How to Write an Editorial Essay

Writing a good editorial essay requires skillfully blending facts and emotion.

Writing an editorial essay requires a different set of skills than does writing an academic essay, the likes of which you're taught in high school and college. There are overlaps between the two, but a purely editorial essay will not suffice for a university assignment, and the converse is also true.

Instructions

1. Choose an issue and define your perspective. You could write pages and pages on the various angles of a given issue. But you're not trying to just give information; you're trying to convince. Your goal in an editorial is not to present all sides of the story in the interests of showing that yours is correct but to present your side cohesively and persuasively.

2. Add flair and style to engage the reader. There's more to writing than just putting forward a clear argument. You also have to make the reader want to keep going, as the best ideas are worth nothing when the reader puts the paper down halfway through out of boredom. Use humor, and mix up the rhythm of your sentences. Don't be afraid of using the occasional cliché or colloquialism; used sparingly, they can be the grease that keeps the essay flowing.

3. Inject emotion. Academics teach us that to craft an effective argument we need to be clear, cold and removed--"just the facts, please." But an editorial's audience is very different from that of an academic essay. Show the reader that the issue you're writing about is important enough for you to care about it, to show passion for.

4. Make sure your facts are solid. A foundation of real-world information is key. While emotion is important to engage the reader, it should be a vehicle for the facts to shine through, not a fog to obfuscate them. Emotion is the icing; facts are the cake. Few would want to eat a cake made entirely of icing.

5. Keep it simple. While emotive language and the use of clichés are acceptable, a reader shouldn't be drowning in them. Keep it visually simple, too. Long sentences and long paragraphs can make the reader feel out of breath and lost in words. Evenly spaced paragraphs and reasonably short sentences will encourage the reader to stick with your essay until the end.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't write ten words when five will do.

• Avoid hyperbole, which often involves word such as "always" or "never."

References

• QualityEssay.com: Editing Your Editorial Essay

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish