Index of topics: A. The SPECS format and the UIL / ILPC format for editorials; the ABCDEF format; B. Classic advice on good writing: George Orwell’s six rules for better writing; The secret of good writing by Mark Twain; Recommendations by H.W. Fowler (1906); Prime Minster Winston Churchill’s “Brevity Memo” (1940); Lee Kuan Yew, first Prime Minister of Singapore (1979); C. ISO Plain Language Standard for writing in English and Filipino; Some Plain Language writing guidelines (use short and clear sentences; avoid nominalizations, dummy subjects or expletive constructions, unnecessary preambles, and interruptive phrases; use the active voice, minimize the passive; parallelism; intra-paragraph organization; principles of readability); D. Pultizer Prize — the world’s most prestigious award in journalism: Editorial Writing winners from 1917 to 2023; E. Winners of The New York Times Annual Student Editorial Contests; F. Miscellaneous resources such as “Top 10 Unforgettable Editorials” from Smithsonian Magazine
A. The SPECS format and the UIL-ILPC format for editorials; the ABCDEF format
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| Click the graphic above to view or download a much bigger copy in another tab. |
| Besides the SPECS format and the UIL-ILPC format for editorials, you can also use the ABCDEF format discussed by Ulrich Boser in “How To Write an Op-ed: A Step By Step Guide” (The Learning Agency). While the article differentiates between an editorial and an op-ed, the ABCDEF formula can be used in writing an editorial or any kind of writing that involves expressing an opinion.
A - Attention (lede; narrative flash; news flash lede); B - Billboard (nut graph); C - Context (history graph); D - Demonstrate (facts or evidence to support your opinion or point; ethos, pathos, and logos); E - Equivocate (rebuttal of the strongest counterargument to your opinion or point); F - Forward (conclusion; drawing your readers to look toward the future) |
2. Jeanne Acton is the Journalism Director of UIL (University Interscholastic League) and ILPC (Interscholastic League Press Conference). In her “Editorial Writing” PDF, she presents a format for structuring an editorial by using the human body as a guide:
Head - Introduction (present the problem or situation)
Neck - Take a stand! What’s your opinion?
Body - Reasons for your opinion.
Left arm - Support your opinion with evidence and examples.
Right arm - Opposing viewpoints are rebutted. You shut down the opposition.
Left leg - Recap the staff stance.
Right leg - Present logical solutions.
Acton also illustrates the ways writers can go wrong with their editorials such as (a) having a trite or generalized argument, (b) asking too many rhetorical questions without stating an opinion, and (c) using pompous or pretentious words and phrases.
3. The statement of the situation or problem in the SPECS format and the “head"” and “neck” parts of the UIL-ILPC format doesn’t mean using single paragraphs; the statement of the situation or problem may consist of several paragraphs. For example, the statement of the situation or problem in the 2023 Pulitzer Prize winning editorial “Broken Promises: How long must Miami wait for a park at Heat arena? 26 years and counting” goes this way:
Twenty-six years, and we’re still waiting.
It was supposed to be a small gem of a park on Biscayne Bay, a four-acre sweetener if voters agreed to allow the Miami Heat to build its new arena on public land. Parcel B, as the wedge of waterfront property is known, was one of the ways the arena deal successfully was sold to voters back in 1996.
Tucked behind a modern white arena, within sight of downtown, the park was supposed to be a place for residents to glory in the same waterfront views that are too often reserved for millionaires and, increasingly, billionaires.
Voters bought the rhetoric. But we were played. An unbelievable 26 years later, we’re still waiting for that park to become reality.
There are indications it might finally happen, or at least some version of what was promised. There are serious talks between Miami-Dade County and the Heat, both sides say. But after more than two decades, we’re no longer the gullible residents of 1996 who put their faith in pretty-colored renderings and the aw-shucks appeal of new Heat coach Pat Riley, back when he still had dark hair. We won’t believe it until we see it.
Parcel B is just a handful of acres. Not much in a city that calls itself the “Gateway to Latin America” or, more grandly, the “City of the Future.” Not much in a place where a developer is now building a skyscraper 100 stories high, the tallest in Florida. Not much — but still a promise, to us, the taxpayers. There are now about 60,000 people living downtown, but Parcel B remains little more than a fenced-off parking lot with a view of the water. The arena, of course, is in its third decade.
Note:
Besides the editorial’s obvious passionate tone, one other thing that stands out is its use of parallelism. In the examples below, the editorial writer uses “better” and “not much” in two series of three sentences:
“Miami deserves better. Miami should be better. Miami can be better.”
