The Op-Ed Assignment 

As you know, I’ve asked you to write a short opinion piece that addresses a topic of your choice from this course. You can focus on a case, a debate, or some other issue. You are welcome to choose a current issue or controversy, but you need not do so. Feel free to focus on a historical case or event that is of more interest to you.

Be sure and submit your proposed topic and a brief description using the form below.

The purpose of this assignment is to help you develop the skill of translating and advocating complex issues effectively. That means good writing, clear thinking, and appropriate tone.

Another challenge of this assignment is to convey legal concepts and ideas in a clear and accessible manner in a short amount of space. This is a more difficult task than you might imagine, and you will benefit from practicing this skill.

Three reasons why this matters to your legal training:

  • Legal writing will often require a similar economy of words

  • Making complex ideas accessible to a general audience is one of the things that lawyers do

  • Finding the right tone in a short span of writing will be a good life skill no matter what you end up doing

Try to have fun!

REminders

1. Not Graded

This assignment will not be graded. Completing the task (including meeting all deadlines) will factor into the relatively minor class participation component of your course grade.

2. Key Dates

  • Sep 27: Email your topic to me

  • Oct 25: Rough draft due to two classmates for peer review (I will assign your peer reviews)

  • Nov 1: Peer reviews completed

  • Nov 15: Final drafts submitted to me

3. Length

You have 800-1000 words, and you need to hit that range. Most of you are going to find this very hard to do. Some tips on saving words:

  • Use adverbs and adjectives strategically rather than unreflectively

  • Combine two sentences into one (although sometimes you can actually save words by breaking one sentence into two)

  • If you have a factual narrative, focus only on the essentials

  • If you are quoting another source, use only the most relevant part of the quote (although be sure not to mislead in excerpting or otherwise trimming the quote)

  • Invite others into your writing process (in legal practice, this won’t always be possible with confidential or privileged writing, but having other perspectives and sets of eyes on your drafts when possible is usually a good thing)

4. Writing

Be sure to review my writing guidelines.

The last paragraph is often more important tonally than substantively. What is the feeling or mood that you would like to leave with the reader at the end of the piece? Is there a challenge or a takeaway you want for the reader?

Example

Take a look at this 2019 Atlantic piece of mine on the right of assembly. It is 1,266 words, a bit longer than the typical op-ed, and only because the editor invited me to write it and offered the longer length. (In my experience, the invited submission is rare; usually, placing op-eds is a cumbersome and frustrating process, even for people who write them fairly regularly.)

Some framing thoughts about this piece:

  • Real op-eds are rarely perfectly written because they are usually written under time constraints (like a lot of legal writing). There are any number of sentences in this piece that I would rewrite to make clearer or just better prose if I had the opportunity. The key is to avoid the sentences that you regret in tone or substance. If you find yourself smirking at how cleverly you’ve written a zinger or a take-down line (in an op-ed, a brief, or most other forms of writing), it’s usually a good sign that you should cut that line.

  • After I wrote an initial draft, the piece went through 3-4 major revisions in consultation with my research assistants and then 4-5 additional revisions with my editor at The Atlantic. I find iteration and feedback essential to my writing process. But remember that you don’t have to accept all feedback you receive: use your judgment.

  • My editor picked the title and accompanying image (this is typical: authors rarely get to pick title or other surrounding optics even though those elements can shape the context).

  • Pay attention to the hyperlinks: these are the op-ed equivalent of footnotes, and they can be helpful to building your argument.

  • Note my relative lack of adverbs and adjectives, especially those that convey emphasis or emotion. I use them occasionally, but this is an example where “more is less.” Don’t “strenuously object,” just object.

Some observations on the flow and substance of my argument:

  • My first paragraph focuses the reader with a contemporary hook. Even though I get into a little history in this piece, it rarely works to jump immediately into a historical review unless you are publishing a piece on an important anniversary or holiday.

  • My second paragraph suggests why the reader should care. I find this is one of the hardest paragraphs to write: just because an issue or idea is important to you doesn’t mean it’s important to your readers. Notice, too, the ideological range of the examples I include in the second paragraph. That matters to both tone and substance, and it’s deliberate here. (Of course, depending on your subject matter, you may not be aiming for ideological balance. And for what it’s worth, my effort at balance did not preclude the usual smattering of angry social media responses.)

  • The paragraphs beginning “Negotiating conflicts . . .” and “A commitment to assembly . . .” identify some of the challenges that come with my argument. Most interesting positions are complicated. Sometimes lawyers (and law students) interpret “zealous advocacy” to mean “lack of nuance.” Don’t do that; instead, name the complexity.