Instructions

things you'll need:

An opinion - readers aren't interested in writers who equivocate

1.
o

1
Open with a grabber.

2
Lay out your thesis in the first paragraph.

3
Demonstrate how widely held your position is.

4
Explain why you and many others feel the way you do.

5
Cite the opinions of experts who agree with you.

6
If one exists, include a celebrity angle.

7
Make your opinion relate to the experiences of ordinary people.

8
Examine the "big picture".

9
Leave a lasting impression by offering a forward-looking prediction or rhetorical question.

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Tips & Warnings

If it's appropriate, end with a joke or funny anecdote Stay under 800 words or run the risk of having your best stuff edited

Read more: How to Write An Opinion Column | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2116995_write-opinion-column.html#ixzz1ITHh52iL

Instructions
things you'll need:

An opinion Writing ability

1.
o

Focus your column on one and only one topic. You will want to begin discussion on one issue to invite responses so make sure your readers are clear on what they should be arguing about.

2
Choose a topic that you think will interest your readers. Topical issues typically work best, but classic arguments are great when working on a very tight production deadline.

3
Do your research. A good op-ed column presents a well thought out and researched point of view, it is not just a rant by an uninformed writer.

4
Check with publication guidelines to determine length. Chances are the publication will edit for length as they see fit regardless, so be sure you write succinctly and to the point.

5
Use unique ways of expressing yourself. An op-ed column is not just an essay. Do not feel you have to state your thesis, a few supporting ideals and move on. Present your material creatively in a way that will make your readers want to at least consider your stance and keep reading.

6
Grab your readers attention. Op-ed columns do not need to follow standard journalistic guidelines. Open with an anecdote, a quote, an examplesomething that will get your readers interested in what you have to say.

7
Remember that your argument must be present. Opening with a story is great, but be sure that at the heart of that story is your argument and that your stated opinion is clear and follows logical flow.

Just like every other article, you will need to edit and rewrite your op-ed column for clarity, structure, and grammar. Your article needs to make sense to readers other than yourself so do not be afraid to rewrite as necessary.

Tips & Warnings

Most articles in a publication are to be objective. Op-ed columns are the rare opportunities in journalism to state your own opinion. Give your column a clear voice and think hard about what you want to say before you start typing. Be weary of using humor. Often it can work well, but even more often the humor can fall short when read in black and white.

How to Write Opinion Columns that Keep the Reader Engaged

A lot of people seem to assume that the job and life of a top newspaper columnist is easy, and that if they had the same job, they could bang out a column by noon and then take off to the mall to spend some of those bundles of money good columnists tend to make. But good columns are far tougher to write than they look. In a marquee column, every word will be scrutinzed by the reader, and every word has to count because columnists typically only get one small column that doesn't allow for a lot of space to expound on thoughts. I took a column-writing class in college at The University of Michigan-Dearborn, and my teacher did an excellent job of helping me and the rest of the class see just how difficult it can be to write good columns. His name was Tim Kiska and he had been the television critic at the Detroit News and later the Detroit Free Press, so he certainly knew his way around a good column. He constantly pushed us to revise and re-think every word in our columns, and re-writes were a common practice that helped us get better as writers each time. That brings me to my first tip when writing a column: re-writes and revisions are often necessary to make sure everything's nice and tight, and to make sure that you are being as precise as possible with the words you use, especially the verbs. Your use of spot-on vocabulary is of the utmost importance when you're working with a small writing space, especially when compared to a longer, more straightforward article. Writer's block can creep up on column writers very easily because they are worried about making everything perfect the first time around, but if you approach the column like that, you can end up sounding

