You will gain a foundation for college-level writing valuable for nearly any field. Students will learn how to read carefully, write effective arguments, understand the writing process, engage with others' ideas, cite accurately, and craft powerful prose. Course Learning Objectives • Summarize, analyze, question, and evaluate written and visual texts • Argue and support a position • Recognize audience and disciplinary expectations • Identify and use the stages of the writing process • Identify characteristics of effective prose • Apply proper citation practices • Discuss applying your writing knowledge to other writing occasions
Op-Ed Writing Workshop
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Skills You'll Learn
Essay Writing, English Language, Academic Writing, Editing
Reviews
4.6 (360 ratings)
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LB
Jun 21, 2018
Helpful, informative, and engaging! I've always been at the top of my classes in English, but this is helping me sharpen my skills even more and apply them to my life.
PB
Apr 01, 2018
Hard work and worth it! Grateful for the opportunity. Fully recommend it for anyone who is serious about learning to write clearly and improve their prose.
From the lesson
Project 3: Op-Ed
This week, Professor Comer introduces the idea of public scholarship, how academic writing can be transformed for a broader public. Her guest, David Jarmul, will give an overview of how to write an op-ed. You will then have the opportunity to write your own.
Taught By
Dr. Denise Comer
Assistant Professor of the Practice; Director of First-Year Writing
>> Okay, start.
>> Hi everyone and welcome to our Google Hangout.
I'm David Jarmul.
I'm here at Duke University.
I'm in our brand new studio that we've built in our Office of News and
Communications for Google Hangouts and Skype and things like this.
And it's great to be joining all of you for this Hangout to talk about op-ed
articles, to follow up the presentation that I hope you've had a chance to watch.
And we have four great students who are joining us for the Hangout.
So before we go any further, let's just have everyone introduce themselves.
I'm looking at the screen, and we'll go from left to right.
Maybe you can tell us your name and where you are.
So Elena.
>> Hello, first of all, thank your very much for inviting me to join the Hangouts.
It's a great honor and a great pleasure for
me, and I'm in Russia [INAUDIBLE] Moscow.
>> Great, from Russia.
And Jim?
We're not hearing you.
Jim?
>> Okay.
>> Now we hear you.
>> Forgot about the mute.
Yes, I am from Montesano, Washington and I want to thank you for
the opportunity of participating in this workshop.
>> Great, Mintom?
>> Hi, I am Mintom Jentons, and I am from London, and it's a great opportunity to
join this Hangout, and I'm looking forward to sharing some information with you guys.
>> Great, and Pablo.
>> Hi, good afternoon.
I am in Washington, DC.
And thank you so much for this opportunity.
>> Great, well, thank all of you.
And before we get started, so everyone who's watching knows what to expect,
we're going to talk for about 40 minutes or so.
All four of our students are going to share their papers which you're
also able to view on the site online.
I've read them all.
I've also read a number of others, maybe some of you are watching and
I'm hoping to refer to some of those as well.
And I think over the next few minutes, it's only by diving in and
watching what people have done, and what they've done right and what they've maybe
done not quite so right, that you really learn about how to write op-ed articles.
So if you can just hang in for
a few minutes, I think you really going to learn a lot.
A reminder that tomorrow, Friday, we're broadcasting this on Thursday.
So tomorrow, Friday, at 10 AM our time which is 04:00 GMT, there
is going to be a workshop which gives you another opportunity to share your
op-ed articles with your fellow students and to get some more practice at this.
And again, you can find details about that on the Coursera site.
So let's plunge right in.
All four of our volunteers have written some really interesting articles.
And Elena, I'm going to start with you.
You've written a piece, which I have here in front of me,
which is talking about plagiarism in Russia.
And maybe you could just read the first few sentences.
>> Okay.
In May the 28th of 2015, six Russian officials
were fired from the Ministry of Science and Education.
What could the reason of such massive dismissal be since neither science nor
education is associated with emergency and crisis?
