Identifying Quality Writers

They will help you learn and grow

Many people share valuable advice on how to become a better writer, such as writing for an audience of one or writing every day.

I have only started publishing regularly last month so I don’t have anything to add to that discussion.

But I have yet to read a post on how to become a better reader. To be clear, I don’t mean how to read faster or motivate myself to read more often. Rather, how do I find quality writers to subscribe to?

I have been following¹ people on Twitter for a few years and have implicitly developed a strategy that (I think) has helped me learn a lot and enjoy my time spent on that platform. I believe that strategy is also applicable to Substack and want to share it with you.

A caveat — My goal is to learn and get closer to “the truth.” These tips are therefore most relevant for practical subjects like finance, science, and policy.

1. Look for respectful writers

To me, a good writer should be like a patient professor. The best professors are able to take poorly articulated questions, reformulate them, and use the opportunity to re-explain with a different perspective.

Michael Pettis, professor of finance at Peking University, is a role model at being patient and respectful. In the late 2000’s, he was primarily writing in his China Financial Markets blog². I remember countless times in which a reader would comment with a widely-believed (but wrong) opinion or ask a confused question. Every time Michael would rephrase the comment or question in the most generous way and patiently explain again the essence of his post.

Good writers don’t need to go as far. But at the very least they should not ignore or dismiss constructive comments that go against their conclusions. Sarcasm, mockery, and name calling are big red flags.

2. Look for data-driven writers

I can find data or studies to back up pretty much any claim I like and reinforce my biases. However doing so doesn’t help me learn. The best writers don’t cherry pick — they consider all available evidence, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and come up with conclusions supported by that evidence. To do so requires uncommon skills — someone must be mentally flexible, have the patience to consider a lot of (often conflicting) data, and the expertise to weigh each data series appropriately.

As an example, consider the debate on whether inflation in the US will soon fall back to 2%. You’ll find plenty of people cherry picking their favorite data point to argue for a “soft landing”, “hard landing”, or “no landing.”

Bob Elliott, former member of the Investment Committee at Bridgewater Associates, has so far correctly predicted that inflation would stay higher than most economists expect. What I find useful is that he considers all data series, which leads him to avoid making extreme claims. He calls this process “triangulation.”

Bob views wage growth as a big driver of inflation. In a January thread, he considered five data series about wages:

1. BLS average hourly earnings (AHE)

2. BLS employment cost index

3. Atlanta Fed wage growth tracker

4. ADP pay insights

5. Indeed wage tracker

He often looks at the last 1, 3, 6 and 12 months of data to avoid focusing on noise or missing developing trends. He breaks down the data per income and age groups to gain insights. He notes where the data series disagree: in January, the AHE was going down sharply whereas the Atlanta Fed wage growth tracker was elevated and increasing.

He concluded that “given that uncertainty it is overconfident to say either that wages will remain elevated or that the wage problem is behind us” and that “the cone of plausible outcomes is pretty wide.” This isn’t the stuff of headlines. But compare that to the many pundits who, often based on a single month of a single data series, made very definitive claims the economy would soon fall into a recession bringing down wages, jobs, and inflation.

Bob Elliott also considers limitations of data series. For instance, he explains that economic surveys (aka soft data) are biased by party affiliation.

3. Look for humility

Acknowledging one’s mistakes is a sign of an open mind, a willingness to change one’s opinion based on new data, and more generally an ability to learn. If I follow humble writers I’m also likely to learn.

Lyn Alden is such a writer. In December 2022, Lyn predicted that bank stocks would do well in 2023. Following Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, the stock price of US regional banks cratered, and some rushed to make fun of her prediction:

Anyone going to ask her how her trade is going?

Lyn agreed her prediction was poor, at the same time clarifying it wasn’t as bad as it looked:

About five months in, it's not going great obviously. Of the six bank stocks I hold, four are decent and the other two are down (but still slightly above the regional bank ETF).

But what she then did truly amazed me. She went out of her way to point out additional mistakes she had made, posting a chart showing she had bought a stock just before its price decreased:

If you think that's bad, check out the time I top-ticked Amazon.

I think her advice can be useful to anyone seeking to improve their knowledge:

Lyn Alden, a writer who shows humility.

4. Ruthlessly prune

If you are successful at identifying better writers, you won’t have time to read everyone. I know this sounds harsh, but at that point I suggest to stop reading lower quality writers. I constantly prune my list of Twitter authors I follow to between 20 and 50. I regularly unsubscribe (and sometimes re-subscribe) to fellow Substack writers.

At some point in the future you might feel other publications cover the same subjects as Debunking the Debunkers does and are of higher quality. When that happens by all means consider unsubscribing from Debunking and spend your limited time reading publications that provide you with the most enjoyment and opportunities to learn.

Your interests might also change over time. For instance, Covid-19 might not be as important to you as it once was. Again, prune who you subscribe to.

And sometimes (unfortunately too often) a good writer stops publishing altogether. One way or another, I am always on the lookout for high quality writers.

Always be upgrading

Looking for respectful, data-driven and humble writers, and ruthlessly pruning who I read, has helped me consistently upgrade my sources of information. In turn, I have been able to consider more viewpoints and slowly move away from psychological pitfalls like thinking in binary terms and overestimating how confident I am in my beliefs.

Good luck in your own journey finding quality writers!

1. Some explanation on what I mean by “following” people on Twitter. I bookmark at any time 20 to 50 Twitter accounts I want to “follow.” If someone often writes interesting answers, I bookmark their “Replies” tab, otherwise their “Tweets” tab. Once a day or every few days, on my desktop, I cycle through all the bookmarks. There are obvious drawbacks to this approach. However, I have found it helps me avoid endless scrolling. Also, frequent problems that other users complain about (like bots) don’t impact me directly.

2. The original version of his blog doesn’t exist anymore, having been hacked a few times. Recent posts available on the Carnegie Endowment website unfortunately have fewer interactions between Michael and his readers. Having said that, the comments section from this 2018 post provides a good example of Michael’s patience.