This page offers some suggested, proven approaches to crafting and submitting op-ed pieces that explore the historical background and context of current news events and issues. They are not rigid "rules;" not all can, or should, always be followed; nor will they necessarily always "work." On the other hand, those who try to follow them are likely to have more luck in placing their pieces than those who do not.

At the end of this page are annotated texts of two published articles that may serve as useful examples of op-ed form for those who are trying to perfect the art of writing opinion pieces. By no means do these two samples exhaust the forms that have proven successful in getting historical knowledge before the public or in using history to support non-historical arguments effectively. They ought, however, to begin to suggest the variety of material, length, and approach that can be used in, and adapted to, this specific form of journalism. Save for the addition of paragraph numbers to aid the commentary that follows in each case, the texts appear as they were published.

Contents, Approach, and Form

1. Set the stage in the first sentence. A striking opening is the key to getting the attention of the person who counts: the editor. So work on it until it's right.

2. Quickly bring in the historical insight, issue, or comparison. Hook the past to the present, and vice versa. But remember that you are trying to strengthen readers' understanding of the present by invoking the past. Therefore, keep your focus on the present.

3. Develop the historical background.

4. Thicken and intensify the historical issue. Provide details.

5. Turn, or return, to the contemporary issue. Use historical examples and quotations whenever possible.

6. Conclude in the final one or two paragraphs. Make or repeat your historical point: things are not as they seem; the real issue is not as presented by so-and-so; the historical analogy that people are using is dangerous and probably wrong; knowing what I have written may help us better understand the present. Then stop.

Style and Tone

1. Simplify. Don't use long words or neologisms. "Jefferson's aim" (not "the Jeffersonian project"), "organizations of men and women" (not "gendered associations"), "contemporary architecture" (not "poststructural bridges," unless they've collapsed). You're writing for your fellow citizens, not your colleagues. No recondite matters, no "hermeneutics."

2. Compress. Except when asked, don't submit more than 800 words of text, including your identifying note. That's the conventional limit--roughly three typewritten pages double spaced. Consequently, re-word everything to shorten it. For example, "the election of Franklin Roosevelt" should be "Roosevelt's election." Even such small changes can create needed impact and provide more room for you to make additional points.

3. Shorten. Keep sentences brief; remember that with narrow column width, even short sentences can take up many lines. Also keep paragraphs short; in newspaper writing, one-sentence paragraphs pass muster. Keep quotations short, too. Don't insert sub-heads or section tabs; the editors will do that if they wish.

4. Explain. In fact, explain everything. Your readers are intelligent, but they may not be informed about what you write. Therefore, on first mention, it's not "the Wagner Act," but "the 1935 Wagner Act, which legalized union organizing and collective bargaining;" not "NOW," but "the National Organization for Women (NOW);" not "Burgundy," but "Burgundy, the ancient French province known for the quality of its wines." Such brief explanations take up space, but they are essential for comprehensibility.

5. Repeat. Not to the point of boredom, of course, but for impact. Don't be afraid to insinuate the same point a number of times in fresh words.

6. Be direct. Don't pull your punches; instead, fly your own colors, make an argument, take a stand. Show where history may reveal something and what it may reveal.

7. Keep to one subject. Don't develop more than a single thesis or present more than a single argument. Your aim is to convince, and to convince upon a single, brief reading.

8. Be yourself. Even if you are summarizing a body of scholarship (in simple terms), do so in your own words. Make clear why you believe what you are arguing, not why others believe it. The essay is a personal communication.

Miscellaneous Considerations

(for submitting articles to individual newspapers yourself)

1. Phone the op-ed or editorial-page editor in advance if you can. Ask whether he/she is interested in the subject, what slant he/she might suggest. You are not bound by this, for it is your work, not the editor's; but it doesn't hurt to ask, and receiving an early "not interested" may save you time and effort.

