Opinion Article Example

The opinion piece it's a kind of professional journalistic textl (genre of press opinion) in which the writer or journalist gives his point of view, evaluationand reasoningreferring to a specific topic. Usually these are topics or topics that have to do with the news or with events of cultural, economic, scientific, artistic importance, etc., which may be contemporary or old. Other journalistic texts are: the news, the chronicle, the report, the editorial, among others.

The author An opinion piece may be a specialist on the subject he is going to talk about or on other topics. But you must always be a professional and serious person with broad general knowledge in various subjects. An opinion piece can be published in newspapers, academic or scientific journals, blogs, websites, among others.

The main difference between the opinion article and other types of journalistic texts is that in the others, preference is given to the news or event that is described, and in opinion, what is important are the ideas and arguments of the author, how he sees or understands said news.

Opinion piece features:

• It is considered as a journalistic and literary genre.
• The language must be agile and clear. It shouldn't be cumbersome or far-fetched, but neither should it be colloquial, vulgar, or simple.
• The main objective is to present a main idea or thesis, discuss it with the arguments or data given by the author. The topic or the news itself is not the most important thing.
• Analyze an event, situation or fact to cause an impact or influence on the reader regarding the topic he is talking about.
• The journalist's opinion has to do with his knowledge of the subject he is writing about, but also with his very personal feelings; he interprets that theme but gives an assessment.
• Responsibility for opinions is entirely with the author of the article. Although it is published in a newspaper or magazine that does not belong to the author, he is the one who assumes responsibility for the ideas and reasoning presented in the text.
• It does not follow structure rules as it is very personal.
• It can be similar to a criticism, an essay or a chronicle.

Elements and basic structure of the opinion article:

As we have already seen, the opinion article does not have an exact structure, as it does not follow rules or rules of writing or format. However, the following can be identified as the main elements:

Titleand the theme. These are the most basic elements.

The introduction or entry. In the first paragraphs you will always find the entry. It provides relevant but brief information; it can be the topic that will be discussed and the spatial-temporal location with respect to said topic.

The argument or opinion. This element includes the author's analysis, with arguments or examples.

The conclusion. You can include as the author wishes, you can even include a final reflection on the subject.

10 Examples of an opinion piece:

1. In the following article, the author writes about literary and cinematographic art, and gives importance to his opinion about Basque cinema:

More cinema please

By: Juan Palomo Digital edition of El Cultural.

"About community life and joys beats have these consequences: it seems that in January 1960 Allen Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, among others, traveled to Chile to participate in the First Meeting of American Poets and that Ginsberg, who was for a week, stayed three months in the house of Nicanor Parra in La Queen. Ferlinghetti was more discreet, although years later it was possible to recognize the influence of the Chilean antipoet in his verses.

The inequality that punishes women writers in front of their male colleagues is an outcry. Last week the dreaded Classics and Modernists presented "Discovering what is known," a report that denounces that men have won 82 percent of the 48 poetry awards studied. They are not the only ones: in Great Britain the Staunch Prize, endowed with 2000 pounds, has just been born, for thrillers in which no woman is assaulted, beaten, harassed, sexually exploited, raped or murdered. Will the Lemaitre, Conolly, Winslow and others pick up the glove?

Like every February, I have started to prepare my list of galleries to visit during ARCO and I am astonished at not finding Juan Silió from Santander among them. The languages ​​say that they know that the most powerful galleries with which he shares artists, have pressured him to stay out. I don't know, but what a shame to miss his pieces by Miguel Ángel Tornero, Juan López, Carlos Irijalba and so many others. For López, for example, we will have to look for him in the Mexican gallery Tiro al Blanco.

How I was glad that Álex de la Iglesia deviated from his usual line and made Perfect strangers, remake of the Italian Perfetti sconosciuti (2016), which has remained on the billboard with an unusual dignity thanks to interpretations such as those of Belén Rueda and Eduard Fernández. But I wanted to tell you about his role as a producer, because he has in his portfolio, to release in March, Errementari, a movie Directed by Paul Urkijo that is set in the first Carlist War and stars Kandido Uranga and Eneko Sagardoy. Terror and Basque mythology return to our rooms and spoken in old Basque ”.

2. In the following article, the author writes about technology; specifically of social networks as a privileged means of communication among young people:

The use of social networks and school delay

By: Víctor Humberto Clemenceau

“The benefit that social networks have brought with them is undeniable, in the aspect of the enormous ease that they provide for intercontinental communication and real-time transfer of the information. But in recent years they have brought disorder and even risks for users and those around them. At first, the new generations, increasingly obese, cannot get off the seat in front of their computer monitor, others do not take their fingers off their cell phones and BlackBerry, losing not only time of real interaction with tangible humans, especially their relatives, but also postponing their tasks and studies for preferring to continue obsessively the slightest nonsense that appears in any of those social networks, in most cases falling into compulsion and obsession, then there is already talk of addiction to social networks. This disease increases enormously, and thousands of people lose not only school subjects, some the entire school year and even work, when they totally neglect their duties to attend to any news in the networks, even if it is something totally absurd.

