Reflection on Opinion Editorial

                When I heard that we were writing an opinion editorial, my first thought was that this was going to be really easy: a paragraph or two, just basically state my biased opinions, no research involved and be done! Then I read the sample editorials. Yeah, I realized I was thinking a Dear Abbey column, not an editorial.  This was going to be basically like a standard high school five paragraph essay, which was kind of depressing, because I always had felt so smothered by that form, it just felt like I was filling in the blanks. Then I started writing and reading others and I realized that I had been wrong yet again. In reality, the opinion editorial assignment was halfway between my two mistaken ideas; it was about the length of a standard five paragraph essay, but it was personal, more like a Dear Abbey column. It was really  fun and somewhat liberating to write in first person, using personal examples and talking directly to the audience; I felt like more of me, more of who I am, came out on the paper compared to my more academic style of work, where only my knowledge, or worse only my professor, ends up. I am excited to try to take the more personal aspect (putting more of me on paper) and transferring it to a more academic style.

                Part of the process that I really enjoyed was the freewriting and outlining and it was really fun to watch how my ideas changed throughout the process of writing, from my initial free write to my final draft. I wrote down all these ideas in my free write and outline that had something to do with my basic subject, and then it was basically like doing a puzzle, fitting all of my ideas into an essay that entertained and educated. It was a lot easier than starting from scratch on the first draft.

So, to sum up, the things I really liked about the Op Ed was that I outlined extensively and I was able to be a lot more personal in my writing.