Late again.

Sorry: (  my pursuit of the perfect example caused my tardiness, as did a good ol' post-school day at the DMV. Instead of a solid example, I'm going to give you a few structural notes and links to view. Tomorrow's revision is a simple one, so don't stress.

Here is a common structure for editorials:

The Lead – Hook the reader with the opening. A personal story works. So does a shocking statement. Maybe it is speaking to the reader like he or she was in the room with you. Whatever you do, make sure you are honest, accurate, and specific. Once you think the reader will be firmly with you, indicate your topic and give a committal statement to what you believe.

The Concession – You might want to disarm your opposition by recognizing that their viewpoint has some importance. This is good because those who disagree with you will be thinking it anyway. Concede only the hardest point to argue against your thesis and and then add a but . . .

The Body – The body of the piece should include a strong argument for your thesis, followed by a stronger argument for your thesis, followed by the strongest argument for your thesis. Save the strongest argument for last because the reader will tend to remember the final argument longer and ending with a weaker argument just invites people to oppose your position.

The Conclusion – An effective ending to the essay is to leave the reader with a little something extra: a call to action, a vision of the future, or food for thought.

The length of an opinion piece and the number of paragraphs it has depends on how big a problem it considers, the amount of evidence it examines, and the number of possible answers it provides.


Here's a little piece by the Times that includes several editorial-style responses. 
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