“Parcel B is just a handful of acres. Not much in a city that calls itself the ‘Gateway to Latin America’ or, more grandly, the ‘City of the Future.’ Not much in a place where a developer is now building a skyscraper 100 stories high, the tallest in Florida. Not much — but still a promise, to us, the taxpayers. There are now about 60,000 people living downtown, but Parcel B remains little more than a fenced-off parking lot with a view of the water. The arena, of course, is in its third decade.”
We will discuss parallelism and other guidelines for good writing in the next two sections.
B. Classic advice on good writing
As a journalism student, you have already been taught what editorials are and how to write them. What will distinguish your editorial from other editorials during the press conferences are (1) the quality of your insights or opinions, (2) the absence of logical fallacies, and (3) your language, that is, grammar, conciseness, clarity, cohesion, coherence, fluidity of expression, etc.
George Orwell’s six rules for better writing
From Wikipedia:
“Politics and the English Language” is an essay by George Orwell that criticised the “ugly and inaccurate” written English of his time and examined the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language.
George Orwell (real name Eric Arthur Blair) was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and literary critic. Among his famous novels are “1984” and “Animal Farm.”
The essay focused on political language, which, according to Orwell, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it. This unclear prose was a “contagion” which had spread to those who did not intend to hide the truth, and it concealed a writer’s thoughts from himself and others. Orwell encourages concreteness and clarity instead of vagueness, and individuality over political conformity.
In his essay, Orwell provided six rules or guidelines for better writing:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. [Originality]
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. [Simplicity]
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. [Brevity]
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active. [Active voice]
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. [Clarity]
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. [Flexibility]
Orwell wrote “Politics and the English Language” more than 75 years ago, but his six rules for better writing have withstood the test of time.
The secret of good writing, by Mark Twain (in a letter to a 12-year-old boy “I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences. That is the way to write English—it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; and don’t let the fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.”
From Wikipedia: Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called “The Great American Novel.”
Recommendations by H.W. Fowler (1906):
- Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
- Prefer the concrete word to the abstraction.
- Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
- Prefer the short word to the long.
- Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance word.
The “Brevity Memo” (August 9, 1940) by Winston Churchill, UK Prime Minister
Among other things, Churchill said:
“Let us have an end of such phrases as these: ‘It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations……’ or ’Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect’.
“Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the most expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.”
“Keep it clear, keep it simple” (Feb. 27, 1979) by Lee Kuan Yew, first Prime Minister of Singapore
“The use of words, the choice and arrangement of words in accordance with generally accepted rules of grammar, syntax and usage, can accurately convey ideas from one mind to another. It can be mastered.”
“The written English we want is clean, clear prose - not elegant, not stylish, just clean, clear prose. It means simplifying, polishing and tightening.”
“Remember: That which is written without much effort is seldom read with much pleasure. The more the pleasure, you can assume, as a rule of thumb, the greater the effort.”
Other recommendations for good writing:
Prof. Daniel M. Oppenheimer of Princeton University published his study titled “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity” in the 2006 Applied Cognitive Psychology Journal. Actually, the title (as I quoted it) is incomplete; Prof. Oppenheimer was having fun because the other half of his study’s title is “Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.”
Oppenheimer surveyed 110 Stanford University students. Among other things, he asked them the following questions:
“Have you ever changed the words in an academic essay to make the essay sound more valid or intelligent by using complicated language?” 86.4% said yes.Among Oppenheimer’s findings are:
“When you write an essay, do you turn to the thesaurus to choose words that are more complex to give the impression that the content is more valid or intelligent?” 75% said yes.
- People are more likely to use big words when they are feeling the most insecure.
- Leaders facing crucial decisions might use more complex vocabulary and end up undermining others’ confidence in their leadership ability.
- Write clearly and simply if you can, and you’ll be more likely to be thought of as intelligent.
- Use short, simple words (for example, use “needs” instead of “necessitates”)
- Avoid big words and pompous diction (use “because” instead of “due to the fact that”)
- Omit redundant words (use “”facts” instead of “actual facts”)
- Avoid redundant pairs
- Avoid redundant modifiers
- Avoid modifiers such as absolutely, actually, completely, really, quite, totally, and very
- Avoid doublets and triplets (use either word instead of “authorize and empower”)
- Watch out for “of,” “to,” “on,’ and other prepositions
- Avoid noun strings
- Avoid legal, foreign, and technical jargon
- Avoid hidden verbs or nominalization (say “I decided” instead of “I made a decision”)
C. ISO Plain Language Standard (for writing in English, Filipino, and other languages
1. From “The ISO plain language standard: For most languages and cultures, and for all sectors” by Gael Spivak:
The standard is based on an internationally agreed-upon definition of plain language. The definition that appears in the plain language standard is as follows: communication in which wording, structure and design are so clear that intended readers can easily
- find what they need,
- understand what they find, and
- use that information.
