Incremental writing: Problem of schooling

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This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)

Problem of Schooling was written using a technique called incremental writing. All texts were compiled and organized using SuperMemo 17 for Windows.

Here is the outline of the process:

  • all ideas and short texts are written as separate topics in SuperMemo
  • those topics are subject to review and creative elaboration in incremental reading
  • the structure of the book is organized using the knowledge tree (Contents) in SuperMemo
  • the process begins with the creative phase in which ideas are written down, elaborated, reviewed, reshuffled, etc.
  • the process ends with the consolidation phase when ideas are combined into sections and then chapters
Creative and consolidation phases in incremental writing
Creative and consolidation phases in incremental writing

Figure: Incremental writing begins with an ascending creative phase that increases the count of elements, and ends with a descending consolidation phase, in which notes are combined into longer texts. In the example, the ideas for a book peak in 5 months of creative elaborations, only to consolidate into a 180-chapter Problem of Schooling, 10 months later