The Letter to the Editor
Use an expanded technical and academic vocabulary for precision when writing academic texts.
A short, public, formal argument. It is the one letter written to be read by strangers, so it must be brief, specific and impossible to dismiss as a rant.
Builds onYr 9 · The Formal Speech
Method
Anchor it to something published
Open by naming the article and its date. A letter to the editor responds; it does not simply announce.
One argument, not four
These letters are short. A single well-evidenced point beats four assertions.
Controlled tone wins
Anger expressed calmly reads as authority. Anger expressed loudly gets cut by the editor.
Concede something
Granting one point to the other side makes the rest of your case harder to dismiss.
Worked example
e.g. Respond to an article arguing that the closed public pool should not be repaired.
- Standard formal letter layout, addressed to the editor.The Editor
The Ashgrove Chronicle - Greeting.Dear Sir/Madam
- Sentence one — name the article and its date.I refer to your article “Time to let the pool go” (8 August).
- Sentence two — your position, stated plainly.The decision not to repair the pool is a false economy.
- Concede the strongest point against you.Two million dollars is undeniably a great deal of money for a town this size.
- Then turn it. This is where the argument is won.But the council spent $340,000 last year busing children to Kelvin for lessons — a cost that now becomes permanent.
- One piece of hard evidence. A number, a date or a comparison.At that rate the pool pays for itself in under six years.
- A short closing line proposing action, not just complaint.The council should publish the full comparison before the meeting on 14 August.
- Sign off, name, and suburb or town.Yours faithfully, Aisha Nkomo, Ashgrove
Practice
These are the differences between a letter that gets printed and one that does not.
1
Why open by naming the article and its date?
AnswerOther readers have not read what you read. Without the anchor the letter has no context, and editors routinely cut letters that lack it.
2
Rewrite so the tone would survive an editor: This is absolutely disgraceful and whoever decided it should be ashamed.
AnswerThe decision is difficult to defend, and the reasoning behind it has not been made public. The criticism is sharper for being controlled, and it invites a reply.
3
Why concede a point to the opposing side?
AnswerIt shows you have read the argument rather than reacted to it. A reader who sees you grant the strongest objection is far more likely to accept your answer to it.
4
You have four arguments and a strict word limit. What do you do?
AnswerChoose the one with the hardest evidence behind it and develop it properly. Four undeveloped assertions read as opinion; one evidenced argument reads as a case.