My Opinion Editorial Analysis

So, I wrote my opinion editorial about how driving less can improve the lives of students at BYU. My audience, clearly, was the BYU student body, but more specifically those who drive to campus everyday. I felt it was worth taking about at this point in time because of the recent complaints in the opinion editorials in the Daily Universe. People have always had issues and complaints with parking, so this topic is always one of interest to drivers at BYU. Another popular complaint is the high food prices in the Cougar Eat, especially right now as some prices have just risen. The last was regarding a complaint regarding the crazy pedestrians. With all of these being talked about fairly recently, I felt it pressing to address them with the solution I presented.

I did my best to appeal to the audience by recognizing the difficulties they would face and possible counter arguments and then emphasizing the benefits of not driving. Even though I know that this solution will be overlooked by many, I wanted to show all of the ways that not driving can help. I tried to be complete in recognizing counter arguments.

Another area I tried to focus on was my language and tone of the paper. In writing to college students, I knew I needed to have an intelligent tone, but still one they could identify with. I wanted to create a feeling in my voice of humility yet boldness. I wanted to avoid seeming overly preachy or that I knew more than the audience, but still presenting my opinion in a presentable way. This audience would only be convinced if they felt their opinions were respected and that I, as the writer, was merely trying to communicate an idea. I feel as though, especially with this audience, tone is the key to getting them to apply and even read my opinion.