Writing Is Thinking

Writing is thinking. If you're writing poorly, you're probably thinking poorly. It's a skill that needs to be developed, just like thinking, and you can very easily do both poorly or wrong (or both).

Writing is the act of drawing your thoughts out of your head and into the world. Even if it's just you reading what you've written, you're now confronted with your thoughts being actually in front of your face. You should be prepared to justify and defend them. Why do you think the way you think? What led you to this conclusion? At some point, it'll come down to the axioms of your worldview, and you should be explicit (again, even if just to yourself) about what those invariants are.

You can't just follow each and every thought that pops into your head. Your writing has to be organized, and filtered against and integrated into your worldview. If it doesn't fit your worldview, you might want to stash it as evidence in support of your thinking. Your thoughts need to follow some logical sequence, and can't just derive from emotion. You need to be able to present them to the world, and to be prepared to defend them.

This also helps with the defense response of sloppy thinking: feeling angry when your worldview is challenged, or lashing out. You've organized your thoughts, and now you are better prepared for Intellectual Discourse.