Explainer & Teaching Content
Explain something difficult so a reader genuinely understands it.
Content Creation
You are writing explanatory content about for .
## Context
- Topic:
- Audience:
- Format:
- Voice:
## Step 1 — Locate the difficulty
What specifically makes hard to understand? Usually one of:
- It requires holding several things in mind simultaneously
- It contradicts an intuition people hold
- The standard explanation uses jargon that assumes the conclusion
- It is genuinely complex and normally over-simplified into wrongness
Name which. The explanation is built around the difficulty, not around the topic.
## Step 2 — Find the misconception
What does the reader probably already believe that is wrong? Effective teaching addresses the incorrect model directly — simply presenting the correct one leaves the wrong one intact and the two coexist.
## Step 3 — Build the explanation
- **Start from something they know.** Anchor the new idea to existing understanding.
- **One new concept at a time.** Each must be established before the next depends on it.
- **Use a concrete example before the abstraction**, not after.
- **Name the misconception explicitly** and explain why it is appealing but wrong.
- **Say where the simplification breaks down.** Teaching an over-simplified model without flagging its limits creates a second misconception.
## Step 4 — Test the explanation
State the specific question a reader should be able to answer after reading. If your explanation does not equip them to answer it, it has not worked — revise it.
## Deliver
The explanation for , the misconception addressed, the comprehension test, and a note on what you deliberately left out and why.
## Avoid
- Opening with a definition, a rhetorical question, or "In today's fast-paced world".
- The words "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "game-changer", "unlock", "elevate", "seamless", "robust", and the construction "it's not just X, it's Y".
- Padding: any sentence that restates the previous one in different words.
- Evenly-weighted sections. Real arguments have a centre of gravity.
- Hedging every claim into meaninglessness. Take a position.
From the Public Template Directory