Arts & Humanities Spring 201

Writing 340: Arts & Humanities Spring 2016
Sections 65075 & 65205 Bankard
Not “Everything is Awesome”:
The Editorial for a Popular Audience Assignment
Our Purpose as a Class: Now that you’ve made an argument for a specific group of scholars
who have similar knowledge and interests, you will in this next assignment learn how to sell
your expert opinion to a larger, more diverse readership of non-specialists. Continuing our
discussion of audience and context, we’ll focus on how to make complex ideas or research more
accessible, how to engage a reader who does not already want to read what you’ve written, how
a single piece fits into the context of an entire publication’s identity, and how to develop a strong
voice and effective style.
Your Purpose as a Writer: To convince a popular audience that they should a.) care about a
particular (preferably topical) issue and b.) agree with the argument you make about that issue.
You also, in doing so, need to convince the editors of a specific publication to print your piece.
Context: Writers often refer to “the general public” as if everyone were a part of a vapid,
lemming-like hive mind akin to the conformist citizens singing “Everything is Awesome” in The
Lego Movie. And while it’s true that many people do not know about or understand issues that
affect their lives and look to more mainstream publications to enlighten them, the notion that all
people in all places suffer from the exact same kinds of ignorance is absurd. Within popular
media or publications targeting non-scholarly or non-specialist readers, multiple discourse
communities or more individualized public spheres exist. The average reader of The Washington
Post, for example, possesses different knowledge and values than someone who regularly reads
Rolling Stone or The Huffington Post and readerships for a single publication may in of
themselves be diverse. Writers must take this into consideration when drafting an editorial. In the
same way you wouldn’t submit one cover letter to all the jobs you would apply for, a writer
wouldn’t submit the exact same editorial written in the exact same way to all publications. An
understanding of audience and context also furthers the goal of an editorial – to connect
intellectually with large groups of people and, presumably, facilitate some kind of social change.
As Trish Hall, editor of the Op-Ed section of The New York Times, says, people don’t write
editorials for the money, but rather “They write for the influence, for the chance to reach an
audience, to say something that’s been bothering them, driving them crazy, something that no
one else seems to be saying.” As a writer you want to optimize your influence, and mismatching
your message may lead to that message falling on deaf ears. The challenge of this type of
writing, then, is to appeal to an audience while simultaneously making an uncomfortably eyeopening
statement.
Writing Task: Select a specific publication intended for a popular audience and write an
editorial (1000-1500 words) for that publication. Once you have drafted the editorial, you
must also write a companion essay (1000 words) in which you answer the following
question: “Why should the editor of your selected publication accept your piece?”
Tips:
• There is a difference between opinion and argument, and even though newspapers and
magazines often call their editorials “op-eds” or “opinion pieces,” you as the writer don’t
get to rant and rave with reckless abandon, failing to substantiate your opinion with some
kind of evidence or reasoning. There’s no point in sharing an opinion if you can’t convince
readers to agree with you, so think carefully about how you might do that.
• Unlike the scholarly paper you just wrote, an editorial does not require a formal citation of
sources and editorials don’t overtly incorporate outside sources, scholarly or otherwise.
That means that there is no required number of sources or guidelines about what types of
sources to you. You must use your own judgment and decide, based on the argument, the
audience, and the context, a.) what type of sources you yourself need to consult and b.)
what kind of evidence you need to include in the text itself.
• Don’t just pick The New York Times as your publication because it’s the first newspaper
that pops into your head. Think about what you actually like to read or what kind of
readership you’re interested in addressing. Also, what publications seem like your style or
would be receptive to your ideas and your voice? We’ll start this assignment by gathering
different examples of editorials from different publications, so hopefully that will give you
some additional ideas. Then, try to do some research on the publication. Who are the
editors? What kinds of editorials have they published in the past? Who reads this
publication and why?
• Choose a topic that you feel passionate about and can write about authoritatively.
Oftentimes scholars or professional experts in a particular field write editorials because
they want to share their expertise and use their position as an expert to establish ethos or
authority in their writing.
• To have a strong opinion about an issue does not necessarily mean that you have a binary
stance, definitely saying “yes” or “no,” or “this is good” or “this is the worst.” Convincing
the reader to think about an issue in a different way is a way to express your opinion.
• Remember that the audience for this paper reads for pleasure; this means you will have to
consider how to grab and keep hold of their attention, without sacrificing the integrity
discourse on the issue that you would want to maintain since you (ideally) actually care
about that issue.
• The audience for the companion essay is me and only me. This short essay should “show
your work” and essentially convince me that you’ve written not only the best editorial
possible, but that you have been thoughtful and deliberate in the way you’ve written it.
How does the editorial appeal to the readership of this particular publication? How have
you adapted your writing style or structured the piece to not only appeal to readers but also
fit the genre of the editorial? How have you translated complex ideas or detailed
information for this audience? You should always, when answering any of these questions,
provide specific examples as evidence, either by describing a specific moment in the
editorial or quoting from it directly (keep direct quotes very brief or stick to partial quotes).

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