OP-ED
MARCH 2021
This experiment was only imagined; it never came to fruition.
PROPOSAL
For this third experiment, I decided to take a slightly different route than my last experiments with regards to my purpose. For my first experiment I wanted my audience to feel something (what I felt); for my second, my goal was to inform/educate (on the true nature of eating disorders and how to be compassionate to those suffering from one); and, for this third experiment, I want to persuade. More specifically, to persuade people that eating disorders are relevant and pervasive. In fact—and I’m not saying that eating disorders are the “supreme”/most harmful/hardest to deal with and I’m not intending to compare one mental disorder to another—but it’s true that anorexia alone is the deadliest mental health disorder. That fact is what led me to this genre and this purpose. I guess that with this goal, my audience would be rather broad; it would encompass pretty much anyone who has some sort of stake in the topic. Those who want to learn more about eating disorders, maybe those who have one, those who are coming to terms with having one, those who do not understand them, those who know someone close to them that has one.
The genre I chose that I felt fit these goals and my personal writing goals best was the op-ed. I wanted a genre that would allow me to include my own experiences as well as the experiences or perspectives of other people. I want to include my own experiences because I feel like they would add a lot of value to the piece and establish my credibility with regards to speaking on the topic. I want to also include other people’s experiences/voices because it would reaffirm my goal to persuade people that eating disorders are not only relevant, but pervasive, too. Additionally, rather than having an opinion or a message about any old topic, op-eds generally are focused on topics that are socially or politically relevant. For instance, when I was looking for examples of op-eds to use as model pieces, I found a lot of articles about anti-black and anti-Asian racism, the coronavirus, women, Biden, Trump, and other issues that are being widely discussed right now. Writing an op-ed on eating disorders would mean that it is a topic that deserves to be widely discussed, too.
With regards to technicalities, I do not anticipate needing any equipment and much, if any, mentoring assistance. I already have a lot of the skills needed to successfully write an op-ed, and I think (I can’t remember exactly) that I have written an op-ed before, but it was years ago. All I’d need to do, if I were to carry out this experiment, would be to study the structure of an op-ed in order to emulate it. This would just require reading a fair amount of op-eds. Regarding how long it would take for this experiment, I do not anticipate it taking long at all. Two weeks at the very maximum.
REFLECTION
There are a lot of things I like about op-eds, even more so after I finished this round’s experiment. I have had experience with op-eds in the past, but the model pieces I chose were quite different from the op-eds I have encountered. For one, all three authors of all three model pieces included their own experiences when discussing their respective topics. When I have written op-eds in the past, I was discouraged from including my experiences and using the first person point of view. I feel like if I were to choose the op-ed genre for my final experiment, this feature would really come in handy with regards to fulfilling my purpose for the piece. I also liked that op-eds are generally centered around topics that are socially or politically or culturally relevant. Even if it is not the most widely discussed social or political or cultural topic, it is still one that many people experience. For example, one of the model pieces I chose was centered around chronic pain (emotional or physical). It is not as commonly discussed a topic as, say, racism against Asians, but it still affects a lot of people. It also assigns more relevance to the topic of chronic pain. This is what would happen if I were to discuss eating disorders; it is not a commonly discussed topic—even in the mental health realm where depression and anxiety reign supreme—but it would become more relevant if I were to write about it because I would be contributing to the conversation.
Even though the op-ed is not necessarily a radical genre choice compared to, say, a documentary, it is fairly radical for my thought process and fairly different from my origin piece. I started out this class with the mindset that I wanted to talk about my experiences and only my experiences, which is what I did in my origin piece. I also wanted to go a more creative writing route like fiction or poetry (which I eventually will for my final experiment but that’s beside the point). I feel like with this genre I was able to stray from this mindset and be more open with how other people’s voices or other people’s experiences could contribute to a larger conversation, with my voice still being central.
I feel like if I were to fully realize this experiment, I would still have some things left to learn about this genre. For example, op-eds I have encountered in the past have been more research-oriented than the op-eds I looked at for this experiment, so I would want to seek those out and think about the benefits of including the voices of experts rather than simply including the voices of everyday people. Also, the model pieces I chose were fairly short with regards to length, so I would want to seek out some longer ones to see just how far the conversations regarding a topic can be expanded. I also feel like it would be valuable to read more op-eds in general to see how different writers interact with and incorporate different viewpoints.