Tips for Aspiring Op-Ed Writers
Bret Stephens AUG. 25, 2017
As a summertime service for readers of the editorial pages who may wish someday
to write for them, heres a list of things Ive learned over the years as an editor, op-
ed writer and columnist.
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.
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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.
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. But, believe me, nothings worse
than having to run a correction.
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.
15) Id wish you luck, but good writing depends on conscious choices, not
luck. Make good choices.
