is very horrifying for writers in this era of the internet where what you write could be available online instantly and available for anyone in the world to read.

Unless you defeat imposter syndrome, you will find yourself missing out on writing opportunities that could be profitable for you. There is a good demand for writers who could write on a variety of subjects that they may or may not have expertise in.

Doing good research and using only credible sources is a good way to get rid of imposter syndrome. You should also include your sources as well as links to allied information to your articles so that your reader would better believe that you are a credible writer of the article you wrote.

What Online Writing Career Do You Want?.