Well, it's such a simple from an outrageous thing as plagiarism.
>> All right, I want to stop.
One thing I love about what Elena has just done, she is tying her article which
is about plagiarism, she's tying it to something that just happened.
It's something that just happened a day or two ago, right, Elena?
>> Yes.
>> And so that's great.
As you may recall from my presentation, it's really important to try to tie
this to the news, and in the very first few sentences, she has some powerful
words like, massive, dismissal, and outrageous thing as plagiarism.
So already intellectually and emotionally, you're starting to pull me in.
So that's a good example.
Jim, maybe you could read us the first few sentences of your piece which deals
with how people deal with adversity.
And Professor Comer's online.
Hi, Professor Comer.
>> Hi everybody.
How are you?
>> Hi Denise.
>> Okay, Jim, maybe you could read us the first few lines of your piece.
>> Okay, I did actually rewrite this a little bit, but
I'll read the one that was posted.
>> Great.
>> Dealing with disaster,
adversity surrounds us in today's world like never before.
Tragedies like the recent Oklahoma tornado and
the Boston bombing, unemployment, economic, and
political instability, the ravages of wars, sickness and more at the present.
Whether we experience these things directly or indirectly,
they touch our lives in one way or another.
We can't change the fact that they will continue to happen at least not in
the immediate future,
but the interesting thing is that we can change how they affect us, how?
By the way we react to them.
>> Okay, let me stop there.
So Jim, what you've also done is in the very first sentence or
two, you're talking about the terrible tornadoes in Oklahoma,
about the bombing in Boston.
So again, you're tying it to the news.
You're actually talking about something that's more
generic than that which is how we humans react to adversity, but
you're following the rule of trying to tie something into the news.
Jim, maybe you can keep going, read the next few sentences, so
you said among the many ways we can deal with diversity.
>> Among the many ways we can deal with adversity, a recent study shows that
the best way is to be, what I would call, realistically positive.
Don't be overly optimistic to the point that you have a distorted view of reality,
but at the same time, don't be dragged down by the negative aspects to where
you can't recognize sign posts that point the way out of the maze.
>> Okay, Jim, let me stop you there.
All right, I just woke up, I got out of bed, I'm sitting at my breakfast table,
I'm reading your piece, and here's what I'm thinking to myself now.
Why do I care?
So I've gotten this far.
Why do I care?
Why should I keep reading at this point?
At this point, you're going to turn the corner later, but
why do I keep reading this?
>> Because it's something that deals with things that everybody has to deal
with in life.
>> But why does this matter to me?
>> Well,
it would matter to you if you were facing some difficulties at the moment.
Which I figure, right now, there's a lot of people that are going
through difficulties because of the economic problems, and
there's constant things in the news that are pretty drastic.
>> So the point I'm trying to make, not just for you, but for
everyone is by the time you have finished three full paragraphs,
you really have to have me on the hook emotionally for why I care.
Why should I bother reading the rest of the article?
And What you might've considered doing,
especially when you're referring to the tornado and to the bombing is,
my guess is that some people were really freaked out by those,
and maybe more than they needed to be.
In some ways that's kind of your point.
That maybe they were losing sleep, or
worrying more than they should've about their kids or something like that.
And what you're trying to do is give them a prescription for
how to deal with those and other life situations better.
But you want to make that a little more explicit sooner up, so
that they have a reason to keep on reading.
Do you see what I mean?
>> So, I should not have so much before I get to the point?
Is that what you're, or I can reword it.
>> I want you to tell me why I should care, quickly.
>> Quickly, okay, what I did when I rewrote it a little bit is that I also
felt like it was a little too negative.
There was too much negativity in the beginning so
I tried to make it a little more upbeat.
So I basically cut down the first two paragraphs to one paragraph,
a short paragraph.
So, I don't know, maybe that might be a little more effective
but- >> Okay.
>> And I'm kind of getting the point of what you're trying to get at?
