by Rylee Hjorth
“For this With Those with Imposter Syndrome (7995080450)” by cogdogblog is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
In the back of some people’s heads, there is a nasty, angry little voice that tells them, “Are you sure you’re qualified to be doing this? You don’t know what you’re doing. You aren’t good enough to be here. You’re way in over your head.” Sandeep Ravindran calls this the “imposter phenomenon” in his article, “Feeling Like a Fraud: The Imposter Phenomenon in Science Writing.” In most situations, this is referred to as imposter syndrome, and it affects more people than most would think. Ravindran breaks down the psychology of imposter syndrome by interviewing various mental health professionals and other scientific journalists who have experienced it. The organization and presentation of the information helps to make the piece easy to read for the audience and provides insight into this phenomenon.
The first and most important thing Ravindran does is establish his humanity with the audience. He shares his personal experience with imposter syndrome, which inadvertently establishes his credibility to be speaking on it. Alongside that, the piece gives a clear definition of the syndrome and describes what it looks like to a reader who may not have any experience with it. This effectively settles the audience into being comfortable with the topic, and if Ravindran had just dropped the audience in a technical, psychological explanation of imposter syndrome, he would have lost the audience almost immediately.
Similarly, he keeps that human aspect by interviewing other scientific journalists and using quotes they gave regarding their experience with imposter syndrome. It counterbalances the science and shows how he was writing with the audience in mind, which is what all great science writers should do.
The next detail that makes this piece effective is the organization and the use of subheadings, which is also done for the sake of the audience. The headings are an obvious organization choice that helps the reader comprehend the shift in ideas and categorize the information. Concurrently, the order of the information presented makes logical sense. Obviously, the article begins with an explanation of what importer syndrome is and what it looks like, but each following section answers relevant questions, such as “Is this an issue that deserves to be discussed? What toll does it take? How does it affect women and minorities? What’s the solution to overcome it? How do people who don’t suffer from it function that way?”
Arguably, it wouldn’t make sense to start with the final question, then explain the toll it takes on those who do experience it, and then explain why imposter syndrome is relevant to even talk about. It’d turn into a disjointed mess.
Finally, Ravindran’s use of simple and relatively short sentences helps keep the audience on track and focused on the information. He doesn’t use overly complex sentence structure and flowery grammar, simply because he doesn’t need to. This topic in itself isn’t complex and doesn’t require dense scientific jargon, which is already a plus. In addition, it doesn’t need long and drawn out explanations to convey the information. This is one of the clearest cut examples of writing with the audience in mind, which is what Ravindran did well.
Science Writings 