Writing an Opinion Column With a Clear Argument

An opinion column is an argument made in public. It has a single obligation to the reader: to say plainly what the writer believes and to give good reasons for believing it. Everything else in the form, from the voice to the length to the anecdote at the top, is in service of that obligation. A column that entertains without arguing is an essay of another kind; a column that asserts without reasoning is a statement, not an argument.

This note sets out how we think a clear argument is built. It is written for columnists on VeriTaus, but the method applies wherever opinion is published under a name. The advice is ours, offered as practice rather than rule.

State the claim in one sentence

Before drafting, write down the column’s claim as a single declarative sentence. Not the topic, the claim. “Housing policy in our city” is a topic. “The city should end its minimum parking requirements for new flats” is a claim. A reader can agree or disagree with a claim; a topic only invites them to wait and see where you are going.

The test is simple: could a reasonable, informed person disagree with the sentence? If not, you have described a consensus, and there is little for a column to do. If the sentence needs three clauses and a semicolon to hold together, you are probably carrying two arguments, and each deserves its own column.

Keep that sentence at the top of the draft while you work. Delete it at the end if it reads awkwardly in the finished piece, but do not let the piece drift from it. Most unfocused columns are not badly written; they are columns in which the writer’s claim changed halfway through and the opening was never revised to match.

Earn the claim with reasons and evidence

A claim is earned by the reasons offered for it. In our experience, two or three strong reasons serve a column better than six weak ones, because each reason needs room: the point itself, the evidence for it and a sentence explaining why it matters to the claim.

Evidence in a column can take several forms, and it helps to know which kind you are using:

• Documented fact. Figures from a public budget, the text of a law, a court ruling, a published report. Cite and link to the original wherever you can; our note on sourcing and attribution covers how.
• Reported observation. Something you saw, heard or recorded yourself. Say when and where, and be exact about its scope: one meeting is one meeting.
• Reasoned inference. A conclusion drawn from the facts. This is legitimate and central to opinion writing, but it should be visible as inference. “This suggests” and “it follows that” are honest signposts.
• Experience. Your own. It can illustrate a point vividly, but it rarely proves one. Use it to show what a policy or a problem feels like, not to establish how common it is.

Be wary of the reason that is really a restatement. “The parking rules should go because they are outdated” does not add a reason; it adds an adjective. Ask of each paragraph: what does this give the reader that they did not have before?

Meet the strongest objection

A column persuades the undecided reader, not the one who already agrees. That reader arrives with an objection in mind, and if the column never addresses it, they will conclude that the writer either did not know it or could not answer it.

Identify the best case against your claim, not the weakest. State it fairly, in terms its supporters would recognise. Then answer it: show that it is mistaken, that it is outweighed, or that your proposal accommodates it. Sometimes the honest answer is a concession: “this will cost something, and the cost is worth paying because…” A conceded point, clearly argued, usually strengthens a column. It tells readers you have weighed the matter rather than merely taken a side.

One paragraph is often enough. Placed after your main reasons and before your conclusion, it gives the argument a turn that readers feel as fairness.

Give the argument a shape

There is no single correct structure for a column, but there is a reliable default, and it is worth mastering before departing from it:

1. An opening that gives the reader a reason to care now: a decision due, an event, a problem made concrete.
2. The claim, stated plainly within the first few paragraphs.
3. The reasons, each with its evidence, in order of strength or in the order that best builds on one another.
4. The objection and your answer to it.
5. The conclusion, which returns to the claim with the weight of what has been shown.

Two habits weaken this shape more than any other. The first is the delayed claim: five paragraphs of scene-setting before the reader learns what the writer thinks. The second is the survey: a tour of every view on the subject that ends without a judgement. If you find you do not hold a view at the end of the draft, the honest course is to say what would settle the question, or to hold the column until you do.

Long columns benefit from headings that name each step of the argument. On VeriTaus, longer stories receive a table of contents built from those headings (see the features page), so a well-named heading also gives readers a map of your reasoning before they start.

End with a commitment

The conclusion is where many columns lose their nerve. The writer has argued for a position and then, in the final paragraph, retreats: “Only time will tell.” “There are no easy answers.” “It remains to be seen.” These phrases end the column without concluding it.

A strong ending does one of three things. It restates the claim in sharper terms, now that the reasons have been given. It names a specific action: what the council, the reader or the institution should do, and by when. Or it states what the writer would accept as evidence of being wrong, which is the most confident ending of all, because it shows the argument is open to the facts.

A short check before filing

Before publishing, read the column once as a sceptic and ask:

• Can I state the claim in one sentence, and does the column’s opening support that sentence?
• Does every reason carry evidence, and is each piece of evidence of the kind I say it is?
• Have I stated the strongest objection fairly, and answered it?
• Is every factual statement sourced, and every inference marked as one?
• Does the ending commit to something?

A column that passes these questions may still be wrong; opinion writing carries that risk by nature. But it will be wrong in the open, with its reasons on the page where readers can examine them. That is the standard a journal of record asks of its columnists, and it is the one our guidelines describe: write as yourself, show your sources, and let the argument stand on what you can show.