boring and mechnical as you focus on the technical aspects of the writing above everything else. The key for a column writer is get across as much emotion as possible. You are charged with developing your own "voice;" that is to say that you want to try and sound as much like yourself as you possibly can, as if you were having an everyday conversation with a friend. To that point, you should start off by just sitting down and shooting from the hip, writing down what you feel and what your perspective is on the topic. After that, you can then go back in and tighten things up. Another important aspect of column writing is to keep things short and interesting. Don't write in long paragraphs or the reader will get bored easily. You want to keep the piece light and conversational, not long-winded and informative. Columns are about expressing opinions moreso than anything else. You can back them up with facts, but you don't want to come across sounding like an encyclopedia. The opening paragraph of your column should be short and eye-catching. Put something outlandish or remarkable in there and then explain more as the column goes on. There will be plenty of time to tie up all of the loose ends later on. You can also throw in some good anecdotes, but you want to keep the reader on edge waiting for the next part of the story, which brings me to my next point: writing your column with a narrative kind of style is always a good idea. It's the same concept as a novel: you keep the reader guessing by revealing parts of your story one at a time while building up to an ending. This style can be employed for all types of columns. A good way to break up different parts of your narrative is with a bold sub-headline seperating each different portion of your column. Finally, the most important advice I can give about column writing is that it takes a lot of work and practice before most people can finally begin to establish their "voice." You need to get to the point where you are just as comfortable expressing yourself in writing as you are in person talking with your best friend. Columns are not like articles in that they are not the be-all, end-all. Their goal is to express opinions, to entertain, and to get the reader to see things in a different perspective. They may not agree with you, but if you make them think, they'll probably keep coming back for more.

Column Writing Tips Many young writers prefer to write columns rather than straight news or features. Straight news is deemed to be boring covering press conferences and reporting who said what. Feature stories involve too much reporting and require discipline to follow a set structure. Columns, which are essentially opinion pieces, are much looser and therefore easier. Or so it seems. Anybody can be trained to write straight news because its very mechanical. Feature articles, though also somewhat formulaic, are harder because they require good writing. But column writing is the hardest type of writing of all because it requires good thinking. To write a good column requires more than just the ability to articulate an opinion. Your opinions must make sense, provide insight and be convincing. And you must do all this in an entertaining way.

It requires you to be almost like a lawyer. Through your arguments, you will need to convince the jury (your readers) that your client (your viewpoint) is right. Shaping a powerful argument takes practice and requires both breadth and depth of knowledge as well as the ability to critically analyze a particular issue. So, is there a methodology for training someone to become a good thinker? Im not sure about that but Im certain it helps to be well-read, inquisitive and willing to listen to various viewpoints. If you're someone who likes to write but doesnt want to do research or think deeply about an issue, forget about column writing. Studying your role models will help you to develop your own voice. Follow the work of several established columnists and analyze their writings to discover how they project their arguments and how they make effective use of anecdotes, quotes and statistics. From there, you can learn the tricks of the trade and eventually develop your own distinctive voice and style. Column writing is very different from other forms of writing because unlike straight news and feature writing, columns have dedicated readerships. A columnist develops a following because his readers feel they can gain knowledge, insight and entertainment from reading his writings. Its a great honor to be given a regular column but remember, to do it well requires a great amount of dedication to the craft. Lastly, a word of advice. Be ready for criticism. If you can dish it out, youve got to be able to take as good as you got. When you take a strong stance on anything, theres bound to be someone offended by what you wrote. And they will write to you often in less than polite language - to let you know exactly what they think of you and your opinions. It goes with the territory. Now, onto the tips. 1. Write with conviction: Put forward your opinion as something you truly believe in. Argue your case with conviction. Come down hard on one side of an issue. Be unequivocal. Never ever sit on the fence. 2. Maintain your focus: Make your column about one thing and one thing alone. Dont muddle the message. Maintain your focus. Thats the only way to make a strong impression on your readers and to convince them that your point of view is correct. 3. Understand opposing viewpoints: Be mindful of the opposing argument. Anticipate objections to your point of view and deal with them convincingly with sound reasoning. If youre not familiar with the opposing view, you will not be able to argue your points well.