On the other hand, there are also increasing cases of young people attacked by other users, who harass them and upload humiliating photos or videos of their unsuspecting victims, who more than Sometimes, they give private information to anyone who wants to interact with them, without thinking about it, and they only find out about the video or photo, when another acquaintance sends them the information. It is then that they realize their mistake, but too late: their image is corrupted and it is almost impossible to erase from the Internet. That is why it is better to use social networks, only for what they were made, but taking care not to fall into addiction or neglect studies. They can be very entertaining, but in the end, there is the real world, and to survive in it you need real knowledge, outside of virtual reality ”.

3. In the following article the author writes sarcastically about the internal problems of a Spanish soccer club:

Isco, Isco

By: Manuel Jabois in EL PAÍS

“Madrid is the only club in the world whose fear when it lets its players play for the national teams is not that they get injured, but that they play well. In fact, you can break your knee, be sent off giving a painful image or look like a boot-twister in a game that sees average. world, that that will provoke the usual compassion or joke, but in the event that that player makes a spectacular match and scores three goals, a shocking investigation is started to find out why that footballer does not directly do all the eleven of Real Madrid.

An expert club in supporting all kinds of plagues in the form of national debates, one of the most unusual is why its players, if they play well, do not always play, as if there were 30 seats on the field. It is worth stopping in the case of Isco; Today he triumphs in the national team and is fixed for Lopetegui after being discarded by Del Bosque for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Eurocup. Between that year and his confirmation in the national team, Isco has played three European Cup finals, the last one as a starter, and has won all three; This season, in which Zidane is accused of not playing Isco, Isco is the second player who has played the most with Zidane. And Marco Asensio is approaching him: two players who are not indisputable starters and that the French nevertheless uses for everything, also to knock down PSG in the Champions League. Two players, along with Lucas Vázquez, with whom Zidane has so far maintained a model of success that is difficult to achieve undertake without fires: squads with 16 players that can be starters in any circumstance and at any rival; players who are not called up to play a Champions League final in Cardiff after playing last year in Milan and taking the first penalty (Lucas Vázquez).

In the discussion it is observed, moreover, how the old patriotism that surrounds the Spanish team appears, so incapable of seeing a penalty in their own area as of saying something to the generation of the With everything that has hurt us, that spirit that aspires to reform the penal code to get its heroes absolute immunity. For the sake of the national team in Russia, a state of exception could be created to decide Madrid's line-ups between now and the end of the season with which to have the internationals in the best possible shape and with morale intact. Thus, it can be achieved to force Zidane to reserve Isco, that Isco win the World Cup alone and request the resignation of Zidane for not putting him on. He would not be new or original. "

4. The following article is about the situation of abandonment and mistreatment of animals in Spain, each time the number of animals slaughtered or abandoned increases:

Abandonment and animal abuse

By: Juan José Ventura in the newspaper Extremadura

“Follow the sangria. Every year I read on the teletypes around this time some figures that give me chills. In 2016 more than 137,000 dogs and cats were abandoned in Spain. The figure represents a halt to the downward trend, according to data from a Study on Abandonment and Adoption of Companion Animals by the Affinity Foundation.

I will never understand the reason for leaving so noble and beautiful living beings helpless. The study indicates that the appearance of unwanted litters is the first cause of abandonment, especially at this time. I'm going on vacation and I don't know what to do with Dalí and Gala, my two cats. Well, actually they are more of my lady than mine, but they give me their love and respect. We seek accommodation for them so that they do not suffer from our absence. And we miss them too. And that is also a human trait, which not all humans present.

The study points to two other reasons for ditching an animal: the behavior and the end of the hunting season. It is a pity that hunters sacrifice dogs when they do not serve them for their hunting purposes.

So many dropouts (or animal sacrifices) is worrying. The Affinity Foundation has been developing this study for two decades. It also denounces that in the Civil Code, animals appear conceptualized as a thing, as a good, which in divorce, embargo and eviction processes, leads them to harmful situations.

There is another data, more hopeful, that of adoptions. In 2016 46% of the animals were adopted, 16% that had been lost were returned to their owners, 12% continue to live in the shelters. 7% were euthanized.

Proverb: The dog and the child go where there is affection ”.

5. The following sample article deals with the pros and cons of social media:

Social networks

By: Emilio González Déniz

"I do not deny that the Society of Information It is a tremendous advance, that Melbourne newspapers can be read from the second on your home computer or on your mobile, and that the capacity for technological communication today is almost science fiction. However, so many possibilities are leading our society to each individual isolating himself in his den, sitting in front of a screen and oblivious to what is happening in his immediate environment.

Social networks can be a good communication mechanism, but it turns out that there are people who have virtual "friends" who they live in Oviedo, Valparaíso or New Orleans and they do not speak to their next door neighbor when they meet them in the lift. A few days ago a postman with many years of service told me that he used to come to a neighborhood, and when an address was not clear, he would ask anyone where so-and-so's house was, and everyone indicated it to him, and they even gave him details about the best time to deliver a letter certified. Now it is impossible, he asks for a person from the intercom and nobody knows him, even though he lives in the same building.

They included me on Facebook a couple of years ago, I have almost 500 friends and when I enter I get lost in a forest of greetings that later have little incidence in daily life, because those who continue to function are the same old friends, those with whom you see or talk to them for telephone. And it is that one thing is the technological capacity of communication and another very different real communication. Anyway, you have to be there, because it is a channel that we cannot despise ”.