>> Actually, with this, I thought that all four, and I'm glad we have the four
students that we do, because I thought all four of these were really good articles.
And I encourage other students to go and look at them.
I thought, in your case Jim, that you just had too much introduction,
throat clearing as we call it.
And the other thing was I want to hear your voice.
So you refer later in the piece, for
those who haven't read Jim's piece yet, to you've had a battle with chronic illness.
And you use that as your example as how someone can deal with adversity and
have a healthier outlook on that, right?
>> Right, yeah.
>> But you never quite tell me, you refer to it in the abstract.
Like, I don't know what your chronic illness is,
I don't know if you're willing to share that with us.
But, I mean, I don't, I can't tell from looking at you,
like are you in a wheelchair, or you, you know, I don't, so
I mean I don't ask you to share inappropriately.
But what I want to hear Jim, there are some guy name Jim Wadsworth.
I don't who you are, right?
And I want to hear your voice come through in this piece.
So because what you're bringing to this is the perspective of someone who's had to
deal with adversity but I can't quite see it.
>> Yes, well the reason I don't mention it is,
it's a good point, I probably should but it's not a real
concrete illness, a lot of doctors had- >> I
don't want to get into it inappropriately.
>> Okay. >> But to the extent that you
can provide the telling detail, good writing as I'm sure you've learned in some
of the previous sessions with Professor Comer, it's the telling detail.
In journalism we say show, don't tell.
So, later in the piece you say those people can go look at it for themselves,
but you talk quite a bit about bouncing back from set-backs and
dealing with adversity.
But you don't tell me about that time when it was two in the morning and
like the specific thing that happened like
I was rolling my car out of the driveway and I hit my kid's tricycle.
And suddenly I realized like that, you know what I mean?
Something that's specific as opposed to generic.
And let me keep going.
And maybe, by way of example, we can hear Pablo, wait I'm sorry.
Jaime, Pablo?
>> Jaime Pablo.
>> Yeah, okay, go by Pablo, forgive me.
Maybe you can read the first few sentences of your piece as an example
of letting the personal voice come through really quickly,
which I thought you did a great job with.
Could you read the first few sentences?
>> Can you start on Monday is the question every job seeker dreams to hear.
In my case, the nightmare had starts.
Indeed, I do have a visa to stay in the US, but
that type of visa does not allow me to work.
I need a US employer to sponsor me another type of visa.
The procedure may take around two months and cost around $3,000.
I can never hear back from them after answering their questions.
>> All right, so let me just re-read that first sentence or two.
>> Can you start on Monday is the question every job seeker dreams to hear.
In my case, the nightmare starts.
Boom, you have got me.
I mean I am on the hook now.
Like I know, it sounds like I'm going to read something about jobs and
quickly it's obvious you're talking about the immigration debate that's underway
here in the United States.
But I am hearing the voice of some guy, I don't know who you are and
I see your name, but now I'm beginning to picture you and
you're helping me, I'm picturing you opening the envelope and something and
I can sort of see it in my mind.
And we'll come back to your piece.
But that's something we're going to return to with these four and
some of the other pieces.
Which is, if you're the pope or
you're the president of a country, you're by line is probably sufficient.
But for almost all the rest of us mere mortals,
the reader wants to know who's, not just your byline.
They want to hear the emotion, they want to establish a connection with the writer.
And so they're trying to understand who you are not just here, but here.
A sort of connection with you as a human being.
And by revealing yourself,
you really help to strengthen those bonds.
So, let's hold that thought.
Maybe we can move on to Minton.
>> Yeah.
>> Are you still there?
>> Yeah, I am. >> And
you are writing about a topic everyone will be interested in,
which is about MOOCs.
>> Right.
>> So, maybe you could read your first paragraph.
>> Right, how to succeed in a MOOC.
What skills are required to succeed in a massive environment where the roster
counts upward of 30,000 students all around the world?
