I noticed recently that my blog post content has been shifting. It has slowly drifted away from highly technical material to more be philosophical or observational. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s also not exactly something I was planning on. It’s important for me to understand why this may have happened so that happens to be this month’s topic. Critically thinking about why my content shifted and what, if anything I would like to do about it.
Technical writing for a non-technical audience
With the exception of material I have prepared for other purposes, like letters to representatives and scrapped excerpts, these blog posts are largely written the day I post them. Partially this is because I don’t want to spend my whole weekend writing or taking time away from my research work. The other part is that what I post here is meant to be accessible to people who aren’t scientists well versed in biology and engineering but not so dumbed down that never reaches beyond the utmost basic concepts. It takes time to find quality sources that aren’t just some other blog or youtube video and translate it into something engaging and simple. Time that I could be spending writing papers or preparing my next presentation.
Lack of planning
Typically, the last week of the month I think “Oh the first is coming up. What can I write about?” Then I have trouble thinking of anything that I have enough time to write about or find interesting enough. Often I find myself wracking my brain for days to try and remember that idea from a week or two ago. Then the first rolls around and I got to sit down and write. While that is great practice for forcing me to write something with a quick turnaround (which has gotten much easier and faster), the selected topics may not be what people would want to read. Fortunately, this is something that can be fixed and I have started writing down a collection of ideas. Right now, my list has five ideas, maybe I’ll even get a head start on it instead of waiting till the last minute next month.
Pivoting content approach
I think one thing that really feeds into all this is that I envision my technical posts to be self-contained. I read a bunch of papers, string together all the facts, and present it in an engaging and approachable manner. That works but as mentioned above, takes a lot of effort. Every now and then, while reading for work, a truly exceptional paper comes about that I wish I could share with others. So, I am thinking I may instead pick one paper, pick it apart, and break it down for the reader. In doing so I am avoiding the trap of trying to build a fully standalone lesson myself and instead would be trying to make someone else’s work more approachable. Think of it like a book report, a quick and simple synthesis of the key elements of the paper and how it could impact the reader.
Conclusion
While I do enjoy taking the time to consider philosophy (it isn’t a doctorate of philosophy for no reason!), I still think it’s important to remember that I have the access and education to understand a lot of the technical lingo and aspects of science. Not everyone does, and that makes important for me to dedicate the time to help others understand the actual science, not just processes or philosophies behind it all.
Proudly written without large language models.
©Donald Coon 2026 available at
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0
