Structure of an OPINION article

An opinion piece It is a text that addresses a topic in a fairly extensive way, through opinion author's staff. The writers are usually recognized people in the sector they are writing about and have done an intense job of searching, to defend and support what they think.

In this lesson from a PROFESSOR we want to teach you what is the structure of an opinion piece, so that you are able to write your own text, when you need it.

The opinion articles belong to the genus journalistic texts. It consists of a document, as we have mentioned before, whose purpose is express the opinion that the author has about a specific topic, of which he is an expert. This text is always written after having been studied and analyzed in detail.

The opinion article is usually published in magazines and newspapers and you can easily differentiate it from any editorial article, because this bears the author's signature. The ideas expressed by the author in the article do not have to be aligned with what the newspaper thinks or usually publishes, but rather shows a totally independent opinion.

People who are often interested in reading opinion pieces are those who are looking to have different points of view about a specific topic.

Like any type of text, opinion articles have their own structure, which is what differentiates them from other writings. If your goal is to learn how to write an opinion article, it is important that you know each of the parts that make it up and how they are ordered.

This is the Structure of an opinion piece.

Title

The title clearly shows the topic that the reader is going to talk about. It must be synthetic, eye-catching and allow the reader to know, at a single glance, if he is interested in reading further.

Introduction

This is the first paragraph of text and also the first contact that the reader will have with the topic that you are going to develop as an author. It is crucial that these first lines are striking and generate questions in the reader, to hook him and keep him reading. In this first part you should also present the problem or the situation on which you are going to give your opinion.

Main idea

This section, which is not too extensive, presents the idea defended by the author. This is not the time to provide any argument, but we will only put the reader in context about what for us is the truth.

arguments

The arguments are what constitute the central body of the opinion piece what we are writing It is important to present and develop all the arguments for and against the main idea that we have presented above. The ideas in favor are those that we defend and those against are those that would be defended by people who thought differently from us.

It is good that each of the arguments can be developed in a separate paragraph, either for or against our idea. It is good that these paragraphs are headed by sentences such as: it could also be argued that..., there are those who defend that..., but..., however...

conclusion

The conclusion is a summary of everything that has been exposed above, in a short way and only referring to the most relevant points that have to do with the main idea. It is essential that in this last section, which works as a closing, no new idea is provided. You can end up challenging the reader with a question or motivating him to take some action.

If you want more information about it, in this other lesson we will discover the main characteristics of an opinion piece.

In order to understand a lesson correctly and for it to stick in your mind, it is good that you can observe how it works, once you put it into practice. We want to show you a opinion piece example in which you can clearly see the structure that we have explained in the previous section.

One of the best examples of an opinion piece on gender equality is titled Break the crystal cealing.We leave you a fragment, so that you can understand the language in which it is written and how the author addresses her readers. You can find it in its entirety online, if you search for it by its title.

"More than 40 years have passed since the feminist Marilyn Loden denounced in a speech the existence of a "glass ceiling" that prevents the ascent of women at work, and that continues to be a reality for millions of women in the West, especially in the countries of the so-called “third world"."

Now you know the structure of an opinion piece, so you have the steps to start writing your own. If you are interested in continuing to learn more about this topic or something similar, do not hesitate to consult our writing section.