What is Copywork? Copywork is the process of recreating an existing work as closely as possible in order to improve your own skills. Writers and painters have used this technique to learn how to get better at their chosen craft.
Painters, Writers and Copywork
How do painters learn how to paint? Painters learn their craft by copying the work of their masters. By copying their masters work, a new painter learns how to use color, perspective and other techniques that make a painting great. When you visit a museum, you may see an artist studying and copying a famous painting.
Writers and bloggers get better by copying their favorite writers. They pick out a piece of writing they like and write it down by hand. By copying your favorite writers, you learn how to choose words, what works in a story and get better at writing. You can use the practice to incorporate what you learn into your own writing.
Why write code by hand?
When you learn new code, you have two choices. Type it in by hand or copy and paste. In Learn Ruby the Hard Way, Zed A. Shaw, explains that you learn how code works by entering it by hand, not by copying and pasting. Copying and Pasting is quicker, but you don’t learn how it works. You type it in by hand, so you can learn to read, write and see how the code works.
Why Copywork?
Copywork lets you focus learning a programming language and not worry about getting the UI right. You can learn only so much from building a beginner app like a To Do List. If you want to learn what a programming language can do, the next step is to find a simple app, copy it and build it in your chosen programming language. Dave Ceddia explains how you can use copy work to learn react.
Summary
You can learn or improve your creative skills by copying an existing app. Programmers can use it to learn what they can do with a programming language. Or you can use it to learn how to build or experiment with different UIs.
Have you used copywork to improve your skills?