2. In your covering letter, fax sheet, or email, provide your phone numbers. Often, a paper will wish to confirm that you are the author of a piece, to check editorial changes, simply to let you know that the piece will run the next day.

3. Don't submit by e-mail unless you learn that a specific publication will accept a piece in that form. Many do not yet do so.

4. If possible, conform your style to that in the Associated Press Stylebook, the guide most widely used by journalists and editors. Saving editors work will make your texts more appealing to them.

5. Ask about copyright. If you are sending your piece to a paper that is part of a chain (like Hearst or Knight-Ridder) or that has its own news wire (like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal), it may be best to let the paper copyright the text. That way, it will be sent all around the country and may appear in many papers and locations. Some papers won't allow you to copyright your piece; but if they do and you choose that option, your text may then only appear in that single paper. Thus, if you are concerned about the size of your readership, it may be best to let the paper copyright the text.

6. Give your piece a short title, but don't expect the headline writers to respect your requested title. You write titles, they write headlines; these are not the same things, as sometimes you learn to your regret. And you are not likely to be given a chance to review or to "accept or reject" a headline (or an accompanying drawing or cartoon). Neither, by the way, will the editors who have worked with you have the chance to review a headline.

7. Ask to learn (insist upon learning!) 1) whether your piece has been accepted; 2) when it will run; 3) what any and all editorial changes are; and 4) (unlikely, however, to be honored) the headline. Often you won't be told; occasionally three paragraphs of your piece will end up as a letter to the editor; sometimes the headline will embarrass you. There is not much you can do about any of these things except to try to make clear at the outset that it is your piece, to be published as you wish it to appear, and then to complain loudly if it is trifled with. In short, try to maintain some influence over your own work.

8. Don't be discouraged. As historians should know, timing, coincidence, and accident are everything. If your piece is not accepted at one publication, send it to another; if it is not published this year, keep it for next year at the same time or until the issue pops up again; then update it, and start it on its way again.

9. Don't forget weekly and regional newspapers. It's nice to get ink in The New York Times and over its wire, but if your preferred daily paper won't take your work, try a different kind of newspaper. Papers with small circulations may take your work more readily than larger dailies; and some of these, members of chains, may have their texts distributed over the chain's syndicated wire, so that your piece runs elsewhere in the country, too.

10. Hope for an honorarium, but don't expect one. The larger and "greater" the paper, the more likely is payment for your words. Regional and weekly publications are least likely to pay.

11. Above all, don't overestimate the public's knowledge, and don't underestimate its intelligence.

Sample Annotated Article 1: What we Celebrate on the Fourth of July

Over hot dogs and soda this Fourth of July, there will be inspiring remarks from community leaders praising the political tradition embodied in the Declaration of Independence. (Note 1)

But many of these picnic-table patriots would be unsettled to know the revolutionary values they're commemorating on Independence Day. Actually, whether they realize it or not, on the Fourth nearly all citizens pay tribute to the ideals of our conservative Constitution rather than the more radical Declaration. (Note 2)

The holiday confusion is a result of two competing doctrines in American political culture that were already present early in our national history. (Note 3)

The first outlook, associated with Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Declaration of Independence, was suspicious of tradition. These worries were natural for a colonial culture trying to free itself from the values of its European background. Past laws and rules were fine to study, but history was not to throw its confining shadow on today. (Note 4)

America should also resist binding its offspring with legal codes and constitutions, according to Paine. "Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it," he warned. "The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies." (Note 5)

Sharing Paine's radicalism toward the past, Jefferson worried about chaining the present to former ideas. In the Declaration of Independence, he proclaimed the right to revolution if political conditions became intolerable. Both Paine and Jefferson were convinced of the benefits of perpetual revolution. The latter wrote Madison that "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." (Note 6)

