Writer Bias and How to Prevent it

So you’ve learnt a new marketing or sales tactic and now all of a sudden you see it being used everywhere.

Basically, you gain knowledge, you didn’t know something at first but after learning about it, you see it everywhere.

This new marketing or sales tactic, you don’t what it’s like to not know it anymore.

Even to the point of becoming frustrated when you try to teach others but they just don’t get it.

This unreasonable behaviour is a type of knowledge bias.

It can affect writers, content marketers, salespeople and corporate executives.

So in this blog post, we learn about knowledge bias, how it affects writers and how to prevent it.

Let’s dive right in.

What is Knowledge bias?

Knowledge bias makes it hard to imagine not knowing or understanding a topic, discipline or craft.

This makes communicating that knowledge to less-informed people difficult.

For example, a lawyer who can’t give a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. 

Their knowledge and experience makes them unable to understand your lack of knowledge on the subject, so they talk in abstractions you can’t follow.

How it affects writers

Knowledge bias affects us all, especially when we write.

It’s more common on paper because face-to-face, readers can’t ask questions and writers can’t see their reactions.

These biases can sneak into emails, landing pages, web pages, or blog posts.

When it sneaks into your writing, it’s then called Writer bias.

How to prevent Writer bias

The more you learn about Writer bias, you’re more likely to notice it and prevent it:

Audience’s base subject knowledge

Know how well your audience understands your subject to better plan your approach.

Do your research, if their knowledge is high, skip the fundamentals.

If their knowledge is low or they don’t know anything about the subject, start from the beginning.

To find out your audience’s base knowledge, create a detailed target persona.

Doing so will tell you how you need to write so people understand and appreciate your work.

Tone down vocabulary

Writing with idioms, jargon and big, fancy words prevents people reading who don’t understand it.

And if people can’t understand you, they’ll tune out and stop reading.

For example, instead of writing:

• Open the Kimono, peek at the email CTR and break down scalable successes

Try writing:

• Look at the data, evaluate the email clickthrough rate and capitalise on what’s working

Or even better:

• See how many people opened our emails and do more of what works

Tell a story

Before writing, people used stories to keep history and spread information.

In modern times, stories have the same psychological impact.

Human beings love stories and are storytellers, helping others see the world from different perspectives.

We even place ourselves into the stories we hear and the characters’ circumstances, emotions and learnings.

Stories also have an order, a beginning, a middle and an end, which does not allow biases to enter.

Biases usually leave people out of context and end up confusing them.

Forget abstractions

When someone speaks in abstractions it’s usually because their experiences help them visualise broad concepts.

For example, a Chief Customer Officer might say:

• Our mission is to provide callers with the best customer service they’ve ever experienced

This statement leaves listeners wondering what it means and it doesn’t differentiate you from the competition.

So to differentiate yourself in a crowded market, get specific:

• Our mission is to answer every phone call to customer services in three rings and resolve non-emergency calls in 6 minutes

Remember to be specific and concrete in your statements, which helps comfort people.

Give examples

Examples put concepts into perspective and could be a metaphor or simile.

Make sure your example paints a picture and makes sense of things, using information we already understand to build connections.

For example, when elderly person doesn’t understand what a blog is, explained it in familiar terms, like:

• It’s a journal or a magazine but you can only read the articles on the internet

Use visuals

More than half of people are visual learners, understanding information better and faster with visuals like:

• Images
• PowerPoint presentations
• Infographics
• Whiteboard videos

Compelling visual content helps engage and educate people from boardrooms to web pages.

And adding these and other visuals into your messaging will help appeal to nearly two-thirds of audiences.

Outside point-of-view

With all the tasks that come along with writing, like:

• Writing itself
• Editing
• Rereading
• Rearranging
• Reformating

Then repeating the process all over again, can cause you to overthink or overlook some things.

That is why you need an editor who will point these issues out and if you don’t know any editors, ask a friend to read it over.

Even if they arent your target audience, they can still give advice on comprehension.

Conclusion

Knowledge bias happens because you once didn’t have the knowledge you now possess.

So when writing about your area of expertise, write to the version of you that was less-informed.

Doing so makes you sympathise with your readers’ challenges because you were there too.

Now it’s over to you.

Tell me if you have ever come across knowledge bias and how you tackled this issue.

Let me know in the comment section below.