4. Refer to facts: Your arguments, however logical, will not carry much weight unless they are accompanied by facts that support your position. Dont overdo this and inundate your readers with statistics and figures. But do make use of facts from reputable sources. 5. Use analogies: Analogies are useful for illustrating a point, especially when the topic you are writing about is somewhat complicated or technical. Using a simple analogy from everyday life makes the issue more understandable and relevant to the reader. 6. Be critical: People like reading columnists who dare to criticize real life people not just nameless concepts and policies. Naming names might create a bit of controversy but as long as you do not libel anyone and dont go overboard in your criticism, it works well to make your column an interesting and exciting read. 7. Do reporting. Its possible to write columns without doing any reporting but the best columns typically involve some form of reporting. When you report, you get on the ground and you gain a better sense of whats really happening. When you write from an ivory tower, it shows. 8. Localize and personalize: Localize your story whenever possible. Also tie it to some personal experience yours or that of someone you know. This makes an otherwise esoteric and distant topic more real, relevant and memorable to the reader. 9. Be passionate: Generally, people dont like to hear a soft or passive voice when they read a column. So be aggressive even arrogant, to an extent. People want to see passion. They want to feel energized. If the issue doesnt seem to excite you, the writer, its certainly not going to excite the reader. 10. Provide a solution: Last but not least, dont just raise an issue. Have the conviction to suggest a solution. Columns that criticize certain policies but offer no solutions are useless. People read columns because they want to gain insight and answers. If you dont provide those, youve failed as a columnist.

How to write an Opinion column for The Signal

Political commentary is the backbone of The Signal's Opinion page. While syndicated columnists who address state, national or world issues are part of our mix, our focus as a community newspaper is on local columnists who address local issues, and we welcome your contributions. We ask that local columns be no longer than 750 words in length, and that you e-mail them to letters@thesignal.com. If you write more than 750 words, we will have to return it to you so you can edit it to length. A column is essentially an essay. With that in mind, we offer the following "column-writing do's": 1) Do have a clear point, and make it just one clear point. A practiced essayist may be able to imply the point of his/her essay, but we recommend a clear statement of the point - what essayists call a thesis statement. We don't want readers scratching their heads at the end of the column and asking themselves, "Now, what was that all about?" 2) Do have a clear goal, which is usually persuasion. Unless the goal is strictly informational, which political columns usually are not (Dan Walters being an occasional exception), your column should be aimed at persuading readers to agree with your point of view and/or to take action on your arguments. The most effective way to persuade is by logical, reasoned argument. That's not to say that emotion can't be part of an effective argument, but arguments should be grounded in a logical appeal. Each argument should be supported by specifics - examples, analogies, anecdotes. Alternatively, the column may recount one long story/anecdote that illustrates your point, but it should be specific and well told. 3) Do have an awareness of audience. Our audience is, of course, The Signal's readers. It's not just the City Council or a water board or town council. It's much broader than that. Address the public. 4) Do seek fresh, thoughtful topics. Trust your personal impressions/feelings, but analyze them for logic. Being a local paper, we of course value columns that deal with local issues. But if we've already published 16 columns on the hospital expansion, for example, we would appreciate it if you sought topics elsewhere unless, of course, you have a spanking-new perspective that nobody else has mentioned. 5) Back up your claims. Attribute your information. It will add credibility to your point of view. "A recent poll said that..." is not enough. Cite the poll, study or whatever, who or what entity released it, and when. Provide a Web address if possible. Columns with unattributed information will be returned for revision. And we offer some column-writing don'ts: 1) Don't write lengthy introductions. We're happy you visited Luxembourg, but there's a reason that "How I spent my summer vacation" is a clich for clichs. 2) Don't crusade. A columnist with only one cause is boring. It's unlikely a Signal columnist will, through his or her writing, succeed at halting all illegal immigration or leading a coup at City Hall. Give it a rest and write on something different. Remember that the editor's job is, among other things, to provide a variety of reading options for our audience. 3) No shameless plugs. You're attempting to sell your point of view, not a product or service. 4) Don't engage in mudslinging and shrill accusations. That's counterproductive. True, public figures such as

City Council members are virtually impervious to libel. But if your goal is persuasion, are you going to win hearts by calling the opposition the slime of the earth? No. Name-calling does not constitute an argument; all it does is drive away everyone who doesn't already agree with you. A reasoned argument will be much more effective. Thank you for your interest in contributing to The Signal Opinion page.