The author further states:
The experts who wrote the standard come from 25 countries. Between them, those experts speak 19 languages and work in a wide range of roles and organizations. The experts worked hard to make sure every sentence in the standard works in their language.
Because of this, the standard can be adopted in most, if not all, languages and cultures, and all sectors. It’s versatile and easy to use.
Instead, these four principles in the standard give details on what methods can be used to write a plain language document:
Readers get what they need (relevant) Readers can easily find what they need (findable) Readers can easily understand what they find (understandable) Readers can easily use the information (usable)
2. From “The ISO Plain Language Standard” (IPL Federation):
Language neutral: the international plain language standard is not just for English
The standard is not just for English, nor is it just for ISO’s other two official languages, French and Russian. In fact, the standard is language neutral. So it works in most languages and across all sectors.
The guidance in the standard includes many plain language practices that are not word related. Such practices include focusing on what readers need to know, using a logical sequence, and using techniques to organize and design a document.
The guidance that relates to words is high level, so it is not specific to any one language. For example, the standard talks about using culturally relevant language, using words that your readers know, and using clear sentences.
What areas of expertise does the standard benefit?
Education
Finance and insurance
Government
Health/medical
Human resources
Information technology
Legal writing
National standard-setting bodies
Science
Communications, including:
Editing
Information design
Literacy
Localizing
Marketing
Media
Strategic communications
Technical writing
Translating
3. From “What Is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)?”:
The ISO (International Standards Organization) is an “international nongovernmental organization made up of national standards bodies; it develops and publishes a wide range of proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards and is comprised of representatives from various national standards organizations.”
The International Organization for Standardization was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The organization began in the 1920s as the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA). After being suspended during World War II, the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) proposed a new global standards body, and the International Organization for Standardization was formed.
In July 2023, the ISO published the “ISO 24495-1:2023 Plain language — Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines.”
4. From “ISO 24495-1:2023(en) Plain language — Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines”:
Plain language is communication that puts readers first. It considers:
— what readers want and need to know;
— readers’ level of interest, expertise and literacy skills;
— the context in which readers will use the document.
Plain language ensures readers can find what they need, understand it and use it. Thus, plain language focuses on how successfully readers can use the document rather than on mechanical measures such as readability formulas.
Extensive studies have shown that writing in plain language saves time or money (or both) for readers and organizations. Plain language is more effective and produces better outcomes. In addition, readers prefer plain language. For organizations, plain language is an important way to build trust with the readers. Finally, the process of translating is more efficient for plain language documents than for documents that are difficult to understand.
This document will help authors develop documents that communicate effectively with their intended readers. It applies to most written languages and reflects the most recent research on plain language and the experience of plain language experts.
Plain language is not to be confused with easy language. Plain language can be used for a general audience, while easy language is used for people who have difficulties with reading comprehension.
This document establishes governing principles and guidelines for developing plain language documents. The guidelines detail how the principles are interpreted and applied.
This document is for anybody who creates or helps create documents. The widest use of plain language is for documents that are intended for the general public. However, it is also applicable, for example, to technical writing, legislative drafting or using controlled languages.
The standard has four guiding principles:
Relevant – documents have information that readers need.
Findable – information is easy for readers to find.
Understandable – information is easy for readers to understand.
Usable – documents can be used by readers to achieve their purpose.
5. Overview of some guidelines for the “ISO Plain Language” core principles:
Guidelines for Principle 1: Readers get what they need (relevant)
Identify the readers
Identify the readers’ purpose
Identify the context in which readers will read the document
Select the document type or types
Select content that readers need
Guidelines for Principle 2: Readers can easily find what they need (findable)
Structure the document for reader.
Use information design techniques that enable readers to find information.
Use headings to help readers predict what comes next.
Guidelines for Principle 3: Readers can easily understand what they find (understandable)
Choose familiar words.
Write clear sentences.
Write concise sentences.
Write clear and concise paragraph.
Consider including images and multimedia.
Project a respectful tone.
Ensure that the document is cohesive.
