Writing Tip for Opinion Essays

Make Your Point and Stay on Point

To persuade your readers, stay focused

I enjoy reading opinion essays—and there’s no shortage of them these days. But whether you’re a nationally syndicated columnist or an amateur blogger, you need to do these two things to create an effective opinion piece:

1. Make your point.

2. Stick to your point.

Your headline (title) and first paragraph should clearly tell the reader what the point of your message is. Everything that follows should reinforce your opening.

In conversation, it’s easy to get distracted and wander down rabbit trails as you tell stories and express yourself. When I'm at a dinner party, I’m a master at starting one story, interrupting myself to tell another one and maybe even another one, while promising to get back to my original point (sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t).

But when you do that in writing, you just confuse your readers and leave them feeling like they’ve wasted their valuable time because they don’t know what you meant to say.

Today’s political and social issues can get complex, but if you want to persuade others to your point of view, you need to keep your writing simple and on target.

After you complete your first draft, be sure your argument is clear in your first paragraph. Then review the rest of your text and ruthlessly delete anything that doesn’t pertain to that—no matter how much you love what you wrote.

You don’t have to completely toss those precious gems. Cut them and put them in a file to use in another essay.

When you leave your readers wondering what you meant to say and trying to figure out what one statement has to do with a previous paragraph, they’re probably going to check out without finishing.

When you make your point and stick to it, your readers will understand your position and be able to decide if they agree or not. They’ll be able to engage with you on a higher level. And they’re more likely to actually read your entire essay. After all, that’s what you want, isn’t it?