Engineer's Guide to Influencing Public Policy

Writing Letters to the Editor
(or 1,000 Words on How to Write 200)

By Paul Donnelly
IEEE-USA Public Affairs Consultant

Engineers need to speak up about issues that affect the engineering profession and the state of technology. One excellent way to do that is through a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, including not only the big dailies, but also the smaller weeklies and newsletters that reach an important audience. But as in so many activities, some ways are more effective than others. So in writing a letter to the editor, a few basic hints may be useful.

First: Think before you write.

Even before you write a word, decide for yourself the ONE thing you want to say. To be effective, a letter to the editor should get a single point across. There may be several reasons WHY you think Ohm’s Law ought to be taught in kindergarten – but a letter to the editor should say one thing well, not several things badly. Don’t start writing until you know what that one thing is, and make everything else – anything else – support that one point.

Second: Response or soapbox?

Without starting to write yet, decide if you are responding to something the newspaper reported or editorialized about, or if instead you are writing what is known as a "soapbox letter", in which the writer is expressing an opinion that does not respond to anything in the newspaper itself. Many larger papers will not print soapbox letters, while papers that publish soapbox letters will often allow a writer more leeway. This will help you to focus.

Third:   Make clear what you're responding to.

If you are responding to something published in the paper, identify what it is in the first sentence of your draft letter to the editor.

Letters to the editor are counterpunches. The usual format is something like "In arguing for the abolition of the patent system ("Congress Goes Nuts, Again," The Daily Howl, February 30, 2000), your editorialist…" That way, the editor – and the paper’s readers, when it’s published – know why you are writing from the start. And, perhaps as important, so will you.

Fourth: Is that so?

Decide if you are expressing an opinion, or correcting a fact. Naturally, this can be a tricky business, but the difference between the two (as Mark Twain neatly put it) is the difference between a lightning bug, and lightning. For example, a letter to the editor which uses many words to criticize the newspaper’s endorsement of a candidate for Mayor because (so the paper says) he has a reputation for independence is unlikely to be as effective as one that notes how the paper erred describing him as "independent" – because (in fact) he is a well-paid lobbyist for the Hypocrisy Foundation seeking passage of the Bribery Deregulation Act. Say so; prove it and stop talking.

Fifth: Tell them what you think.

If you are expressing an opinion in response, be clear about it. Don’t try to correct "facts" that are in dispute. If you do, you are likely to try to say too many things at once. When evaluating a letter to the editor for publication, a newspaper will generally place much weight on an opinion that is strong enough to know when it is just an opinion. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use facts to support your opinion – just that you should be sure which is which.

Sixth: Be brief.

It is often helpful to write the first draft TOO short. Many writers find it easier to add than to cut – and the more work you make for the editor, the less likely your letter will be printed.

Seventh: Re-write.

When you have written a draft that responds to something the newspaper has written in a specific article on a particular day, that says just ONE thing (with perhaps a reason or two WHY it is important), that corrects the paper on one fact, and cites two others, that strongly expresses what you think – then you should probably take a few minutes to challenge every word in it: Do I really need to say this? Odds are, you don’t.

Obviously, personal attacks and overheated language can be a drawback – even if they are published, they may come back to haunt you. The old advice of saying only sweet words, in case you have to eat them, is sound.

But what truly makes a letter to the editor effective – like most writing – is focus, force and style. For most of us, that doesn’t come in the first draft, but in the second or third. When you’ve decide what is "the one true thing" that you want to get across, write your first draft – and then re-write it as many times as you think necessary (and maybe more one besides) to make it tight and clear.

Don’t make the editor ask "What’s this trying to say?"

Most publications will limit letters to the editor to a few hundred words, at most. A letter from an exceptional authority – such as a famous technologist writing about a technological misconception – will sometimes get more space, but don’t count on it. Focus is the key to force, and style must serve the first two; it can’t substitute for them.

Eighth: Be timely.

A final note – newspapers are in the NEWS business. When you are responding to an article, try to get your (effectively written) letter to the editor in time for the original article to be fresh in the mind of the audience. This is especially effective in correcting facts.

Conclusion

Few letters to the editor have as powerful an influence on both a daily newspaper and its readership as a letter published the next day which in one sentence observes that a key statement or assumption in the news story or editorial was false. As a model for an effective letter to the editor, again, emulate Mark Twain's famous letter to the New York Sun:  "Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

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Last Updated:  23 Aug. 2000