How to write an opinion column

I have meandered from style to style, approach to approach, method to method in my mental column-writing process, and while I wish I could close this entry with some sort of consummation to my quest for a column Way, that still hasnt come.
By Amin Ghadimi Published April 18, 2010

I dont know. Im still trying to figure out how to write an opinion column. Should a column be a personal endeavor in which the column and the columnist are inseparable, mutually reflecting one another? If so, at what point does an endearing expression of oneself spill over into maudlin and gaudy self-indulgence? On the other hand, is column-writing an academic endeavor? With an academic community as an audience, does the columnist have an obligation to forgo trivialities and engage in serious intellectual discourse? If so, at what point does earnest erudition devolve into pedantic grandiloquence? Perhaps right now, in this column. Each time I read another brilliant column on these pages, I find myself asking and re-asking myself these questions. Each of my fellow columnists has a distinctive and enviable style. This diversity of styles of column-writing, perhaps a natural consequence of the diversity of personalities and interests that the opinion page deliberately selects, means that I have, at different points, arrived at contradictory answers to the above questions. An affably personal style works just as well for one person as a detached scholarly approach works for another. Which leaves me where in answering how I want to write my column? One approach is just to write. To think about writing is perhaps to over-think it. If the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi can teach us something about the opinion page, perhaps that is it. Zhuangzis fish trap or rabbit snare metaphor, often cited as representative of the Daoist perspective on language, speaks to this question: The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once youve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once

youve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. If words have no importance in and of themselves, if my column itself has no worth, if its just a means to an end, then does it matter how I write my column so long as you understand what Im saying? But then perhaps Zhuangzi wouldnt even approve of an opinion page in the first place. In a passage from his eponymous work that he attributesor pseudo-attributesto Confucius, Zhaungzi quotes an apparently established aphorism from his time: Transmit the established facts; Do not transmit words of exaggeration. Although Zhuangzi was a Daoist, not a Confucian, scholars claim that Zhuangzi paradoxically seeks to speak through Confuciuss voice in this passage. But thats a separate discussion. More to the point, is all this column-writing nonsense, then, just exaggerated buffoonery? At least thats what my column title suggests. The way that can be told, of course, is only the first half of the first line of the Dao De Jingthe remainder reads, is not The Way, or something similar, depending on the translation. A column is, by nature, vaingloriousanyone who alludes to Daoist thought in his Spectator column title, let alone someone who writes about column-writing in his column, has got to be particularly self-indulgent. Its like Dante in the first rung of hell, humbly asserting himself as the sixth among such intellects as Homer and Ovid. Except its not like that at all. In any case, would Zhuangzi consider all of this a waste of time? Standing in direct opposition to Zhuangzi is the Confucian philosopher Xunzi. Believing that human nature is essentially evil, Xunzi argues that the exacting observance of rites is the prime way to overcome our innate proclivity to do evil. Language is one such rite. In the chapter Rectifying Names, which is a central concept that recurs throughout Confucian thought, Xunzi says, He who can use names in such a way that they are both practical and esthetically pleasing may be said to have a real understanding of them. To him, then, words are not merely rabbit snares. They must be chosen deliberately and carefully. If I am correctly reading Xunzi, then, and if I can appropriate him for use in my column, I cant just write. The purpose of a column cannot just be the communication of meaning. There is another purpose, at once more transcendent and more fundamental. Thats pretty daunting. But all this leaves me nowhere. I have meandered from style to style, approach to approach, method to method in my mental column-writing process, and while I wish I could close this entry with some sort of consummation to my quest for a column Way, that still hasnt come.