I'm in the final stretch of a 12 week English composition course offered by
Duke University through Coursera, a massive open online course, MOOC.
Metrics that normally apply to fee paying courses are not valid
when evaluating MOOCs.
For example, the student to faculty ratio is about one to 3,000,
over a hundred times larger than the average classroom in the UK.
At zero cost, value for money is by definition infinite.
>> Okay, let me stop you there.
So now let's move on to another point.
So we've talked about the importance of the personal voice.
We've talked about the importance of when you can, tying to things in the news.
And so Minton, I have a question for you about another point I want to talk about,
which is who, in your mind's eye, if you were going to submit this for
publication somewhere, tell me where you think this might be published.
Like in the newspaper?
>> I'm hoping in the education section of some newspaper.
>> Like in the education section of the Times or the Guardian or
someplace like that?
>> Or the Guardian, or yeah, mm-hm.
>> And, okay, so let's assume that that's the market that you're going for, right?
>> Right.
Now some of their readers, I was reading up about you, so
you're an educational consultant?
>> Yeah, mm-hm. >> I mean, you're sort of in the business.
>> Right. >> But most of their readers, even for
a publication like that, will not be in the business.
So they So right here on the first paragraph, you have sentences like metrics
that normally apply to fepane courses are not valid when evaluating MOOCS..
For example the student to faculty ratio is one to 3,000 at zero cost.
The value for money is, by definition, infinite.
It's really good stuff.
It's pretty techy.
I mean it's for the average person.
So if I was talking, I've got a couple of colleagues sitting over here, if I were to
say, hey did you know what zero cost value for money is by definition infinite?
They might be interested, but they're going to say, I'm, what, why do I care?
You know what I mean?
>> Right.
>> So actually I thought you had a great lead, and as we say in journalism,
I thought you buried the lead.
So. >> All right [LAUGH].
>> Let's go halfway into your piece.
And if you can go to the paragraph that begins the word finally.
>> Right, mm-hm.
>> Okay, so
about halfway in that paragraph where it says, in the peer review.
>> Right.
>> Okay, could you read that?
Uh-huh.
So finally is this the next to last paragraph, yeah?
[CROSSTALK] >> Just start with the one in the peer
review of the first assignment.
>> Sorry.
>> Part of the line.
>> It's the paragraph that begins finally networking is paramount
>> Right, right, okay.
>> And then a few sentences in it says in the peer review.
>> I'm just, sorry.
>> Kendra I think maybe has it on the screen for those of you who are watching.
>> Hey?
[CROSSTALK] >> Let me just, I could just read it for
you because it'll serve the same purpose.
>> Okay.
>> And so meantime I love this.
She says in the peer review of the first assignment I found two colleagues,
a Russian translator and a Portuguese PhD student
who also offered the high quality of pure feedback that I was hoping to receive.
>> Through the forum we formed a peer review group using Google Hangout,
the video conference facility.
In this tightly knit group, we have worked together, respecting our internal
deadlines for reviews and offered thorough and invaluable feedback on a weekly basis.
We became MBFs, MOOC best friends, and are creating
a website to share our writing portfolios, resources and experience.
Through this course, in addition to improving as writers,
we've become good friends sharing valuable experience and
learning about each other's culture, interest and country.
So I gotta tell you,
I thought that was the most interesting thing in your article.
For a general reader, because,
if nothing else, I just, it helps me get a picture of you.
And so here you are, a woman in London,
and you've got now these online friends from Russia and Portugal and
you've all become chums through this thing called MOOCS.
That's kind of cool and I thought if you actually started with that.
With the just sort of my gosh factor.
Like what could of possibly got me to that?
And again, the connection to the reader of like here's,
emotionally, a reason why you're going to care about this quickly,
like not just because of teacher, faculty ratios or budgeting of education courses.
But you're going to make friends in exotic places or whatever.
Now you've begun to reel me in and
you've begun to establish your voice as someone who's
not just the authority on education, but I can see you as a person.