Some Plain Language writing guidelines
Index: Use short and clear sentences; Avoid nominalizations, dummy subjects or expletive constructions, unnecessary preambles, and interruptive phrases; Use the active voice, minimize the passive; Parallelism; Intra-paragraph organization; principles of readability
1. Use short and clear sentences
Rachel McAlpine in her book “Global English for Global Business” (page 38) says:
“Short sentences are a supreme advantage when communicating with people from a non-English speaking background. If you want your English to be understood worldwide—write short sentences. If you want to avoid embarrassing grammar mistakes and excruciating international misunderstandings—use short sentences. If you want your international clients to read your documents easily, confidently and accurately—use short sentences.”
Ann Wylie in her article “How to Make Your Copy More Readable: Make Sentences Shorter” explains:
The longer your sentences, the less your readers will understand, according to research by the American Press Institute. The study shows that:
- When the average sentence length in a piece was fewer than eight words long, readers understood 100 percent of the story.
- Even at 14 words, they could comprehend more than 90 percent of the information.
- But move up to 43-word sentences, and comprehension dropped below 10 percent.
Bottom line: To improve understanding, break sentences up or condense them.
The modern English sentence is short, averaging below 20 words per sentence.
(a) From “The Principles of readability” by William DuBay:
In 1880, a professor of English Literature at the University of Nebraska, Lucius Adelno Sherman, began to teach literature from a historical and statistical point of view.
He compared the older prose writers with more popular modern writers such as Macaulay (The History of England) and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He noticed a progressive shortening of sentences over time.
He decided to look at this statistically and began by counting average sentence length per 100 periods. In his book (1893), Analytics of Literature, A Manual for the Objective Study of English Prose and Poetry, he showed how sentence length averages shortened over time:
Pre-Elizabethan times: 50 words per sentence
Elizabethan times: 45 words per sentence
Victorian times: 29 words per sentence
Sherman’s time: 23 words per sentence.
In our time, the average is down to 20 words per sentence.
(b) Ellegard Norm: The modern English sentence has an average of 17.6 words per sentence. (From 1978 study by Swedish researcher Alvar Ellegard of 1 million words corpus of 20th century American English writing called the Brown Corpus collected by Brown University in 1964)
(c) “What is Happening to Written English?”
Essentially, the sentence has become shorter – quite dramatically. In a study by Brock Haussamen (1994) using text from a variety of sources, the average sentence length was shown to have reduced from 40-70 in the period 1600-1700 to the low 20s in the 1990s.
Year 1600 - 1700: Sentence length 40 - 70 words
Year 1800 - 1900: Sentence length 30 - 40 words
Year 1990s: Sentence length 20s
(d) Comparison of average sentence length of several writers
Jane Austen: 42
John Steinbeck: 18.4
D. H. Lawrence: 13.5
(e) “Editing Tip: Sentence Length”
" ... the average sentence length for Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who can be considered representative of a modern English writer with a general audience, is 12 words ..."
(f) “The long sentence: A disservice to science in the Internet age”
If we want the fullness of science in necessarily long papers to be appreciated, it must increasingly be written in short sentences.
(g) From “Elements of Style” by Strunk and White: “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”(h) “Techniques in creating clear, concise, and direct sentences” (The Writing Center, University Wisconsin – Madison):
- Unless you have a reason not to, use the active voice. Put the action of the sentence in the verb.
- Reduce wordy verbs.
- Use expletive constructions (“It is,” “There is,” “There are”) sparingly.
- Try to avoid using vague, all-purpose nouns, which often lead to wordiness.
- Unless your readers are familiar with your terminology, avoid writing strings of nouns.
- Eliminate unnecessary prepositional phrases.
- Avoid unnecessarily inflated words
- Put wordy phrases on a diet.
(i) “Writing Concise Sentences” (from The Guide to Grammar and Writing, sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation in Hartford, Connecticut)
- Pruning the Redundant
- Abbreviated Redundancies
- Reducing Clauses to Phrases, Phrases to Single Words
- Intensifiers that Don't Intensify
- Avoiding Expletive Constructions
- Phrases You Can Omit
- Eliminating Clichés and Euphemisms
- Writing Concise Sentences (exercises)
- Eliminating Wordiness (exercises)
- Rewriting Bloated Sentences (exercises)
(j) “Identifying and addressing wordiness in sentences” (from The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
- Eliminate redundant pairs
- Delete unnecessary qualifiers
- Identify and reduce prepositional phrases
- Locate and delete unnecessary modifiers
- Replace a phrase with a word
- Identify negatives and change them to affirmatives
2. Use the active voice, minimize the passive.
(a) Passive voice is one of the biggest problems with government documents. From US National Archives and Records Administration Style Guide:
Active voice is the best way to identify who is responsible for what action.