Its a problem that calls into question what column-writing, or even writing in general, isor at least what it should be. We take it for granted that works of creative literature should have some sort of artistic merit, but we dont really expect that in a newspaper or on the opinion page. Is that the way it should be? Is that for good reason? I dont know. Amin Ghadimi is a Columbia College sophomore. He is the former Spectator editorial page editor. He is also a senior editor of the Columbia East Asia Review and the secretary of the Bah Club of Columbia University. The Way That Can Be Told runs alternate Mondays

How to Create an Advice Column - Write Like A Columnist

Giving Advice To Others
Are you a natural-born giver of advice? You might consider starting your own advice column! Creating your own advice column is simple, especially with the help of the Internet. These days advice columns are springing up left and right. Most people give advice, but don't really label themselves as "advice columnists." If you like to give advice and want to learn how to start your own column, I'll give you some pointers here on how to do that.

Are you in it for the long haul?

Creating an advice column might seem like great fun. But there is something you should ask yourself--Are you in this for the long haul? For a column to really take off and be a success, you depend totally on your readership. Building a strong, solid network of readers is challenging. Here are some things you should consider before you create an advice column:

Can you be consistent in writing and publishing your advice column? Can you create a stock pile of extra columns in advance, to prepare for unforeseen emergencies? Can you write sage advice that is non-biased? Can you avoid burn-out by taking breaks and interacting in other ways?

An advice column can become both boring and yet challenging in many ways. It can also take a lot out of a person, if you do it over a long period of time. And this is the only way you will create a big audience. Your readers depend on you to be consistent and on point...all the time. So it's up to you. Are you in this for the long haul? Or is this just a passing fancy? If you don't think you can reasonably be consistent over a long period of time, it will be difficult to build a readership, which means your column will probably flop.

Collect Questions
One of the first steps to creating an advice column is to collect questions from your target audience. The quickest and easiest way to do this is to head straight to the source--your audience--and start probing them for questions.Find out what burning questions are on their minds. Here are some tips to help you collect questions:

Conduct a telephone survey Conduct an online poll Start a list and gather questions from your subscribers Scan magazine covers in your niche for questions people are asking there

These are just a few simple ways you can collect questions.

Another way to gather questions is to have a brainstorming session. Gather a few friends and/or colleagues and have a pow-wow. Write down as many questions as you can think of that your intended audience might have for you. Stay tuned for the next step to creating an advice column...

How To Write a News Column

A news column is a journalist's time to connect to the community on a personal level that is not possible with day to day objective news writing. Columns are often written in first person and can contain experiences from the writer's life, or simply the writer's opinion on a topic. 1. Keep a personal tone. This is your time to reach out, so make sure to let the reader know that these opinions are coming from you. This is also important because the newspaper itself may not agree with the opinions stated. It is also not a good idea to go against the grain of the newspaper. If the newspaper in question endorses candidates, do not write a glowing opinion piece about the opposing candidate. 2. Don't make unnecessary enemies. I once wrote a column about the scant hours that local antique stores were open and how it would be better if they weren't "always closed." This caused a firestorm of phone calls and letters from antique store owners demanding a retraction. In a small- to mid-sized community, the members of the community are extremely important to the newspaper, and they should not be alienated unless there is an extremely good reason. You also have to remember that those are your potential advertisers. Cost the paper a few ads and you may be looking for a new job. 3. Use a little humor. People often read columns because they expect them to be humorous and unexpected. If you can make readers laugh, even in the course of a political opinion column, you will start to make a name for yourself as a columnist as readers await your next piece. The humor should be subtle, and perhaps based on local events that the public would know about. This gives it a personal edge and the feeling of an in joke that the community can share.