The right of continuous revolution meant that long standing constitutions were oppressive. Jefferson told Madison that "no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation." So he suggested that "every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right." (Note 7)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, while emphasizing culture more than politics, agreed with Paine and Jefferson about the need for a continuing revolution. Emerson, in the mid-nineteenth century, suggested that each individual had the divinity of God and nature within, and in each divine individual the universe was recreated anew. So what each individual believed from moment to moment was suffused with divinity and holy truth. Therefore Emerson encouraged a perpetual revelation--a continuing, constant rebirth of truth and divinity in the human soul--that was parallel to the perpetual revolution proposed by Paine and Jefferson in the political arena. (Note 8)

So Paine, Jefferson, Emerson, and other more recent proponents of this radical, revolutionary spirit elevated the present over tradition and the rule of constitutions. After all, since Emerson suggested that each individual is the universe created all over again, what does history even mean? And it is this radical doctrine that stands behind our hallowed midsummer July Fourth celebration. (Note 9)

This radical outlook can still be found today on both the political right and left, but, although it now seems in power, the majority of Americans, moderate at heart, will never embrace it. Newt Gingrich and many Republicans in the 104th Congress are revolutionaries of the right who want to break with the status quo and forge an America consistent with their view of the present. And on the political left there is an attempt to draw the nation away from its centrist tradition and inertia by those such as Jesse Jackson, author Gore Vidal, and Congressman Ron Dellums. (Note 10)

Because most Americans reject radical beliefs, even those revolutionary convictions held by some of the Founding Fathers, they would shiver at the core values expressed in the revolutionary ideology of American independence. (Note 11)

These centrist citizens commemorate a second, alternative national doctrine on July Fourth. This second tradition embraces law and order, and recognizes that people can learn by history, inheritance, and tradition. It admires stability and continuity. Its constituency is those who Nixon labeled the "silent majority" of middle Americans. Far from radical, these citizens want a solid and family-centered society, trust the status quo, and are deliberate and conservative about adopting new values in fields from politics to art. At its most benign, this cautious outlook promotes fairness and harmony. At its worst it frets about the "little people" becoming too involved in democratic government since that can produce instability. (Note 12)

In the late 1700s, representatives of this more conservative outlook, such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, argued strongly in favor of our current Constitution--as an arrangement that would replace the weak Articles of Confederation with order, fairness, balance, and strength. Contrary to those radicals who had little use for history, leaders such as Hamilton, Madison, John Adams, George Washington, and John Marshall believed that constitutions and continuity encourage integrity and virtue in a society. (Note 13)

Fittingly, the US Constitution, designed under the influence of this second tradition, is a conservative document that funnels all government decisions through a process of compromise, negotiation, and consensus. Oh sure, voters have bleated in despair in recent years about gridlock in Washington. But gridlock is a fundamental part of the Constitution that citizens cherish. Americans love the system's frustrating compromise. When Western Senators can hold unrelated legislation hostage until they get their way on grazing rights, Americans feel comforted. Life is slow and deliberate. (Note 14)

Let's face it. America is a conservative country that adores the status quo. We treat the Constitution as though it's a holy counterpart to the Bible. In judicial arguments--on the right to bear arms, for example--we search furiously for the original intent of the authors of the Bill of Rights, instead of caring about what is more suitable for the present generation and circumstances. Our reverence for our constitutional scriptures reveals a national ancestor worship that is practically Oriental in its intensity. (Note 15)

So most Americans are too conservative to celebrate the radical doctrine that undergirds Independence Day. And again this year, in speeches and benedictions around the country, the words of Jefferson and Paine will be replaced by the images of Washington and Hamilton. (Note 16)

Comments on "What we Celebrate on the Fourth of July"

(1-2) In this op-ed column, the first two paragraphs function as a lead. You want the lead "hooked" to an event, anniversary, or debate that is current. It provides the occasion, or reason, for the article. Here the hook is the approaching Fourth of July.

If the lead doesn't interest your readers, they'll probably skip the rest of the piece. So give them imagery here, or an arresting quotation or scene, or challenge their beliefs in a way that arouses their curiosity. By the end of the lead, your readers should know what's at issue in the article, what you're trying to argue.

