Harsh but true: nobody owes us their time and attention. Nobody.
As writers, we might luxuriate in the long navel-gazing preamble with flowery language, and there is a time and place for that, I suppose, but also, when the stakes are high or when what your writing is intense, you have to get to your point right off the bat.
Also, many of us are socialized to buffer bold statements with “throat-clearing” language, like “I think” and such, but, look: sooner or later, you’re going to have to get to your point, and if you don’t come out with it, you risk your reader not making it far enough into your piece to receive it.
One rule I stress often with those I edit/beta-read is that in any non-fiction writing, not only must you get to your point quickly, but you also absolutely must establish who you are and why anyone should listen to you in order to keep the reader’s focus. And, you must establish this long before words like “I”/”me”/”my”/”mine” show up in the piece, otherwise you risk subconsciously diverting the reader’s attention away from your writing and down the path of deciding whether or not to listen to you.
That can be as simply tackled as starting a sentence with, “As a professor of X…” or “As a mental health professional…” or even, “In my two decades as an educator….” early on in your piece.
Make your point and state the relevant high-level argument or info, and get your readers’ attention in your lede, then establish why we need to listen to you in order to help readers understand you are a credible person with something important to say.