Does that make any sense?
>> Yes. Mm hm.
>> How about the rest of you, do any of you have thoughts about that?
>> Actually, my Russian friend, is Elena, who's here with us.
>> Yeah. I thought.
And, is the Portuguese friend Isabelle?
Yes.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah, I kind of thought so.
>> [LAUGH] >> Isabelle,
if you're watching we're going to talk about you too in a minute.
>> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, I agree with you.
That was a very interesting part of the article.
That really grabbed onto me too.
>> Right.
Right. So, you know i'll tell you a secret what I
as it's years ago I've for ten years I was at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
And I ran I created and ran an Op Ed service for them there.
And I you know, working with all these Nobel Prize winners and
scientists and stuff.
And I was giving them the same advice I gave to you.
Their articles appeared in dozens of newspapers,
which is I don't care how famous you are,
even if you're the person who discovered something amazing, which some of them had,
I still want to know who, I still want to hear your voice as a human being.
I don't have to read your article.
And so, yes.
You can give me a very serious abstract, this crisis in Syria or in North Korea.
Or some economic problem.
And that's fine, and there is certainly a place for that.
But especially if you're not famous.
It's important to establish your voice in the process as well, and
to be clear about where you might publish this.
Now Elena, I want to come back to you.
Here again is a reminder that when you're writing about plagiarism in Russia, right?
So, let me ask you the same question.
Where do you think your piece might be published if you had your way?
Well I think that some publication for
people who are interested in education for general for parents for example because
everybody follows [INAUDIBLE] right now we're having state exams in five schools.
>> Right. >> And that's kind of a current issue.
Mm-hm.
>> But children are not supposed to copy, while
high ranking professors, university faculty,
they are copying others' works.
That's my target audience.
Right, and for those who haven't read Elena's piece, your argument,
it's sort of gently sarcastic, I would say.
>> That's kind of the tone, and your conclusion is that
people should behave better, they should act ethically, right?
>> Yes, >> So I want to ask you,
just between you and me and however many hundreds or thousands of people may be
watching us, do you really think that's going to solve the problem in Russia?
Really?
>> I really think that if everybody starts with himself or herself.
>> Any problem can be solved.
>> Mm-hm.
>> I mean if we do not want my message here,
if you do not want been lied to, then rely on yourself and
eventually it will [INAUDIBLE] >> And why do you, care about his?
>> I care about this because as I mentioned in my piece or writing.
>> When I first came across a similar phenomenon I was
a university student I was shocked really, and
I don't want all this to be similarly I was shocked or
things that is permissible.
>> Because I was struck in your piece by the absence, I mean,
your point is a very powerful one, but you didn't call for
any policy changes, or there was no mention of the fact, for instance,
that Germany's Education Minister recently had to resign for
plagiarism, this is not restricted to Russia.
I know there's been a controversy in Russia recently with the EGE exams and
problems with cheating on high school,
which to me as someone outside, as an American in my case,
begs the question whether an appeal to virtue would actually solve the problem.
That's my personal point of view because I don't believe too much in established
policies or laws until we establish them for ourselves.
>> Great.
Pablo, I want to go back to you for a second.
You do this great set up in your article about again, your writing about
immigration and as a reminder, you start out with this image of what
should be a wonderful thing of looking for a job and it turns out to be a nightmare.
Before we talk about your article,
can you share a little of your experience with people watching.
I mean what has been your experience?
>> Yes, I used to have a H-1B visa that is the American visa for
professionals which allows foreigners to work in the United States.
I used to have that visa but it finished and so
in order for me to go back to the market again, I need for
another employer to do a procedure in the of the different
secretaries here in the United States, the Labor Department,
the State Department and the Security Department.
I needed for a lot of stars to align in order to get my job permit,
in order to start.
I sent several resumes,
I received a lot of calls from those resumes.
I had several interviews, and I passed two or three interviews in some organizations.
But when that question comes, can you start on Monday?
