Editorial Writing

1. Editorial Writing “Expressing an opinion requires a balance between presenting your opinion and supporting your opinion with facts”

2. How to Write an Editorial • An editorial is a brief, persuasive essay expressing an opinion about a timely issue or an important current event. • Editorials usually call for the reader to take some sort of action. This is what makes them effective. • It is usually written from first-person point of view and uses the writer’s own opinions and experiences as a foundation.

3. The Qualities • A good editorial: • Opens with a clear statement of your opinion. • Comes quickly to the point. • Speaks with authority. • Presents a forceful case. • Consistently expresses your opinion. • Provides background facts for support. • A typical editorial is 200-300 words.

4. Declining Resources Make For Declining Results (284 words) It may come as a surprise to the people of Burnaby that the educational quality of their award-winning university is rapidly declining. When I first started teaching at Simon Frasier University ten years ago, I knew all of my students by name. I also had the time to provide them with detailed comments on all their assignments. These days, my classes are so large that I can barely see the students in the back of the room. I’ve also reduced the number of term papers I assign because I don’t have the time to mark them. This isn’t because I’m a bad teacher, it’s because the provincial government doesn’t give us enough money to do our jobs properly. To make matters worse, we will be losing more teachers in the spring in order to deal with an unexpected government cut to our budgets. Our students deserve better and Burnaby deserves better.

5. The British Columbia government needs to reallocate funds back into education. Although there are many areas that can use an increase in funding, the primary use of these funds should be for the hiring of new instructors and the increasing of educational assistants. Increased staff would decrease class sizes, resulting in more personal instruction. Additionally, the hiring of more educational assistants would again allow instructors to focus their attention on what matters – the students. Instructors will have more time to deliver a program that both challenging and appropriate at the post-secondary level. Instructors will no longer feel the need to “cut corners” as I have recently by reducing the number of term papers I assign. If we are to do what is “right” for our students, we need to make them the priority.

6. Transitions • A transition connects one idea to anther. • Because you will be writing a two-paragraph editorial, you need to ensure that the last sentence of your first paragraph connects directly with the first sentence of the second. Our students deserve better and Burnaby deserves better. (This is what needs to happen) The British Columbia government needs to reallocate funds back into education. (This is how to make it happen)

7. The Situation • It is 1968 and U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War has been going on for the past four years. You are recently graduated from high school, working at a job with good pay or attending college. You have just heard that the U.S. Government will be drafting young men and women into war service. What is your opinion of this action as it relates to you?

8. The Topic • Write a 200-300 word editorial (two double-spaced, handwritten pages) that accomplishes the following in TWO unified paragraphs (7-9 sentences each): • Presents and explains your opinion about the Vietnam War itself and/or the draft. • Calls for the reader to take a specific action, or inaction, to further your agenda. • Your final copy must follow MLA guidelines.

9. Pre-writing • On a fresh piece of paper, write the following: How I feel about the Vietnam War and the draft. • Take the remainder of class and freewrite about this. • React honestly and truthfully.