By Cristina Shroyer
Making changes in the world as a student isn’t impossible. Whether it’s through lobbying, protest, or writing, you have the ability to work towards a better future. Today I've chosen to target the method of using writing to advocate for your community. One simple, short, clear, and concise method to get your message across and opinions out into the public is through writing an Op-Ed and submitting it to your local newspaper.
The opening and hook of an Op-Ed is crucial for the rest of your writing. The first sentence that your audience reads could make or break whether you get published or acknowledged at all. If your opening is weak or uninteresting, your audience members could take one glance at it and forget that it ever existed. However, if your opening is strong enough to hook your readers in, more people will be interested.
The purpose of an Op-Ed is to persuade the reader to believe or understand an opinion that you have and want to communicate. Op-Ed is short for “Opposite Editorial” because when published in newspapers it would be placed on the opposite side of the editorial or letters to the editor. Occasionally the layout will be shifted, but it’s still commonly known as an Op-Ed. An Op-Ed is a style of opinion writing and should target a specific audience with a clear, concise, and persuasive point. The tone is often authoritative or conversational, continuing to engage the reader.
The structure of an Op-Ed is simple. There's a hook, a body, and a conclusion. The body, or middle part should contain all of the information including reasons and evidence. These facts will further strengthen your argument, providing real data or statistics to back you up and prove you’re not spreading false information. On average, an Op-Ed should be between 600 and 800 words. Some newspapers, however, have slightly different preferred amounts of words. For example, The New York Times has a range of 400-1,200 words which is a lot wider than many other smaller papers.
If you're a student, your voice can be even stronger than you think. If you’re a student or someone under 18, people could also be more likely to listen to your opinion because it's viewed as more intelligent because of your not being an adult. A lot of changemakers have to listen to adults every single day, and listening to a child that also feels so passionately about these issues can be refreshing. Through writing an Op-Ed, you can influence the opinions of your targeted audience, but also the editors and possibly even people outside of those areas.
The process of actually getting published could be the most difficult. On multiple occasions, newspapers can get up to hundreds of submissions every day if their more popular, and as you can likely imagine, choosing just a few people to publish is torture. With smaller, local papers it might be easier to get in because of less submissions, but your voice in them is still just as important. It's competitive and ambitious. To get in you need a well written, professional, yet engaging piece with a unique perspective.
My main source was a youth advocacy workshop I attended in Lancaster, PA on October 24th, 2025. I went to one workshop in particular that helped me tremendously. The workshop was called “advocacy through writing” led by Jamie Beth Cohan, a published author and advocate.
The conclusion of an op-ed is equally important as the opening hook. With the opening, the goal is to engage the readers and draw them in, but with a conclusion, the goal is to leave a lasting, memorable impression on the readers that will have them remembering what you had to say and thinking about it, asking questions, and maybe even telling their friends or family. If you can’t imagine a mic drop at the end of your conclusion paragraph, it needs to be stronger.
As a student in 8th grade at State College Friends School, I believe that students just like me have to use our voices to spread these messages into the world. We can advocate for our education, experiences, and much more by writing a public statement such as an Op-Ed. The skill of persuasively writing is so incredibly important and can be so useful in so many different ways and is such a great way to advocate for your community. As we approach this time with so many various social justice and climate justice issues emerging, it's time we have to take action. Lastly, I urge you to advocate for the things that you believe in because the change you want to see in the world will never happen if you don’t do anything about it.