And op-ed is a crucial part of a newspaper. The purpose of an op-ed is to offer an opinion.
Take a position on an issue and make a strong argument for or against it. Start by reading some
of the op-eds in your newspaper. You will find them (usually) under the opinion section.
For this assignment you will write your own op-ed piece. It should be around 1,000 words
and should take a position on an issue you feel strongly about.
Below is a NYT editors advice for writing an effective op-ed.
1) A wise editor once observed that the easiest decision a reader can make is to stop reading.
This means that every sentence has to count in grabbing the readers attention, starting with the
first. Get to the point: Why does your topic matter? Why should it matter today? And why should
the reader care what you, of all people, have to say about it?
2) The ideal reader of an op-ed is the ordinary subscriber a person of normal intelligence who
will be happy to learn something from you, provided he can readily understand what youre
saying. It is for a broad community of people that you must write, not the handful of fellow
experts you seek to impress with high-flown jargon, the intellectual rival you want to put down
with a devastating aside or the V.I.P. you aim to flatter with an oleaginous adjective.
3) The purpose of an op-ed is to offer an opinion. It is not a news analysis or a weighing up of
alternative views. It requires a clear thesis, backed by rigorously marshaled evidence, in the
service of a persuasive argument. Harry Truman once quipped that he wished he could hire only
one-handed economists just to get away from their on the one hand, on the other advice.
Op-ed pages are for one-handed writers.
4) Authority matters. Readers will look to authors who have standing, either because they have
expertise in their field or unique experience of a subject. If you can offer neither on a given topic
you should not write about it, however passionate your views may be. Opinion editors are often
keen on writers who can provide standing-with-surprise: the well-known environmentalist who
supports nuclear power; the right-wing politician who favors transgender rights; the
African-American scholar who opposes affirmative action.
5) Younger writers with no particular expertise or name recognition are likelier to get published
by following an 80-20 rule: 80 percent new information; 20 percent opinion.
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6) An op-ed should never be written in the style of a newspaper column. A columnist is a
generalist, often with an idiosyncratic style, who performs for his readers. An op-ed contributor
is a specialist who seeks only to inform them.
7) Avoid the passive voice. Write declarative sentences. Delete useless or weasel words such as
apparently, understandable or indeed. Project a tone of confidence, which is the middle
course between diffidence and bombast.
8) Be proleptic, a word that comes from the Greek for anticipation. That is, get the better of
the major objection to your argument by raising and answering it in advance. Always offer the
other sides strongest case, not the straw man. Doing so will sharpen your own case and earn the
respect of your reader.
9) Sweat the small stuff. Read over each sentence read it aloud and ask yourself: Is this
true? Can I defend every single word of it? Did I get the facts, quotes, dates and spellings exactly
right? Yes, sometimes those spellings are hard: the president of Turkmenistan is Gurbanguly
Malikguliyevich Berdymukhammedov.
10) Youre not Proust. Keep your sentences short and your paragraphs tight.
11) A newspaper has a running conversation with its readers. Before pitching an op-ed you
should know when the paper last covered that topic, and how your piece will advance the
discussion.
12) Kill the clichs. If you want to give the reader an outside the box perspective on how to solve
a problem from hell by reimagining the policy toolbox to include stakeholder voices well, stop
right there. Editors notice these sorts of expressions the way French chefs notice slices of
Velveeta cheese: repulsive in themselves, and indicative of the mental slop that lies beneath.
13) If you find writing easy, youre doing it wrong. One useful tip for aspiring writers comes
from the film A River Runs Through It, in which the character played by Tom Skerritt, a
Presbyterian minister with a literary bent, receives essays from his children and instructs them to
make each successive draft half as long. If you want to write a successful 700-word op-ed,
start with a longer draft, then cut and cut again. The art of writing, believed the minister, lay
in thrift.
14) The editor is always right. Shes especially right when she axes the sentences or paragraphs
of which youre most proud. Treat your editor with respect by not second-guessing her judgment,
belaboring her with requests for publication decisions or submitting sloppy work in the
expectation that she will whip it into shape.