How to Write Usefully

It's also two other things: it tells people something important, and that at least some of them didn't already know.

Useful writing tells people something true and important that they didn't already know, and tells them as unequivocally as possible.

Useful writing is bold, but true.

Useful writing makes claims that are as strong as they can be made without becoming false.

I believe the formula I've given you, importance + novelty + correctness + strength, is the recipe for a good essay.

Telling people something they didn't know doesn't always mean surprising them. Sometimes it means telling them something they knew unconsciously but had never put into words. In fact those may be the more valuable insights, because they tend to be more fundamental.

The exciting thing is not that there's a lot left to write, but that there's a lot left to discover. There's a certain kind of idea that's best discovered by writing essays. If most essays are still unwritten, most such ideas are still undiscovered.