In each of my introductory college courses, the thing I hear the most from my students on the first day is: “I’m not that great a writer, so I’m really nervous for this class.” I understand their apprehension. My intro-level classes are either English composition or history courses, and that means a LOT of writing. These are also the courses where most of my students are encountering college-level writing for the first time, which means that they’re battling all their insecurities from high school English and social studies while also trying to master new skills.

This one sentence tells me a lot about what my students already think about writing, as well as what they expect college writing to be. Usually, they lack confidence in themselves and expect to fall at this first hurdle; somewhere deep down, they’re convinced that the skills they have are not equal to these new tasks. And yet, every single student who told me up front that they weren’t a great writer also demonstrated strong writing skills on all our early assignments. Clearly, the issue is not their ability or capacity to learn, but what they expect to be able to accomplish!

So, if this feels like you, what do we do about that?

The main takeaway from this example is one that we all encounter frequently throughout our lives (parents and teachers, too!): thanks to imposter syndrome, we get in our own way, which makes it harder to keep growing. If you struggle with this feeling of not belonging or not being good enough, it can be really overwhelming. With writing, imposter syndrome can look like not turning in assignments (why bother if you know you’re going to fail?) or like overcompensation (trying to “sound smart”), depending on how each person responds to stress.

As annoying and stressful as imposter syndrome can be, the good news is that there are things that you can do to help build your own confidence as you write. That way, you’ll arrive in your first writing-heavy college class feeling a little less nervous. 
Here are two easy things that you can do on your next assignment to boost your confidence in your writing.

1.Write your dream paper first, then edit it to the requirements.

The problem:

One of the big places where insecurities crowd in is when looking at the prompt. This is the point where all the overthinking happens—will I be able to write enough? Do I know what I’m talking about? Can I make my paper good enough? Sound familiar?

The solution:

The way out of this frantic mental maze is to use your first draft as an opportunity to write your ideal paper. Pay attention to the prompt (of course), but don’t sweat the length or any of the other tiny details that your teacher is asking you to include. Write it the way you want to write it for this first draft. Then, you can edit it so that it matches what you’ve been asked to submit.

Why do it this way:

This approach works because it’s always (always!) easier to edit than to create. Once all your thoughts are out of your head, you can work with them more easily—add more detail to make it longer, cut out repetitive pieces to make it shorter, incorporate transitions, adjust any grammar problems. But worrying about all these details on the first draft will put you in a tailspin. This first draft allows you to make it exist; the second draft (and the third, and the fourth) are for mastering the details.

2. Don’t worry about "sounding smart."

The problem:

When we don’t feel like we’re smart enough to be taken seriously, we often change our words to match what we think “a smart person” would sound like. Fake it till you make it, right? This might look like using big words and extra formal language, or like creating long and complex sentences. I see these writing patterns in every single age group that I’ve worked with, from ninth grade all the way up to my professional colleagues writing articles for publication—it’s just part of how we compensate for our internal insecurities. The issue is, though, that doing these things too much actually makes it harder to understand you, so your real point might get buried underneath all the flourishes. And, of course, because you feel like you’re pretending to be smart, it doesn’t actually help you feel more confident, just more afraid that someone will see through the act.

The solution:

This one has a deceptively easy solution: write the way you’d answer a question from your teacher in class. What words would you use out loud if you were talking to your teacher or to another informed adult? You can make some easy formality fixes later (removing contractions and personal pronouns like “I” and “you”, for example), but it’s important that the words still feel like yours!

Why do it this way:

This approach works on multiple levels. First (and probably most importantly), it shows you that your words are worth something! You don’t have to be whatever fictional image you have in your mind in order to write something worth reading; you just have to be clear. It’s hard to feel like your words matter when you’re trying to sound like someone else. Second, it helps you get to the right level of formality more easily. In most of our papers, we don’t need to sound like we’re writing to the president or a CEO; we just need to be able to explain things in a clear and professional way. Writing an answer to your teacher’s question (which, by the way, is all a paper is!) keeps your language free of slang and swear words, but without going so over the top that it becomes hard to read. Finally, it helps us compensate for our own misperceptions of intelligence. When we try to “sound smart,” what we’re really doing is trying to sound like something we don’t understand. After all, if someone is talking over our heads, they must be smarter than us, right? Wrong! Real, clear, intelligent communication can be understood by a wide range of readers. If you truly understand something, then you should be able to explain it so clearly that almost anyone could track your discussion. Clarity is the goal, not complexity.

Of course, both of these things take practice. It’s so easy for me to say, “Remember that your words are worth something!” but way harder for you to believe it. It’s one thing to say, “write your dream paper first,” and another to stop focusing on those tiny details and build the extra time into your schedule to write multiple drafts of a paper. It’s a process, just like all the other skills you want to develop.
 Having said that, these are the two things that most of my college students tell me that they wish they’d known before coming into my class. That means that, if you work on them now, you’ll be ready to ace your college writing courses.
 Remember that you are capable of doing challenging things, and that includes changing your approach to writing!