In an active sentence, the person or organization that’s acting is the subject of the sentence. In a passive sentence, the person or item that is acted upon is the subject of the sentence. Passive voice obscures who is responsible for what and is one of the biggest problems with government documents.
(b) A sentence is in the active voice if the subject performs the action expressed in the verb. For example:
The dog bit the boy. (Active voice)
The boy was bitten by the dog. (Passive voice)
3. Avoid nominalizations (hidden verbs)
(a) A hidden verb is a verb converted into a noun. It often needs an extra verb to make sense. So we write, “Please make an application for a personal loan” rather than “Please apply for a personal loan.” (US SEC “A Plain English Handbook” 1998)
(b) Two signals of nominalization
| A. Distinct endings | B. Weak helping verbs |
| - ance - ence - ant - ity - ant - ment - ness - sion - tion | be conduct do effect get give have hold make perform provide put |
(c) What Is Nominalization in English Grammar?
In English grammar, nominalization is a type of word formation in which a verb or an adjective (or another part of speech) is used as (or transformed into) a noun. The verb form is nominalize. It is also called nouning.
In transformational grammar, nominalization refers to the derivation of a noun phrase from an underlying clause. In this sense, an “example of nominalization is the destruction of the city, where the noun destruction corresponds to the main verb of a clause and the city to its object.” (Geoffrey Leech, A Glossary of English Grammar, 2006).
(d) The Dark Side of Verbs-as-Nouns (New York Times)
It’s not just that nominalization can sap the vitality of one’s speech or prose; it can also eliminate context and mask any sense of agency. Furthermore, it can make something that is nebulous or fuzzy seem stable, mechanical and precisely defined. . . .
Nominalizations give priority to actions rather than to the people responsible for them. Sometimes this is apt, perhaps because we don’t know who is responsible or because responsibility isn’t relevant. But often they conceal power relationships and reduce our sense of what’s truly involved in a transaction. As such, they are an instrument of manipulation, in politics and in business. They emphasize products and results, rather than the processes by which products and results are achieved.
4. Avoid dummy subjects (expletive constructions) and unnecessary preambles
(a) “It” as a Dummy Subject in Grammar
The word “it” can be a subject (or dummy subject) in sentences about times, dates, and the weather (such as, It's raining) and in certain idioms (It's OK). Also known as ambient “it” or empty “it.”
Unlike the ordinary pronoun it, dummy it refers to nothing at all; it simply serves a grammatical function. In other words, dummy it has a grammatical meaning but no lexical meaning.
Related discussion: “Dummy Words” Have No Meaning
(b) Avoid dummy subjects or expletive constructions such as
- It is ...
- It appears ...
- There is ...
- There are ...
- It will be ...
| Dummy or false subjects | Plain Language revision |
| It is argued in the report that it is essential to simplify the tax code. | The report argues that simplifying the tax code is essential. |
| There was no consideration given to the suggestion by the committee. | The committee failed to consider the suggestion. |
| It is her opinion that there are several issues that need to be resolved. | She believes that several issues need to be resolved. |
(c) Avoid unnecessary preambles or pompous phrases such as
- It is important to add that...
- It may be recalled that...
- In this regard it is of significance that...
- It is interesting to note that...
- I would like to point out ...
- I would argue that ...
- It should be noted that ...
- It has been determined that ...
- It is obvious that ...
From “Parallelism” (University of Lynchburg):
Parallelism refers to using similar words, clauses, phrases, sentence structure, or other grammatical elements to emphasize similar ideas in a sentence. It makes the sentence concise, clear, and easy to read. Parallel structure is important especially in items in a series, paired items, and items in an outline or list.
Parallelism in Sentence Structure
A shorter definition: “Parallelism is a literary device that repeats grammatical elements to emphasize and create memorable phrases.”
From “Parallelism Examples — Writing, Speeches, Shakespeare & More” (Studio Binder):
Parallelism isn’t just a grammar style reserved for literature – it’s a tool we use in everyday conversation as well.
Here are some popular parallel phrases:
- “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
- “What you see is what you get.”
- “If the shoe fits, wear it.”
- “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
- “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Parallel phrases often use “it” or “their” to match the syntax to the secondary noun.
