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HOW TO SUBMIT AN OPINION COLUMNThe Seattle Times welcomes submissions of guest commentaries. We receive several dozen unsolicited guest commentaries every week and have spots for only a few. To be seriously considered, a submission should have strong opinion and be between 550 and 650 words in length. A guest column is for making arguments about pending issues of public policy and commenting on issues in the news; it is not a place for officials of organizations or government agencies merely to report on programs. We give highest priority to local writers writing about local topics. Do's and Don'ts for Op-ed WritersDO have an opinion and state it forcefully. Many opinion pieces submitted are explanations of an issue rather than knowledgeable arguments about an issue. Those won’t make the cut. DO be civil. It’s perfectly appropriate to strongly criticize ideas, reasoning or positions that you disagree with. But it not appropriate to make personal attacks. DO present the case from the top down. It's usually better to begin with the premise of your opinion rather than assembling the facts and presenting a conclusion at the end. DO be timely. Editorial pages prefer articles about events that are in the news today, rather than last year. DO be patient. Typically, an author will say, "I've worked on this piece for the past month … can you get it in the paper in the next couple of days?" DO be willing to submit simple graphs and charts. They help explain the issue and often enhance the visual presentation. DO be sure to include a sentence or two of biographical information about the writer. Please do not submit opeds that are written by organizations and then shopped around for an author or authors. That’s a petition, not an oped. DON'T submit a long oped and ask for an editor to review it before being willing to cut it to meet the requested word limit. To be taken seriously, the oped should fall within the guideline of between 550 and 650 words. DON'T key the oped off an invented “public awareness” event, such as Intellectual Property Day or Public Hospital Week. Indeed there might be something valuable and newsworthy to say about issues related to those or other areas, but the oped will be judged on its authentic news value, not on a created awareness event. DON'T demand review of editing or headlines. Titles on articles submitted are rarely used because of the nature of type size and formatting used by the paper. Most editors are willing to discuss editing changes for brevity or clarity but are seldom patient with nitpicks. Headlines are usually written by someone who specializes in that skill. DON'T submit the same piece to different papers at the same time. Editors hate to see a piece on their desk appear in a nearby paper. As a general rule, ride one horse at a time. DON'T use specialized jargon. Use common English. Where to SendWe prefer submissions to be made by email. To ensure your submission will be considered in the most timely fashion, please send it to the oped mailbox, which is reserved only for such submissions. E-mail to: oped@seattletimes.com
Mail to: The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111 Because of the volume of material we receive, we can’t always respond promptly to inquiries about the status of a submission. For questions: Kate Riley, 206/464-2260 |
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 Editorial & Opinion The Seattle Times |
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