Tips on Writing an Opinion Piece on US-China Relations

What is an opinion piece?

In the second component, you are asked to write an opinion piece (say, potentially for a newspaper or an online media outlet, such as East Asia Forum and The Interpreter).

Sometimes called op-ed or commentary, an opinion piece is a slightly unconventional form of assignment than the normal research essay task. A normal research essay has a quite standard and somewhat even rigid structure including formal sections such as Introduction and Conclusion. An opinion piece, on the other hand, is less formal and less rigidly structured. It is usually much shorter than a normal essay. Most opinion pieces published in media outlets have about 700 to 800 words (whereas a research essay can range from 2,000 words to 5,000 words, or even longer if it’s a thesis). In this assessment, you’re allowed to have 1,000 words including references (normal 10% leeway applies).

An opinion piece often writes about contemporary and timely topics of public interest, and comes with a strong, distinctive or even controversial argument. It aims to express the author’s opinion and persuade the reader in a certain way. Also it often (not always) has direct policy implications and concludes with a call to action. The targeted audience of the opinion piece is often the informed public, policy-makers, as well as academics.

Given its frequent appearance in the mass media and its broader readership, an opinion piece is a very useful type of writing by a wide range of professionals to connect to the general public and engage with advocacy and policy debate. Therefore, opinion-piece writing skills can be very practical. Frequent appearance as opinion piece writers can also raise your public profile and enhance your career opportunities.

I am sure you’re no stranger to opinion pieces in general. But for this particular unit and for international relations subjects in general, the following outlets can offer a good starting point for you to look for opinion pieces that are similar and relevant to what you’re asked to do in this unit.

In addition, you can go to the websites of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, South China Morning Post, etc. and read their ‘Comment’, ‘Commentary’ or ‘Opinion’ section from their menu, although most of their opinion pieces are perhaps not related to international relations or foreign policy.

First, please read at least a dozen opinion pieces (especially those on international relations issues) to get a feel for what they look like in terms of topic, structure, analysis and writing style. Even if you have read many opinion pieces before, it is still helpful to refresh your memory before you tackle this assessment task.

Why this type of assessment task?

Second, choose a suitable topic. Yes, it is your choice, but the chosen topic needs to meet both of the following criteria:

1) The topic needs to be about US-China relations or international relations involving either China, the United States, or both. AND

2) The topic needs to be about a contemporary issue. That is, the issue should be current or no older than three months (from the beginning of July to the end of September 2020).

(Trump’s recent decision to ban Tiktok is such an issue, for example).

From now on (if you haven’t thought about this already), pay close attention to relevant news and development in US-China relations, and see if there is any issue, event, and policy development that ‘hits’ you, sparking your strong reaction either way and making you feel you have to say something about it.

In short, your topic (as well as satisfying the above-mentioned criteria) should be something you are passionate about and/or have adequate knowledge of (the latter point is especially important when you write an opinion piece in real life – your relevant authority and credential will make your opinion piece more credible and more likely to be accepted for publication). More importantly, you should be able to have a strong opinion about the chosen issue. Your opinion (or argument) does not have to be widely accepted. In fact, the more controversial your opinion is, the more likely it will attract the attention of readers, provided that your view remains respectful and that you have done a good job of arguing for your case through evidence, data, examples (including even personal anecdotes), and analysis.

Third, having selected your focus and decided the general direction of what you want to say, you should do research on the issue, and collect relevant data, evidence, quotes, other experts’ opinions, examples, and so forth to support your opinion. Remember that an opinion piece is still persuasive writing and in order to be sufficiently persuasive, it needs to be  based on fact, evidence and analysis, not simply on rant, repetitive assertion or mere rhetorical, emotional or moral appeal without much evidence.

As the issue is contemporary, the sources most immediately relevant to your task will be news reports on the issue, and other experts’ comments on it. Try to read about the same issue from a wide variety of sources and commentators. In addition, you should also draw on your existing knowledge wherever relevant in order to make a strong argument (through comparison, historical analogy, etc.). For example, if a witty quote from a nineteenth-century 6 philosopher or strategist can shed light on the current issue, then use the quote; it helps add depth and flavour to your analysis.

Fourth, while doing research and reading, take notes AND write down any ideas and interesting angles or points. Some of those ideas come and go quickly and it is important to capture them as soon as they pop up. Also try to think of counter-arguments to your opinion. You may come across such counter-arguments during your reading. Such arguments are useful for you to refute, or for you to carefully think about how to better defend your own argument against such potential sceptical views.

Fifth, once you have collected a sufficient amount of evidence and have written down a set of good points you want to make, then think of a good and logical way of structuring them: which point should be made first, second, third, and so on (as a general rule of thumb, you should state your main point and main argument as early as possible). Play around with alternative orders or arrangements and see which order works best. It is more effective to do this through drafting an outline with quick dot-points on a single piece of paper. Then you are ready to write it up!

Last but not least, never ever try to plagiarise others’ work! Please run a Turnitin selfcheck before submitting and keep the similarity score below 30%.

Writing an opinion piece, like writing a research essay, needs a lot of practice. There is no single magical way of writing it, and different issues and topics may require different ways of writing. Even the same author does not always follow the same formula. In fact, the whole point of opinion piece is to present diverse views and voices, along with unexpected stories and writing. So try to find your own unique voice and style, so long as you can get the reader quickly interested in reading your piece and hopefully convince them of what you have to say along the way.

1) You should come up with an eye-catching title

2) Don’t use subheadings such as ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’ within the piece

3) At the end of the piece, please include a References list as per normal assignment, even though actual opinion pieces do not have such a list (online opinion pieces use hyperlinks instead).

4) Don’t try to format the piece as if it were an actually published piece in a newspaper. Don’t choose usual fonts or colours.