An op-ed also, within its form and content, answers the questions…
Why this? What makes this topic exigent, highly consequential, and provocative?
Why you? What makes you credible and authoritative in writing on this topic?
- Ethos: A credible persona in intellectual conversation with its audience. In order to create this successfully, a person must have a basic understanding of how to access their audience and then a broader understanding of their audience’s interests, concerns, beliefs, priorities, and what triggers a response both intellectually and emotionally. Finally, he or she must know how to overcome audience resistance to an argument by knowing, understanding, and being able to break down their warrants or general principles, logics, and beliefs that validate their reasons for resistance.
Why us? What do you want from your audience?
Why not (the alternative)? What basis of understanding do you have about your audience — what are their principal beliefs (or warrants), which by understanding and communicating then gives you the right to challenge (these principal beliefs) and ask for change.
- Warrants based on experience: Invalidate their experience, argue that evidence isn’t relevant to their claim, find a counterexample that undermines their experience.
- Warrants based on authority: Claim that the authority figure doesn’t have all of the information or invalidate their authority by finding fault in their logic or actions.
- Warrants based on systems of beliefs and theories: To some people, facts are irrelevant (Technically, you could debase them for being illogical), so you must challenge the system’s legitimacy or show that the specific case in question isn’t supported by their beliefs. You could also say that the case in question is supported by their beliefs to make them accept it.
- Warrants based on culture: Again, facts are irrelevant and you will be seen as challenging the culture. Tread lightly or dismantle.
- Warrant based on pattern, expectation, correlation: Point out a limiting condition or lack of applicability, which shows that the case in question isn’t supported by this warrant.
Why now? What makes this piece timely, if not urgent?
- Kairos: “In classical rhetoric, kairos refers to the opportune time and/or place–that is, the right or appropriate time to say or do the right or appropriate thing” (thoughtco.com). In other words: You must be sure that your topic is appropriate for its time, its audience, and for you to write about in order for it to feel exigent to your readers.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Why this ? Climate change is one of the most widely discussed issues in our culture, and it will continue to be if we do not take the essential steps to prevent it.
Why you – I represent the current generation, and I have the ability to persuade my peers to see the importance of this issue to us and future generations.
Why us? Our generation has a powerful voice that can influence large corporations, because without us they have no power.
Why not – Money has influenced major corporations’ decisions without their comprehending the truth of climate change and how they are damaging the environment. These businesses must be aware of the data, numbers, and time remaining before worldwide terrible catastrophes occur.
Why now? If not now, it will be too late to solve climate change. Every single day counts.
Cursive writing being taught in school
Why this?- Cursive writing is something that should have been established in schools a long time ago. Learning Cursive writing is such a positive I don’t see why it shouldn’t be instilled in schools.
Why you?- I’m Someone who has never been taught how to write in cursive growing up going to school
Why us?- We can all agree this is an important issue and that change needs to happen. This benefits our children
Why not? If cursive has no place, does that mean our culture has reached a point of such high-tech anonymity that variations in handwriting no longer matter? (Where will all the handwriting analysts go?
Why now? I wouldn’t be in this position talking about if cursive writing should be taught in schools if it was done a long time ago. They had it but then they stopped it so now it’s time to put it back in the schools. Not later but now!.
Why this? Gun violence is one of the most causes of deaths in our society,This issue will continue to evolve endless we help prevent violence from happening.
Why you? I want to help prevent this from happening, I want the future generations to stop continuing violence and fight against it.
Why us? I think if we all come together and protest against gun violence this will help spread awareness so we can have less gun violence and less deaths in our society because the more gun violence the more we aren’t going to feel safe.
Why not? If we don’t do this it will cause more problems in the future. For example this will cause gun violence more gang activity and more. I feel like why not do it because this will prevent people from dying and will make people feel safe in our society.
Why now? I feel like if we don’t start today this problem will keep continuing and will cause more deaths and will cause a major issue and impact to our society in the future and we don’t want that.
Why this? The pandemic was something that affected millions worldwide and will be remembered for times to come.
Why you? I am someone who was alive during the pandemic and was affected by it in many ways as I was a high school senior going into my first year of college and the impact it had on my education and life overall
Why us? it’s important to teach others in upcoming years the many effects it had on not only people, but the government, the institutions, the lives lost.
Why not? If we don’t teach others the importance of the pandemic, we could lose a lot of historical pieces and how the government responds to emergency situations and the way that Covid has changed the lives of millions and shaped who we are today.
Why now? The pandemic started about 2 years ago, and a lot of the historical aspects of it happened mainly in 2020, children who were younger during this time may wonder why people still wear masks, or why they have to go home to get tested every so often, or why we still social distance. Society now is heavily still impacted by Covid.
