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A collection of articles to help a writer follow Dr. Jordan B Peterson's essay writing process using essay.app

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Jordan Peterson’s 10-step process for stronger writing

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson poses during a photo shoot in Sydney, New South Wales. (Photo by Hollie Adams / Newspix / Getty Images)

• The best way to improve your thinking is to learn how to write, says Jordan Peterson.
• His 10-step process for writing an essay is time consuming, but the benefits are worth it.
• From the granular to the macro, every facet of writing a solid essay is covered in his template.

Becoming a better writer is a means for becoming a better thinker, says Canadian professor Jordan Peterson . Arranging your thoughts on a page in a coherent fashion organizes your thinking process so you can better understand it, which translates into efficiently communicating your ideas to others. Just as Marie Kondo inspires fans to declutter their homes in order to transform their emotional and mental life, Jordan Peterson’s 10-step essay writing template is a way of empowering you to achieve mental clarity.

1. Introduction

The introductory step qualifies the importance of essay writing. Peterson summarizes:

“The primary reason to write an essay is so that the writer can formulate and organize an informed, coherent and sophisticated set of ideas about something important.”

Actions based on thinking through consequences are more productive and less painful than those based on ignorance. Peterson believes in no better means for living an effective life than writing, which forces you to confront inconsistencies, paradoxes, and novel ideas. By rejecting substandard notions uncovered by your essays, you can choose to take action on those that matter most. Organizing your thoughts verbally, he concludes, allows you to think abstractly, granting access to higher-order cognitive processes.

2. Levels of Resolution

First, select a word; then craft a sentence; finally, sequence sentences inside of a paragraph. Peterson suggests that each paragraph consist of at least 10 sentences or 100 words. Over time such numbers are arbitrary. In literature, José Saramago’s sentences run thousands of words while Philip Roth’s later novels include numerous single-sentence paragraphs. Learn form before mastering it, Peterson writes. Strict adherence to structure is helpful.

“Rules are there for a reason. You are only allowed to break them if you are a master. If you’re not a master, don’t confuse your ignorance with creativity or style. Writing that follows the rules is easier for readers, because they know roughly what to expect. So rules are conventions.”

The final two levels of resolution are arranging the paragraphs in a logical progression (with each paragraph presenting a single idea) and understanding the essay as a whole. Creative people sometimes miss the mark by failing to organize their thoughts in a clear manner. Successful essays generally achieve these five levels, from the granular to the macro. Brevity and beauty can be achieved using this guideline, reminiscent of V.S. Naipaul’s rules for writing .

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Jordan Peterson on how to improve your writing

3. the topic and the reading list.

Choosing a topic occurs in one of two ways: you’re assigned it (remember, this guide is for Peterson’s students) or you can list 10 topics that you’re interested in exploring and choose one. The next step is to pick your reading list for researching the topic. Peterson suggests five to 10 books per thousand words of essay. He eschews highlighting books; instead, take notes. There is evidence that writing down (and not typing) information is the best way to remember information.

4. The Outline

Peterson calls this step “the most difficult part of writing an essay.” Also, “it’s not optional.” This step is why I love the word-processing program Scrivener — my outline lives on the left side as I work on longer articles and books. Any outline could shift and transform as you research and write the essay, so being able to constantly reference the skeleton you create is the surest path to success.

5. Paragraphs

One of the hardest pieces of advice to convey to new writers is to just write . Writer’s block doesn’t exist when you’re disciplined. Malcolm Gladwell discusses this point on Tim Ferriss’s podcast. Gladwell spent a decade in the Washington Post newsroom; reporters don’t have the luxury of writer’s block. The first draft is effectively thinking on the page. Success occurs during the editing process, which is why Peterson recommends not worrying about the quality of your work during the paragraph process. Just get the words onto the page. Peterson continues,

“Production (the first major step) and editing (the second) are different functions, and should be treated that way. This is because each interferes with the other. The purpose of production is to produce. The function of editing is to reduce and arrange.”