Your lead shouldn't take up much space. It can be a short paragraph, even a single sentence. Here the author has separated the lead paragraph into two, because it's important visually to use short paragraphs in journalistic pieces. (Back to article.)

(3) Try to let your reader know the architecture of your argument. Here the author has noted that he is going to discuss two competing doctrines. (Back to article.)

(4-9) Here the author makes the first part of his argument, outlining the first of the doctrines. Whenever possible try to introduce some concrete material as examples: people, quotations, or events.

If you're serious about trying to communicate with the public as a historian, you have to strike a workable balance. Don't talk down to the public, but avoid jargonistic or difficult writing. As A.J. Liebling once said, take your topic but not yourself seriously. If you're writing about an important subject, you don't have to invest it with scholarly weight for your readers to realize its gravity. Your assignment is to write in such a manner that the secretary having coffee down at the cafe understands what you're saying, while the article makes your professional colleagues think in new ways about the issue. It can be done. (Back to article.)

(10) Tie your point to today. Show the relevance of your historical argument. Here the author ties his argument to current figures. (Back to article.)

(11) Be sure occasionally to remind your readers what your point is. Rephrasing your argument differently somewhere along the way keeps the analytical edge sharpened in the reader's mind. (Back to article.)

(12-13) Here is the historical account of the second doctrine, the counterpart to paragraphs 4-9, above. (Back to article.)

(14) Here the author ties the second doctrine to current examples in counterpart to paragraph 10, above. (Back to article.)

(15) This is the author's main point, the heart of his conclusion, his "let's face it" paragraph. (Back to article.)

(16) Signing off, the author ties the end to the beginning by echoing his mention of Fourth of July speeches. (Back to article.)

Sample Annotated Article 2: Economic Instability - When the Fringe Benefits

by Steven Philip Kramer

Published in the Washington Post, 13 November 1996.

Western Europe is facing difficult times. Mainstream parties are following polices that promote monetary stability without ameliorating high unemployment. These policies have been pursued not only in the name of fiscal responsibility but also to guarantee inclusion in the European Monetary Union (EMU). The result is that increasing numbers of people blame their own governments and the European Union for high unemployment. Only extremist parties of the right vociferously claim to champion the forgotten man. (Note 1)

Today's situation bears some frightening resemblance to the 1930s. Most European governments reacted to the onset of the Great Depression by rigidly pursuing the economic orthodoxy of the day, which denied that governmental activity could have a beneficial impact on the crisis. (Note 2)

Leaders put their faith in the free operation of market forces while trying to maintain stable currencies based on the gold standard. If government expenditures exceeded revenues, then expenditures had to be cut, even if higher unemployment resulted. (Note 3)

This was not only the view of conservatives. Many social democrats and labor leaders also subscribed to the orthodox economic doctrines of the time, even if they bridled at cutting benefits to the working class. (Note 4)

The sense that democratic parties and the establishment in general had no remedies to a human crisis of massive dimensions other than preaching patience (prosperity was just around the corner) resulted in a flight of voters to communist or fascist parties. These parties claimed that forceful governmental action could bring order out of economic chaos. (Note 5)

The dramatic success of this message was demonstrated by Hitler's accession to power in 1933 by legal means. Fascism, as a force for hope and change, seemed on the march all over Europe. The New Deal marked Roosevelt's recognition that extremism had to be preempted by a leap into the unknown--that it was better to improvise new economic policies than to run the risk that American democracy would founder on the shoals of fear and despair. (Note 6)

The situation in 1996 is not of the same magnitude as that of 1932. There has been no great crash. There is no great crisis, only the slow but unrelenting rise of unemployment and insecurity. Today's crisis is not generalized--many people are upwardly mobile. Unemployment is less than half the levels of the Great Depression. GNP's continue to grow, however slowly. A vast welfare state created in reaction to the experience of the 1930s buffers the impact of unemployment even while long-term unemployment saps the viability of the welfare state. Nationalism and revanchism, catalysts for political extremism in the 1930s, no longer prevail. Nor is communism a strong political force capable of mobilizing large numbers of people and polarizing society between left and right. (Note 7)