Why this: Asian hate crimes has spiked a whopping 339% nationwide since last year and with the recent hate crime towards Asians being 2 weeks ago, it is clear that this is not stopping.
Why you? I constantly see my family members being scared to go outside or be in the subway by themselves so I feel like my family members should not be living in fear anymore.
Why us? Of course, any type of hate is simply unacceptable and intolerable. But over the past few years, hate crimes have simply gone up. By coming together, we can stop hate crimes in it’s track and hopefully stop more hate crimes.
Why Not? I mean it’s literally hate crimes, I shouldn’t really have to explain it. Hate crimes are not tolerated. Period. It will also exacerbate more violence in the communities.
Why now? Because ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many Asians have been attacked with claims that they have brought the virus to the United States. It also did not help much when Former President Donald Trump called the Coronavirus “Chinese virus” which exacerbated the problem. As stated above, Asian hate crimes has spiked to 339 percent than in 2020 and it will continue to increase as time goes on.
Are there high chances for a Third World War?
Why This: This needs to be discussed because there is clearly pandemonium over what is going on. This fear is mostly derived from the media and news outlets that implement fear to keep us watching. This is why the whole Ukrain and Russia situation was set ablaze because the media kept emphasizing a third world war.
Why You: I have had my experiences with the media feeding fear into me. It’s something I had dealt with when 2012 hit and the End of the world was all over social media. Therefore I am inclined to shed light on the situation.
Why Us: Because people can be easily manipulated into believing something. This subject that plays with fear isn’t something my generation is dealing with but other generations have as well.
Why Not: People have become a subject of fear and the media uses that weakness to profit and gain viewership. It’s important to establish what the real outcomes are of this whole situation.
Why Now: Presently the discussions about Russia’s invasion have sparked several news talks about the situation. Therefore it is the best time to talk about it since several are worried.
Why this?
As if students weren’t already struggling with life stressors that affected their mental health, COVID-19 came along and exacerbated the problem. As students return to classrooms, whether virtually or in person, the scars of COVID-19 remain. If professors thought students’ performance and participation were low prior to the pandemic, they are now dealing with the walking dead. By no means am I making light of the situation. However, students rarely participate, and on any given day at least a third of the class is absent.
Why you?
As a student who struggles every day to not fall down the rabbit hole, I know how hard it is to show up and get it done. I also have first-hand knowledge of what is going on in the classroom. I have noticed the decline in class morale since the pandemic.
Why us?
Professors, the university, and students all have to do their part to stop the looming mental illness epidemic. No one group can solve the problem alone. It must be a cohesive effort.
Why not (the alternative)?
Lazy is the term often used to describe students with low academic output. Mentally healthy individuals have the ability to cope and adjust to life stressors in a healthy way. Contrarily, individuals with poor mental health have a diminished ability to cope with stressors. If they do not get help, mental illness will manifest. In the case of CUNY students, depression, anxiety or both have been the prevalent issues. Both conditions interfere with someone’s ability to perform daily tasks. Until you have educated yourself on mental illness or have experience with someone who is mentally ill, you may lack the empathy to deal with or understand your students or classmates’ low-performance level.
Why this? This new start of the War has left people in fear with prices rising and lots of chaos around the whole world. The media has always negatively impacted us with such horrific information but we do not know how much of it is accurate.
Why You? I want to talk about this topic because I am aware, that just like myself, no one really knows what’s going on other than hearing it from social media or the news about how badly it is impacting Russia and Ukraine. I would love to learn more about this topic through this research.
Why us? I want my audience to actually pay attention because many of us just think it is another event that will pass soon but with the younger generations help and engagement, we can prevent this stuff from happening in the future.
Why not? It is significant to emphasize on what is being said to us and what is actually happening so it can prepare us for the upcoming events which can affect us.
Why now? The events leading to the war are currently happening right now and it is important we talk about this now then wait till things get worse.
Why this? I chose gentrification because of the negative impacts it causes to the community such as tenants being pushed out due to higher rent or evictions and the places that are getting gentrified seem to be where people of color live.
Why you? I want to help prevent gentrification because it’s unfair to the community that is in the process of gentrification.
Why us? I want to inform the audience of the causes of gentrification and its negative impacts on our community.
Why not? If we don’t take this problem into consideration right now then it will slowly cause shifts in certain communities forcing them out of their home, and someday maybe it will be us getting pushed out.
Why now? I feel like now is the right time to speak and inform people on this topic because it can be happening in their communities and neighborhoods right now and soon can be our neighborhood.
Why this? I chose this because I fear how bad it has gotten and think it’s only going to get worse.
Why you? I have been living in NYC for all my life and never heard or seen many of these things happening
Why us? I want NYC to be more aware of what is going on due to the lack of sanity in this city
Why now? It is very important that people react now because if they don’t, they or someone they know can be a victim of the crazy crimes