And I share with them that I need for
them to do this procedure, they always freeze and
the process gets freezed and I'm [INAUDIBLE].
>> Right, Pablo, can you tell me one specific time that happened?
>> Yes.
What do you want to know?
>> Tell me what happened?
>> I don't want to say the organization, but they interview me.
They invite me to three different interviews,
I have interviews with my prospect boss,
with the people that I supposed will be supervising.
And then when I have a thorough interview with human resources also in the process,
they asked me that and after I answered that and I offered to volunteer for
the period of time that it takes for the government to allow me to start working.
But then they asked three, four more questions and say thank you for coming and
we will let you know, and when I ask, they tell me you were one of the two or three
last candidates, but we find another candidate that is a better fit for us.
>> Right, so what I think you should have done with this
piece after that great opening of yours is I think you should have told the story you
just told me, word for word, almost exactly.
Can the others, if anyone thought that that was an interesting story could you
just raise your hand?
I certainly did.
That's very powerful.
And in terms of helping humanize the immigration debate, you just did.
What I thought could make your piece a lot stronger,
is after you have this powerful opening,
then you went back to just kind of talking about this in the abstract.
And you actually got into the weeds a lot,
into more detail than I wanted to know about H-1B visas and
you mentioned your spouse but I never really heard what happened to her.
I just was like dying to know,
actually, I'm happy to meet you now, I'm just like what happened to this guy?
Like you tease me, I thought I was going to hear this amazing story, so
tell me the story and be really specific.
If you were wearing a blue shirt, tell me that.
I want to see it, I want to taste it.
Even if you have 750 words in an op-ed article, take 300,
take 400 words and take the hook and get my heart hooked so that i care.
Op-ed articles are an exercise in clear writing, an exposition but
they're also an emotional transaction, and I think that would've helped.
I want to refer just to a couple of other pieces that we have here.
I hope maybe some of them are listening,
so the four of you would just forgive me for a minute.
I have Emanuela Dicenso, forgive me Denise, if I'm butchering this,
who's in Michigan, who also wrote about immigration, and she wrote this.
People are afraid that immigrants are taking their jobs away, but
are they really?
My first job was offered to me the first month I arrived here,
I didn't even interview for it.
It made me very happy, it was my first job in the USA,
my first income that would help me take some classes.
There was no competition for it.
It's like boom, I can picture her and I thought that was really powerful.
But on the other side, there was a piece from Victoria who is in Armenia,
who wrote with great passion about international development.
She has a lot of concerns about foreign aid and
so forth and she writes with great passion, which I love.
But I have no clue from reading this article, Victoria, if you’re watching,
why you cared and who you are and have you worked in a developing country?
Do you have anything that you bringing to this conversation?
It really would have helped me to see that and to feel that.
I just want to take a couple of other pieces.
Closely related to this is the question of passion.
Denise- >> No, I was
just going to say I have to go now, but I just wrote a little note on the side.
But thank you all for sharing your writing.
And David, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and
helping improve the op-eds, it's wonderful.
>> Thank you, Denise.
>> Thanks, bye guys. >> Thanks for doing it.
>> Thank you.
I want to talk about the question of passion.
Rosalia, who is a graduate student in Greece, her piece is online.
She wrote about a really niche topic which is about gaming.
She really hates the new Xbox from Microsoft,
and I thought her piece was hilarious, in some ways.
She said, the over-hyped, over-advertised
next generation gaming console took a turn for NFL streams and live television.
The device itself looks like a damn VCR from the 80s and
then she goes on to say that Microsoft's whole hourly presentation was absolutely
pointless, policies went down the drain and so forth.
Now personally, I don't care at all about gaming but I loved her passion,
and I loved her voice.
She would need to send that probably to some kind of gaming publication or
something.
But there too, on the other side of it, Diane Morneau,
from Canada, who wrote an absolutely lovely piece.
Diane, you write just beautifully.