What is analogous, however, is the sense of fatalism and lack of choice. Just as in the 1930s, parties of the mainstream--whether left, right or center--share a common policy, but that policy is not working. They support a sound currency and fixed exchanges, which in practice means following the policies of the Bundesbank as the de facto federal reserve bank of Europe. The Bundesbank's interest rate policy, however, is based exclusively on German fear of inflation dating back to the early 1920s. (Note 8)

High German interest rates have hindered economic growth elsewhere in Europe, although they are far from the only reason for slow growth. Now, however, in order to meet the Maastricht convergence standards for European Monetary Union, even more Draconian measures must be taken to reduce the level of budgetary deficits, which means lowering public- sector expenditures and more reductions of the welfare state. (Note 9)

EMU, conceived largely as an economic means to further a political end--deepening European unity and irrevocably anchoring unified Germany to Europe--has itself become a source of discord and division. Political elites have become so committed to successfully leading their nations into EMU that they cannot change course without threatening the survival of European institutions and their own legitimacy. (Note 10)

The great danger is that the public will revolt against the process in one of two ways. The first is massive social unrest. Labor unions have shown significant capacity to block cost- cutting policies in France and Germany. In France, popular frustration could get out of hand, as in May 1968. The second is that extremist parties, such as the National Front in France, or "post- fascist" parties, such as the Freedom Party in Austria or National Alliance in Italy, will become too strong to be denied participation in government or even government leadership. The National Alliance served briefly in the Berlusconi government, breaking a 50-year taboo against inclusion of a fascist or post-fascist party in government. Europe's social cohesion constitutes a greater menace to European security than any existing external security threat. (Note 11)

Comments on "Economic Instability - When the Fringe Benefits"

(1) The lead paragraph outlines the problem (current European policies might foster extremism). The emphasis is on current issues, not the past.

Note the immediate contrast with the previous piece: The author's lead paragraph is longer; in fact, it contains five sentences, and most of the subsequent paragraphs tend to be longer. Yet, because of their coherence, they work; and because of their coherence, the editor didn't feel the need to break them up. This illustrates the "rule" that there is no single way to write an op-ed piece, no single form and no single "trick." (Back to article.)

(2) The author introduces the historical parallel: the explanation of the tie between the problem of today and the 1930s. Here, history is being used to strengthen an argument about the present, not the other way around. (Back to article.)

(3-6) The author offers an elaboration of the historical parallel, using examples. The focus of these paragraphs is on the relevant history of the 1930s. The parallel is not forced; the statement of it is compressed. There is just enough history to substantiate the general parallel and then to leave it at that. (Back to article.)

(7) The author acknowledges exceptions to the historical parallel. Here is where he allows some historian's prudence to enter in; he doesn't want to get too far out on a limb. But the examples employed here are apposite and contribute, by their nature, to the main argument, a cautionary plea for perspective and sound policy. (Back to article.)

(8-10) The author returns to the main thrust of his argument and offers counterparts to paragraphs 3-6. But here his focus is on the current policies that are reminiscent of the 1930s. He has returned us to the present, where he now remains. The historian is speaking to the present and has done so without ever saying, "Here is what history has to offer." He has simply offered it. (Back to article.)

(11) Here is the conclusion, and a bit of a counterintuitive one at that. The author takes a risk here by introducing a subtle new thought at the end: The problem, dear readers, is not what you think, a threat external to Europe; the problem comes from within. But note: this statement is carefully related to the previous argument and, because of the force of the sentence, the statement gets us out of the piece with impact. (Back to article.)

Pictured at top (left to right): Persian philosopher Avicenna, Adam Smith, the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Frederick Douglass, a Native American painting of the Battle of Little Bighorn, diarist Anne Frank.