6. Intra-paragraph organization; principles of readability
D. Pultizer Prize — the world’s most prestigious award in journalism: Editorial Writing winners from 1917 to 2023
The Pulitzer Prize is an award administered by Columbia University for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher.
As of 2023, prizes are awarded annually in 23 categories. In 22 of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award, raised from $10,000 in 2017. The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.
On the Pulitzer Prize website, you can access the winning editorials from 1917 to 2023. Here’s how to navigate this part of the website:
1. Click the “+” symbol opposite, for example, the year 2023.
2. The drop down list will show the following as the winner and finalists:
Winner: Miami Herald Editorial Board, for a series written by Amy Driscoll (editorials on the failure of Florida public officials to deliver on many taxpayer-funded amenities and services promised to residents over decades)
Finalists:
Alex Kingsbury of The New York Times
Lisa Falkenberg, Joe Holley, Nick Powell and the late Michael Lindenberger of the Houston Chronicle
3. If you click “Miami Herald Editorial Board, for a series written by Amy Driscoll,” this will lead you to the page where the series of the winning editorials are listed. If you click the “+” icon opposite each editorial, you will be able to read the editorial in the drop down text. (If you click the “X” icon, the drop down text will disappear.)
If you click the editorial’s title instead of the “+” icon, you can read the editorial at its original source.
E. Winners of The New York Times Annual Student Editorial Contests
The New York Times Annual Student Editorial Contests is the most prestigious contest for students journalists, with thousands of middle school and high school students joining from all over the world. For example, in 2023, more than 12,000 students from around the world joined the contest, with only eleven students emerging as winners. Each entry is limited to 450 words or less.
The word “editorial” in “New York Times Annual Student Editorial Contests” is a misnomer; the New York Times uses either “opinion” or “essay” to describe the contest entries. Thus, as you read the winning entries, you will notice the prevalent use of the personal pronoun “I” (which is a no-no in editorial writing).
Posted below are some of the recent award-winning entries (the first three entries don’t use the personal pronoun “I”):
Spotify Is Killing Beethoven … Here’s How You Can Save Him
Reflections From Winners of Our Student Editorial Contest
Citing Evidence With Abel | Annotated by the Author
Choosing a Topic to Write About With Ananya | Annotated by the Author
Collar the Cat
Planting the Next Chapter of Farming
Where are the MEN in Menstruation?
Giving Up on Student Journalism Means Giving Up on Student Voices
How Animal Crossing Will Save Gen Z
Expectations of ‘Perfect’ English Are Elitist and Unrealistic
Cyber-Athletes: The Future Is Here
The Unlimited Possibilities of Animation
A Wedgie War Zone
Why We Should Be Fans of Fan Fiction
Parental Incarceration Is a Silent American Epidemic More Common Than Childhood Asthma
‘Not Real Chinese’: Why American Chinese Food Deserves Our Respect
It’s Time to Move Beyond ‘Asian American’
The Case for an A.I. Pause
How Fast Fashion Became Faster — and Worse for the Earth
To Meme or Not to Meme
We Cannot Fight Anti-Asian Hate Without Dismantling Asian Stereotypes
It’s Just Hair
Switching Letters, Skipping Lines: Troubled and Dyslexic Minds
‘Cultural Appropriation’ Is Critical to Human Progress
Comprehension, Clarity, and Consistency: The Case for the Oxford Comma
Proud Menstruating Student
F. Miscellaneous resources such as “Top 10 Unforgettable Editorials” from Smithsonian Magazine
1. “Op-Ed? Editorial? What do all these terms really mean?” (Des Moines Register)
2. “Argumentative Writing Prompts” from The New York Times
3. “Top 10 Unforgettable Editorials” (Smithsonian Magazine)
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” (The Sun, September 21, 1897)
“Manifest destiny” ( July-August 1845 issue of the Democratic Review)
“Go West, young man.” (Horace Greeley)
“What’s the matter with Kansas?” (1896, Emporia Gazette)
“Ford to City: Drop Dead” (October 30, 1975, New York Daily News
“The hot squat” (November 21,1975, Philadelphia Daily News)
“Wrong, wrong, wrong” (September 1982, Jackson Clarion-Ledger)
“War to end all wars” (August 14, 1914, Daily News and Leader)
“Times that try men’s souls” (Thomas Paine)
“The American century” (Henry Luce)
4. “Comparative Analysis of Philippine Newspaper Editorials” by Joselina A. Azucena, College of Teacher Education, Cagayan State University-Piat, Cagayan, Philippines
5. Various YT videos
6. Sir Antu YT videos
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