And you were writing about an alternative to PowerPoint.
But it was like really well written, but
I found myself wondering like, so like why do I care about this?
And you make this reference to PowerPoint.
And if you had said like In the first sentence.
If you feel like you're going to go to one more conference or one more class and
see a PowerPoint presentation, and you're going to feel like you want to shoot
yourself, yes there is an alternative to that, or something
that was funny, that would engage me and give me a reason to keep reading.
That really would have helped to not just talk about this other platform,
which you do really elegantly.
But, again, to make the emotional connection.
So that was all great.
Let me stop.
Thoughts from any of the four of you?
>> Minh-Tam has a question.
>> Yeah. >> Yes.
Could I have a quick question?
>> Sure.
>> Just as I'm listening to you, I was just thinking one of the idea I have
is my son is at University of Pennsylvania.
He just finished his first year.
And he just took a course that is also offered on Coursera.
And at the price that I'm paying for
his fee, could I use that as a comparison that I could take the same course
with the same professor for free, while I'm paying through the nose.
I mean, would that be a personalized, kind of to make the piece more personal?
Yeah. As long as you're saying pay through
the nose about Penn and not about Duke, that'll be just great.
>> [LAUGH] >> Yeah.
That, you know?
So, I mean, I was encouraging you to talk about this friendship that you
form with Alana and others, and now you can talk about your son.
And you're going to end up making the same point.
But it's like, it's just a lot more fun to read that.
Yeah, it could be great.
Jim, were you about to say something?
>> David, I have a question.
>> Pablo, yeah.
Pablo, go ahead.
>> So, if I expend half percent,
half of the open talking about my own personal experience.
>> Yeah.
>> How can I achieve in the other half to say what I want to say,
like to offer a solution or to point into a specific
details of the relation reform, do you think that is more important to
humanize the debate than proposing some particular solutions?
>> Yeah I think that's a,
you have really put your finger on the challenge of op-ed articles, and
this is actually what happens in workshops about op-eds, which
is you're often in writing not encouraged to emotionally engage quite this much.
So, I'm pushing maybe even more than I need to, but
you're hitting it right on the head there Pablo,
which is the challenge is you then have to turn the corner in your piece and
talk about what the solution is, what the larger point is.
So, in movie terms what I'm encouraging you to do if you were Steven Spielberg or
something is I want you to start with the tight shot, the close up, and then
I want you to pull the camera back, and I want you to talk about the bigger issue.
Right?
In your case Pablo tell me that story about
this heartbreaking three round of interviews you went on for the job.
And then you would pull the camera back and say guess what?
I'm one of eight million people, or whatever it is, who are dealing with this
and here's the problem guys, and here's what we need to do about it.
Then at the end, I would come back in the last paragraph, and I would say, and if
we did that then the next time I open up an envelope maybe it will turn out better.
This is something I talked about in the presentation and maybe this would be
a good time for me to talk about it again here, which is this idea of connecting
the opening sentence and the closing section doesn't always work.
Like in your case Pablo, I think that would be a great way to go about it.
Elena, you look like you're, want to say something.
>> I've been wondering perhaps if a district also should do a paragraph
about what personal experience as a student to the top of my piece,
because I put it sort of in the middle, even closer to the end.
The one way I write about when I was a university student.
>> Yeah I think that would be really helpful, and if I could be honest Elena,
what I would like to hear in your piece if it's actually how
you feel is I would like to hear the outrage a little more directly,
you're a little bit sort of indirect and sarcastic.
I don't mean that in a critical way.
But, my guess is you go home and tell your best friends, like, this is outrageous.
This is really terrible.
Right? Am I right?
>> Yeah.
Okay.
>> I want to share that.
I mean, I cited this thing about gaming a second ago.
I mean, if you're really angry about it, then tell me that.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. >> Thank you.
>> In the absence of, I mean if you're going to talk about policy solutions,
that's sort of another way come at it.