6. Editing and Arranging of Sentences Within Paragraphs

Once the first draft is complete, Peterson forces you to confront yourself by asking that you rewrite every sentence in a different manner. Then compare the two drafts by reading them aloud. Hearing yourself speak your own words not only causes you to listen to the music of your words, it also helps you understand what is being communicated to the reader. This step also helps you eliminate redundancies and master conciseness.

Jordan Peterson on the Power of Writing

7. re-ordering the paragraphs.

By this stage you’re examining the fluidity of the content in service of the essay as a whole. Just as you examined each individual sentence, now you look at their service to the meaning of each paragraph. From there, you investigate how the jigsaw pieces fit together to construct the puzzle.

8. Generating a New Outline

Many writers believe they’re done once the second draft is tight. Peterson disagrees. After you’ve read through the latter draft, he recommends writing yet another outline. Importantly, do not look back at the essay while doing so. This Jedi mind trick on yourself has utility; you’re making yourself remember what’s most important about the argument you’ve constructed. This will help you eliminate repetitive or unnecessary arguments as well as strengthen the most pertinent points.

“If you force yourself to reconstruct your argument from memory, you will likely improve it. Generally, when you remember something, you simplify it, while retaining most of what is important. Thus, your memory can serve as a filter, removing what is useless and preserving and organizing what is vital. What you are doing now is distilling what you have written to its essence.”

After a few days, if you “really want to take it to the next level,” return to your latest draft to investigate every sentence, every paragraph, and the outline. The space of days will separate what you think you wrote from what you actually wrote. In a more toned-down version of this, I write a draft of every article, edit it at least twice, yet never publish until the next morning. That way I have allowed a night of sleep to pass before blasting it into cyberspace. My favorite time to do this is between 5–7 a.m., after the cats are fed and the caffeine is circulating.

10. References and Bibliography

Peterson saves citations for last. Of course, you’ve been saving your sources as you collect information — another great feature in Scrivener. Citing sources also offers one last opportunity to read the quality of the work and ensure that you’ve properly captured the information you’ve collected. With that, your essay is complete.

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook .

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• Write For Us

‘If your words are well structured … and aimed like an arrow, you’re unstoppable’

Julian Peterson, the son of clinical psychologist and best-selling author Jordan Peterson, recently launched a website and app designed to improve the writer rather than improve the writing.

Called “ Essay ,” the software aims to go beyond the typical grammar and spell check tools to help writers hone their craft and learn how to use language in a powerful and meaningful way.

“There aren’t shortcuts on the path to becoming an expert writer or thinker, but the path could be smoother,” Julian Peterson said in an email interview with The College Fix.

The “writing process can be taught in more structured and less intimidating ways, such as offering tools to improve one’s writing and explaining the philosophy behind choosing a meaningful topic to explore,” he said.

“Essay” was inspired by a writing guide his father, a former professor, wrote to help his students. Jordan Peterson tweeted June 8 that “writing your traumas helps you overcome them.”

“My son @julianpeterson1 has expanded my writing guide and created a platform designed to help you learn to write. Try it here – https://essay.app.”

Why writing your traumas helps you overcome them. My son @julianpeterson1 has expanded my writing guide and created a platform designed to help you learn to write. Try it here – https://t.co/08Bi5XRjbD pic.twitter.com/d8ZX5cQBUS — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 8, 2022

“If you think your life doesn’t depend on your words, you just don’t know anything about words,” Peterson said in a video with Julian and his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, introducing the app.

In Jordan Peterson’s writing guide, which he wrote 15 years ago, he also advised: “If you want to have a life characterized by competence, productivity, security, originality and engagement rather than one that is nasty, brutish and short, you need to think carefully about important issues. There is no better way than to write.”

The Essay app integrates Peterson’s philosophy into an application designed to help writers apply the principles using tools made available by the software. Users begin by outlining their essay, move on to drafting, and continue to “rewrite, reorder, and reread,” according to the platform’s website .

