essay jordan peterson app

A collection of articles to help a writer follow Dr. Jordan B Peterson's essay writing process using essay.app

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‘If your words are well structured … and aimed like an arrow, you’re unstoppable’

Julian Peterson, the son of clinical psychologist and best-selling author Jordan Peterson, recently launched a website and app designed to improve the writer rather than improve the writing.

Called “ Essay ,” the software aims to go beyond the typical grammar and spell check tools to help writers hone their craft and learn how to use language in a powerful and meaningful way.

“There aren’t shortcuts on the path to becoming an expert writer or thinker, but the path could be smoother,” Julian Peterson said in an email interview with The College Fix.

The “writing process can be taught in more structured and less intimidating ways, such as offering tools to improve one’s writing and explaining the philosophy behind choosing a meaningful topic to explore,” he said.

“Essay” was inspired by a writing guide his father, a former professor, wrote to help his students. Jordan Peterson tweeted June 8 that “writing your traumas helps you overcome them.”

“My son @julianpeterson1 has expanded my writing guide and created a platform designed to help you learn to write. Try it here – https://essay.app.”

Why writing your traumas helps you overcome them. My son @julianpeterson1 has expanded my writing guide and created a platform designed to help you learn to write. Try it here – https://t.co/08Bi5XRjbD pic.twitter.com/d8ZX5cQBUS — Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 8, 2022

“If you think your life doesn’t depend on your words, you just don’t know anything about words,” Peterson said in a video with Julian and his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, introducing the app.

In Jordan Peterson’s writing guide, which he wrote 15 years ago, he also advised: “If you want to have a life characterized by competence, productivity, security, originality and engagement rather than one that is nasty, brutish and short, you need to think carefully about important issues. There is no better way than to write.”

The Essay app integrates Peterson’s philosophy into an application designed to help writers apply the principles using tools made available by the software. Users begin by outlining their essay, move on to drafting, and continue to “rewrite, reorder, and reread,” according to the platform’s website .

In an exclusive interview with The College Fix , Julian Peterson described his app as different from other online writing tools and built on his dad’s philosophy:

( Interview edited for length and clarity. )

The College Fix: What influenced and inspired you from a personal standpoint to develop the Essay app?

Julian Peterson: I grew up surrounded by university professors and my dad was always deeply invested in an idea (or ten), so our dinner table conversation often revolved around ideas, books or articles. I was taught to appreciate the exploration of deep ideas and to recognize effective communication as an essential skill.

When I went to [school], I noticed that students were rarely given useful tools to begin their journey as writers and that their development was usually very tied to whether they ended up with a teacher or professor willing to mentor them. This usually means that a couple of students per class get a real writing education, and the rest get very little.

Most writing software that people use right now is designed to improve the writing rather than improve the writer. Most rely on auto-complete features designed to take the work out of the writing and fast-forward to a polished piece. A computer program improving your sentences, grammar, or word choice for you will end up doing very little for your improvement as a communicator or a thinker.

We decided to build Essay when we noticed that 150,000 people had downloaded my dad’s “Essay writing guide” from his website. Because I used my dad’s guide to write my essays throughout university, I knew that while the process outlined there was effective, it was cumbersome to complete using traditional text editors. I became convinced that carefully-designed software could substantially reduce the friction of completing that process.

It’s also the case that the skills taught through learning to write have never been more important. There is a sea of information available at everyone’s fingertips. The more people practice clear thinking, discerning between good ideas and poorly reasoned ideas, and free creative exploration, the better our future will be.

TCF: How does Essay simplify that original document into an app?

JP: When we started to think about turning the writing guide into a piece of software, our first inclination was to create a course. But we wanted to create something that writers could integrate into their current process. We also wanted to help people learn through the very act of their writing. It’s far from perfect at this point, but we’ve already received a lot of feedback from our initial users that it is doing for them what we intended it to do.

TCF: Many people find writing difficult. How does Essay alleviate some of the anxiety writing produces?

JP: Essay makes writing less daunting by separating creative production from the editing process. People often try to edit at the same time that they write. It’s very hard on the brain to switch between being creative and being a discerning editor. Essay cleanly separates the processes by offering four separate tools: Outline, Produce, Rewrite, and Reorder. This separation encourages writers to be in creative production mode while they write their drafts, focusing on getting ideas on paper. Then, they get to be in selective editor mode while they go through their work, line by line, making sure every idea is communicated effectively, and organized in an ideal way.

