www.bethkemp.co.uk by Beth Kemp is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Editorials

Like feature articles, the best thing you can do for this is to read some and get a feel for them.  Do bear in mind that an editorial is intended to be a summing up of recent reports/comments on an issue, together with some sense of the publication’s opinion.  They often are a kind of official statement of the ‘party line’ of the paper, whereas comment pieces are more individual to the writer.  Things to be aware of for editorials are:

• Don’t write in the first person
• You can directly quote sources - but not too much, and do explain/define any technical terms
• You should show that you’re referring to a wide range of information, so do credit your sources even when you’re paraphrasing
• Think about your structure - it is not an essay, but you may find it easier to cluster arguments as pro/con something, or to pair up opposing views to present together

The paper’s opinion (your opinion, or the one you are told to present) must be clear, and probably come at the end, although the direction may well be obvious from the start