An opinion article is an argumentative journalistic text that explores a topic of interest to public opinion, based on the author’s personal considerations. In this post, you’ll learn different types of opinion articles for Students and Kids.
Let’s dive right in:
These articles seek to awaken in their readers a critical feeling about the topic, highlighting aspects and considerations to narrow the debate to their point of view. For this, they usually use narrations, comparisons, and even a certain degree of poetic writing.
Opinion articles often reinforce the editorial line of the medium in which they are disseminated. They constitute one of the most widely read sections of a journalistic publication since personalities from the political, cultural, or media world are often called to share their point of view and opinion.
- See also: News and report
Structure of the opinion piece
The traditional structure of an opinion piece includes:
- An exposition of reasons or reasons, with which he illustrates his approach to the subject and modulates the reader’s approach to his point of view.
- A closing where he offers the conclusions to convince the reader, and that turns an opinion article into an argumentative text.
Examples of opinion articles
- “The fringes of the Civil War continue to count” by José Andrés Rojo.
Published in the Spanish newspaper El País, on November 21, 2016.
The desire to know what happened brings together people of very different ideologies
It is not going to change the world if by now we learn that there were a few hustlers from the Francoist side who crossed the Manzanares river a few days before the date that historians have so far considered good and even reached Argüelles, where there were skirmishes with the republican forces. What has been explained, what is more, or less fixed by the students of the Civil War, is that the rebel military troops only managed to cross the river after having conquered the Casa de Campo and that they only did so on the 15th. November 1936, a few months after the infamous July coup. It didn’t do them much good. Madrid managed to resist, and the war dragged on.
But it turns out that there are a few papers that show that there was a previous assault, as this newspaper recounted yesterday in its Culture pages. An assault that did not go very far and failed to establish a solid position, as happened later when Franco’s forces reached the University City and settled there until the end of the war.
Is this relevant and will the story of the battle of Madrid change? Surely not, unless other evidence of greater weight appears, but what really matters is the fact of going back over the documents, of continuing to tirelessly pull the fringes, of continuing to explore. The past is always vast unknown territory, and many treat it as one who plays a complex score by ear.
What these papers surely show is that, in peace as well as in war, the truth is often hidden: because it is not convenient, because it complicates things, because it gives a different image from the one we want to project. The Republicans did not do well when it was known that the Francoists had come so far so soon, very soon after initiating that offensive on the capital that they wanted to be the definitive one. And the Francoists were annoyed that (those scruffy) had forced them to withdraw. It was a flare, common in war; As it faded, no one paid more interest.
Except for those few who continue digging, and who continue to ask, and who tirelessly pursue all the clues so that the story of what happened is better and better adjusted to what really happened in those fateful (and chaotic) days. Many of those tireless curious people are part of the Madrid Front Study Group (Gefrema).
It is not superfluous to emphasize that what matters in this group is the desire to know what happened and to investigate and delve into all that remains to be discovered and explained. Some come from families that were at war with the rebels and others are descendants of the defenders of the Republic or those who went like mad to make the revolution. Knowing twins them beyond their respective ideologies and, well, it’s a smart way to go back in time. Not to settle pending accounts: to know it better.
- “The weight of uncertainties” by Gustavo Roosen.
Published in the newspaper El Nacional de Venezuela, on November 20, 2016.
Colombia and the plebiscite on the peace agreement, England and the decision to leave the European Union, the United States, and the presidential election are just three cases in which the surprise has surpassed the presumption, but they are also, and very especially, three demonstrations. of the growing distance between political logic and people, between the drawing of the polls and the picture of the real and deep perceptions and aspirations of society.
The result of this gap, fueled by the forgetfulness or ignorance of the people, is none other than the emergence of mistrust, the abandonment of the responsibilities of citizens in political action, and the flourishing of many different forms of anarchy and demagoguery.
Few things are possibly more dangerous to freedom and democracy than the loss of confidence in politicians, the feeling of people not being understood, or even being deceived by those who aspire to represent or direct it.
In Venezuela, specifically, some feel that the proposals do not respond to their country aspirations; others that attention has focused on the political game to the detriment of the true interests of the population. In any case, doubts grow more than certainties.
As a result of the first agreements between the government and the representatives of the opposition organized in the Unity Table, these feelings have gained unexpected strength.
Despite the attempt to explain the strategy and the intentions, it is perceived that the political representation of the opposition does not express with the force that the gravity of the situation and the urgency of the solutions should; that it does not achieve the political objectives it proposes and proposes; that it declares deadlines and goals that it cannot sustain; that it wastes its political capital and popular support; that you are not doing what you should maintain enthusiasm; that there is a discourse inside the dialogue tables and another for the street; that the explanations about tone and strategy don’t sound convincing enough.
People understand that it is negotiated, but he wants to see it progress. People expect the points on the table to be resolved, not because they think they are unique, but because they perceive them as immediate, as an emergency.
The result of this loss of confidence begins to accelerate a process in which the wrinkle of hope can no longer be run. Whoever set limits for his plan B, feels now that he cannot continue postponing it. Hence the increase in emigration. Hence, for example, the growing number of Venezuelan doctors taking tests in Chile to work in that country’s public network.
Last year there were 338, this year there are already 847. And like these doctors, thousands of other professionals and entrepreneurs who cancel their dream of opportunities in the country to look for them abroad. The bewilderment does not allow many to run the wrinkle further. There comes a time when the real reasons, those of the economy and personal, do not give for more. Prolonging the situation exhausts people’s hope. And in front of that,
The exercise of politics today has more than ever the imperative to sharpen the perception about people, their motivations, their aspirations, about what is most immediate and visible but especially about what is profound, what is said and what is silent, what it is declared in public and what is held in private, what is discovered in front of others and what is kept in the internal forum.
Correctly interpreting people, understanding their aspirations, their motivations, their fears, and their expectations are, therefore, the only way to reach society and to be understood by it. Luis Ugalde said it: “Democrats need to inform and listen to the people so that the pain and hopes of the population are at the head and heart of the negotiations.” If what is intended is to feed trust and hope.