TCF: It looks like Essay will operate as a subscription-based platform. You have mentioned that you are also considering offering a free version of the app for people who cannot afford to pay but who would benefit from the program, like students. What are the options you are thinking about?

JP: We are still considering a variety of monetization strategies, and have been receiving a lot of feedback about how we can improve our current model. Essay is being used in over 100 countries already, and we know our current model is not perfect. … We’re motivated to eventually offer a free version of Essay, perhaps with a limited feature set. We are very early in our product lifespan, so a lot of things are on the table, and our current monetization model isn’t set in stone.

TCF: What will be Jordan Peterson’s involvement with this project moving forward?

JP: My dad is connected online to a huge network of people who are similarly interested in ideas and who are motivated to improve their thinking and writing. So right away a ton of users started testing the platform and suggesting ways to improve it. [My dad and I] discuss a lot of the most common (and most interesting!) feedback. He frequently has good ideas about how we might prioritize our product decisions or what new features might improve the platform.

Jordan Peterson plugged his son’s app, says good writing ‘sets your life in order’

In the video Peterson published introducing the app, he stressed the virtues of good writing.

“If your words are well structured and inspired and properly motivated and aimed like an arrow, you’re unstoppable,” the elder Peterson said in the video.

“If writing is thinking, which it is, and thinking sets your life in order or not, then you don’t let people mess with your words. You want to get them in order like soldiers. And that’s partly what this writing program is designed to help people do,” Jordan Peterson said.

MORE: Jordan Peterson to new grads: you will suffer in life; rise above it

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• Referencing, Citations, Footnotes features Feature Requests 217
• Complex Outline Structure (sub-outlines) Feature Requests 115
• Reading List Feature Requests 96
• Templates Feature Requests 69
• Add images to the editor Feature Requests 66
• Native mobile app (Android / iOS) Feature Requests 35
• Daily word count goal Feature Requests 32
• Paragraph alignment Feature Requests 28
• Manual Paragraph Indentation Feature Requests 2

In progress

• Work offline Feature Requests 138
• Rewrite headings and outline topics Feature Requests 30
• Topic choice tool Feature Requests 13
• Dark Mode Feature Requests 146
• PDF Export Feature Requests 110
• File organization on Dashboard Feature Requests 79
• Initial stage for notes, research and ideation Feature Requests 63
• Add Lists to editor Feature Requests 46
• Trash bin or archive option for deleted Essay projects. Feature Requests 42
• Notes Feature Requests 40
• Would love a slick way to replicate Jordan's "Culls" document Feature Requests 40
• Export to Google Docs Feature Requests 31
• Completed Work Feature Requests 26
• Visual/Audio tutorial Feature Requests 23
• Pinning an essay Feature Requests 22
• IPad Support Feature Requests 20
• Add Times New Roman Font Feature Requests 20
• Improved Dashboard UI Feature Requests 18
• Only Read Link - for external people Feature Requests 15
• 'Adding new outline topic' should be made smoother Feature Requests 10
• Font Feature Requests 10
• Home Screen Icon for iOS devices Feature Requests 9
• Continue from where you left off Feature Requests 9
• Highlight current Rewrite sentence Feature Requests 8
• Reorder - Multiple Selection Feature Requests 8
• Auto-Update Essay Versions Between Devices Feature Requests 7
• Join Sentences with Delete Key Feature Requests 7
• Font size 16 is missing Feature Requests 6
• Enable/Disable spell checking Feature Requests 6
• Reorder paragraph boxex Feature Requests 5
• Add to folders from Essay Workspace Feature Requests 5
• Word count percentage over 100% Feature Requests 4
• Format consistency Feature Requests 3
• Rewrite italics/bold Feature Requests 3
• Rewrite jumps to last edited sentence Feature Requests 2
• Auto focus currently editing sentence between tools Feature Requests 2
• Merge "Sentences" in Reordering View Feature Requests 2
• "Make a copy" vs "Copy to clipboard" Feature Requests 0

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Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a renowned psychologist, author, and online educator. His bestselling books, including “12 Rules for Life” and “Beyond Order,” have sold millions of copies worldwide. Dr. Peterson’s lectures and podcasts consistently attract large audiences, providing valuable insights into topics such as mythology, psychology, and personal development.

He has taught at prestigious universities, published numerous scientific papers, and developed online programs that help individuals explore their personalities and improve their lives. With a diverse background and adventurous spirit, Dr. Peterson has engaged in various activities and occupations, bringing a wealth of experiences to his work. His influential presence extends across social media platforms, and he continues to make significant contributions to the field of psychology and personal growth… (read more)

© 2023 Jordan Peterson

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We Who Wrestle with God: The Benevolent Father and His Fallen Children Hardcover – November 19, 2024

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio (November 19, 2024)
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About the author

Jordan b. peterson.

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance.

From 1993 to 1997, Peterson lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, while teaching and conducting research at Harvard University as an assistant and an associate professor in the psychology department. During his time at Harvard, he studied aggression arising from drug and alcohol abuse, and supervised a number of unconventional thesis proposals. Afterwards, he returned to Canada and took up a post as a professor at the University of Toronto.

In 1999, Routledge published Peterson's Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. The book, which took Peterson 13 years to complete, describes a comprehensive theory for how we construct meaning, represented by the mythical process of the exploratory hero, and provides an interpretation of religious and mythical models of reality presented in a way that is compatible with modern scientific understanding of how the brain works. It synthesizes ideas drawn from narratives in mythology, religion, literature and philosophy, as well as research from neuropsychology, in "the classic, old-fashioned tradition of social science."

Peterson's primary goal was to examine why individuals, not simply groups, engage in social conflict, and to model the path individuals take that results in atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Rwandan genocide. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily phenomenological. In the book, he explores the origins of evil, and also posits that an analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality.

Harvey Shepard, writing in the Religion column of the Montreal Gazette, stated: "To me, the book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul searching. ... Peterson's vision is both fully informed by current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply conservative and traditional."

In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario. He has also appeared on that network on shows such as Big Ideas, and as a frequent guest and essayist on The Agenda with Steve Paikin since 2008.

In 2013, Peterson began recording his lectures ("Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief") and uploading them to YouTube. His YouTube channel has gathered more than 600,000 subscribers and his videos have received more than 35 million views as of January 2018. He has also appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Gavin McInnes Show, Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder, Dave Rubin's The Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio, h3h3Productions's H3 Podcast, Sam Harris's Waking Up podcast, Gad Saad's The Saad Truth series and other online shows. In December 2016, Peterson started his own podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has 37 episodes as of January 10, 2018, including academic guests such as Camille Paglia, Martin Daly, and James W. Pennebaker, while on his channel he has also interviewed Stephen Hicks, Richard J. Haier, and Jonathan Haidt among others. In January 2017, he hired a production team to film his psychology lectures at the University of Toronto.

Peterson with his colleagues Robert O. Pihl, Daniel Higgins, and Michaela Schippers produced a writing therapy program with series of online writing exercises, titled the Self Authoring Suite. It includes the Past Authoring Program, a guided autobiography; two Present Authoring Programs, which allow the participant to analyze their personality faults and virtues in terms of the Big Five personality model; and the Future Authoring Program, which guides participants through the process of planning their desired futures. The latter program was used with McGill University undergraduates on academic probation to improve their grades, as well since 2011 at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. The Self Authoring Programs were developed partially from research by James W. Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin and Gary Latham at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto. Pennebaker demonstrated that writing about traumatic or uncertain events and situations improved mental and physical health, while Latham demonstrated that personal planning exercises help make people more productive. According to Peterson, more than 10,000 students have used the program as of January 2017, with drop-out rates decreasing by 25% and GPAs rising by 20%.

In May 2017 he started new project, titled "The psychological significance of the Biblical stories", a series of live theatre lectures in which he analyzes archetypal narratives in Genesis as patterns of behaviour vital for both personal, social and cultural stability.

His upcoming book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" will be released on January 23rd, 2018. It was released in the UK on January 16th. Dr. Peterson is currently on tour throughout North America, Europe and Australia.

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Welcome to the discourse! This forum is dedicated to the work associated with Dr. Jordan Peterson: a public intellectual, clinical psychologist, and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Toronto.

Essay Writing Software

I'm a software developer and fan of Peterson (Maps of Meaning continues to have a profound impact on my life, and that's no joke). I recently discovered his method for writing a good essay and I'm interested in building a web app based on it.

Is anyone already working on this (perhaps Peterson himself) or interested in working on it as well?

Technologies I'd like to use: node.js and a front end reactive framework (open to suggestions on which one).

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