CONTENT

• Figure out your "voice" in the letter. Are you writing as a local citizen? Someone who eats fish contaminated with mercury? A customer of the electric utility in question? A mother worried about what global warming will mean for her kids? A specific voice will lend credibility to your letter.
• In the first sentence, relate your letter to the story, opinion piece, or letter you're responding to.
• Stick to one issue and one or two talking points per letter.
• Use facts, but don't overuse them it's better to make one strong point than several weak ones.
• Express a clear opinion. Be strong-willed, but not emotional. Be honest and use checked facts, even if you feel that your adversaries are not doing so.
• Always reference some of the solutions to this problem.
• Speak to those who are undecided, confused, and uninformed. Give readers information that will make them concerned about the topic at hand.
• Instead of simply writing about how the environment will benefit, remind readers of how they will personally benefit. Find a local personal angle that will connect readers to the topic.
• Use high-impact and specific wording. After writing your first draft, read through it looking for weak prose. Instead of "environmental problems," try "more algae in our lakes" or "shrinking wetlands, with loss of habitat for ducks and other waterfowl." Avoid bland emphasis such as "very" and "extremely."
• It's okay to express outrage, as long as it is under control. If you are angry or upset while writing, edit your letter when you're feeling calm. Avoid criticizing people; instead, criticize ideas or policies.
• Before sending the letter in, have someone else read it.
• You may wish to end the letter with a sentence suggesting a common sense solution or course of action.

LENGTH

Keep your letters short and punchy - no more than three or four sentences, if you can. Follow word limit guidelines given by the paper.

TECHNICALITIES

Sign your letters with your first and last name, mailing address (newspapers often print your hometown), and a daytime phone number where the paper can reach you. Editors often call authors of letters they want to print to verify that the person actually wrote the letter.

Ask your friends to write letters to the editor on the same story. Getting lots of letters on a particular story or issue increases the chances of one of them getting published.

Some larger papers don't want you to submit your letter to another paper; that doesn't seem to be the case among smaller local papers. If you want to submit letters to more than one publication, just take a different angle with each letter. For example, one letter could talk about the global warming problem with new coal plants; another could talk about the rural economic development potential of renewable energy.