But if you're arguing this on the turf of morality, and
what's the right thing to do, then I want to hear a little anger in your voice.
Okay, Jim, were you going to say something?
>> Yeah.
I just kind of wondered with my piece, should I, like because I was
trying to tie it into something recent, that is it is.
In my case, is it better that I stick to that and
not emphasize the personal story in the beginning, or
would you say it's better to just not worry?
>> Yeah, so again >> And not that.
>> Jim's talking about how people deal with adversity, and
you were starting out with the tornado and the bombing, and
then dropping back to your own experience dealing with adversity.
I think in this case also it's a perfect opportunity.
Or something like that, where you close the circle and keep it tied to the news.
Because remember, I said this in the presentation.
A lot of people who look at our better articles, when they're deciding whether or
not to read you, they're actually going to read the first paragraph or two,
then they're going to read the last paragraph.
And then if they like it, they're going to read the rest of it.
That's actually very common, it's a little secret.
So, you want to think hard about that final paragraph, and
about how you can weave it back to the beginning, if that'll work.
Does that make any sense?
>> Yes.
That makes a lot of sense.
>> So, and Pablo, getting back to your question again, about how do you find this
balance between the personal and the so what, the larger point, So
I mentioned Isabel, who's the last of the trio here of the trio of friends.
Two of them we have online.
So Isabel's in Portugal and she's a grad student, and she wrote a really
interesting piece about software design and software design as essentially
a metaphor for getting discipline in your life and becoming more organized.
And I thought it was really quite interesting, but
Isabella if you're watching it's not until the very last paragraph that
you got to the so what, to the long shot as it were So what's your point?
And again, so that's the challenge to do that.
On the other hand, I have another piece here from Claire, Claire's in France.
Claire's the french teacher who wrote the, I thought a lovely piece about
people saying teachers are lazy, which is why they don't work during the summer.
And Claire at the end says as she talks directly to parents or
readers and basically gives them a to-do.
There's a call to action, which is great, which you also want that and add that.
And then her very last sentence of the half is I myself didn't receive enough
praise for my work.
I quit a couple of years ago long before summer break.
It's like, boom, she really sticks it,
the knife in your heart at the end, which is a great, powerful ending.
So again, strong ending and a really good to-do message of action.
Whether it's a message of action to the reader or
a message of action to call legislators or the president or whoever.
This is an op-ed article.
It's not just an analysis of MOOCs or of immigration reform or of plagiarism or
whatever the topic is.
It is your view about what should happen, what should change.
Whether what the reader should be doing or what policymakers should be doing.
If it's just sort of how do you deal with adversity and uncertainty,
Jim, which is kind of your theme.
I felt like your piece in some ways would have been great for
a health page of the newspaper, like a lifestyle page.
It didn't feel so much like an op-ed article to me,
it needed a little more of like a policy edge to it.
Does that make any sense?
>> Yes, yeah, I think so.
I was going to ask you something, now I forgot.
>> All right.
Well, we're coming up on two, about 40 minutes, so
any final comments from the four of you?
>> Yes, thank you so much.
>> [LAUGH] >> Thank you,
let me finish where I started which is these were great articles.
And so many of the other articles that are online, I was really impressed by them.
I think this class has some amazing talent and
I hope it has proven what I said in my presentation.
Which is this is something you could learn to do, it is a learnable skill.
There's a few tricks of the trade,
we've talked about many of them just in 40 minutes.
And many of the pieces that I see on this MOOC website,
with a little bit of tweaking could be published.
So I hope many of you will view this not just as a class exercise,
but after you log off your computer today.
Maybe in time you'll whip yours into shape for
the Guardian and somewhere in Moscow or wherever.
And you guys can get published and it would be great.
And I hope everyone else watching will feel the same.
So thank all of you for watching,
a reminder there's another workshop tomorrow.
And continue and good luck with the course.
>> Great, thank you so much.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Bye-bye, everyone.
>> Bye-bye, thank you.
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