In an exclusive interview with The College Fix , Julian Peterson described his app as different from other online writing tools and built on his dad’s philosophy:

( Interview edited for length and clarity. )

The College Fix: What influenced and inspired you from a personal standpoint to develop the Essay app?

Julian Peterson: I grew up surrounded by university professors and my dad was always deeply invested in an idea (or ten), so our dinner table conversation often revolved around ideas, books or articles. I was taught to appreciate the exploration of deep ideas and to recognize effective communication as an essential skill.

When I went to [school], I noticed that students were rarely given useful tools to begin their journey as writers and that their development was usually very tied to whether they ended up with a teacher or professor willing to mentor them. This usually means that a couple of students per class get a real writing education, and the rest get very little.

Most writing software that people use right now is designed to improve the writing rather than improve the writer. Most rely on auto-complete features designed to take the work out of the writing and fast-forward to a polished piece. A computer program improving your sentences, grammar, or word choice for you will end up doing very little for your improvement as a communicator or a thinker.

We decided to build Essay when we noticed that 150,000 people had downloaded my dad’s “Essay writing guide” from his website. Because I used my dad’s guide to write my essays throughout university, I knew that while the process outlined there was effective, it was cumbersome to complete using traditional text editors. I became convinced that carefully-designed software could substantially reduce the friction of completing that process.

It’s also the case that the skills taught through learning to write have never been more important. There is a sea of information available at everyone’s fingertips. The more people practice clear thinking, discerning between good ideas and poorly reasoned ideas, and free creative exploration, the better our future will be.

TCF: How does Essay simplify that original document into an app?

JP: When we started to think about turning the writing guide into a piece of software, our first inclination was to create a course. But we wanted to create something that writers could integrate into their current process. We also wanted to help people learn through the very act of their writing. It’s far from perfect at this point, but we’ve already received a lot of feedback from our initial users that it is doing for them what we intended it to do.

TCF: Many people find writing difficult. How does Essay alleviate some of the anxiety writing produces?

JP: Essay makes writing less daunting by separating creative production from the editing process. People often try to edit at the same time that they write. It’s very hard on the brain to switch between being creative and being a discerning editor. Essay cleanly separates the processes by offering four separate tools: Outline, Produce, Rewrite, and Reorder. This separation encourages writers to be in creative production mode while they write their drafts, focusing on getting ideas on paper. Then, they get to be in selective editor mode while they go through their work, line by line, making sure every idea is communicated effectively, and organized in an ideal way.

TCF: It looks like Essay will operate as a subscription-based platform. You have mentioned that you are also considering offering a free version of the app for people who cannot afford to pay but who would benefit from the program, like students. What are the options you are thinking about?

JP: We are still considering a variety of monetization strategies, and have been receiving a lot of feedback about how we can improve our current model. Essay is being used in over 100 countries already, and we know our current model is not perfect. … We’re motivated to eventually offer a free version of Essay, perhaps with a limited feature set. We are very early in our product lifespan, so a lot of things are on the table, and our current monetization model isn’t set in stone.

TCF: What will be Jordan Peterson’s involvement with this project moving forward?

JP: My dad is connected online to a huge network of people who are similarly interested in ideas and who are motivated to improve their thinking and writing. So right away a ton of users started testing the platform and suggesting ways to improve it. [My dad and I] discuss a lot of the most common (and most interesting!) feedback. He frequently has good ideas about how we might prioritize our product decisions or what new features might improve the platform.

Jordan Peterson plugged his son’s app, says good writing ‘sets your life in order’

In the video Peterson published introducing the app, he stressed the virtues of good writing.

“If your words are well structured and inspired and properly motivated and aimed like an arrow, you’re unstoppable,” the elder Peterson said in the video.

“If writing is thinking, which it is, and thinking sets your life in order or not, then you don’t let people mess with your words. You want to get them in order like soldiers. And that’s partly what this writing program is designed to help people do,” Jordan Peterson said.

MORE: Jordan Peterson to new grads: you will suffer in life; rise above it

IMAGE: YouTube screenshot

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Essay Writing Guide - Jordan Peterson

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