It is tiresome hearing ignorant people spout off. But if you base your opinions on facts and knowledge, people will hear what you have to say.
A teen works through her ideas for an opinion article while in the background are teens with ideas of their own. (Illustration by News Decoder)
In News Decoder’s Top Tips, we share advice for young people from experts in journalism, media literacy and education. In this week’s Top Tip, Charis McGowan a freelance journalist based between the United Kingdom and Chile, gives us some advice writing persuasive opinion articles.
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Do you feel like the media doesn’t represent you? Are you aware of certain tropes that you disagree with and know from first-hand experience?
Then use your voice. To show you how, Charis McGowan, a freelance journalist who has worked for the Guardian, the BBC and Al Jazeera and was an editor at gal-dem, a magazine for women and non-binary people of color, shares some tips that will help you effectively get your opinions across in an article.
McGowan offered her ideas as part of News Decoder’s partner project Mobile Stories. Mobile Stories is a publishing tool for young people. It provides guidance on how to create trustworthy news content while upholding journalist ethics. You can watch a video of McGowan explaining her ideas at the end of this article.
McGowan said you first need to distinguish between a news story and an opinion article. “A news story is about your subjects, you don’t have to use the word ‘I’ at all, you’ll actually just keep your voice neutral,” McGowan said. “But an opinion article is totally different, you have to use your voice and your perspective.”
You might comment on the news, but then you’ll tell readers how you relate to that particular piece of news. “This could be based on your ethnicity, your sexual orientation, where you live and your expertise, opinion,” McGowan said.
Articles by journalists differ from opinions you see in comments on social media. People who post comments might be spouting off the bat or using their initial gut reaction. “Opinion writers actually have to research what they’re talking about,” McGowan said. “That means looking at articles that perhaps they’ve not written and drawing on data and looking at really credible and trustworthy sources.”
Opinions and expertise
That’s what Alexa Taras did when she wrote an article News Decoder published in May 2025. Taras, a student at The Hewitt School in New York City, was concerned about the increasing number of schools around the country that were agreeing to pull books out of libraries and classrooms after parental complaints about the topics.
She researched news stories to find actual incidents and interviewed a book publisher and an author. Only then did she include her own perspective:
“As a current student and aspiring writer, I fear that in the future I will be creating books that cannot exist in the educational system,” Taras wrote. “Students deserve the right to learn about history no matter how violent or scary. How can we inspire students to be the best they can, if their education has been censored to only learn about ‘safe’ topics? Education should not be limited.”
If you have an idea about something happening in the news that you think is worth exploring, McGowan provides some tips on writing an opinion piece that is both fact-based and persuasive.
1. Write about what you know and what you are passionate about.
This could be anything from pop culture to politics. McGowan wrote an opinion piece, for example, on an Ed Sheeran song. “He was using Caribbean slang in his lyrics and it made me feel a bit uneasy, so I delved into to my sense of unease.” McGowan asked: Was it okay for a white English man to be using this type of language? “My dad is from the Caribbean and my grandparents still speak with this type of language so it just made me feel a bit weird.”
McGowan delved into matters of appropriation and the colonization of language to base the arguments on why Sheeran shouldn’t be doing that. “I had my opinion and I had previous work to draw on so that’s all I needed to start writing.”
2. Research what’s been said on the topic already.
After you’ve explored what other people have written about the topic, then think about your unique angle and draw on your voice.
3. Bring in the news.
Go back to what you read or saw or heard that got you thinking about this in the first place. “Signal your reaction to it straight away,” McGowan said.
4. Back up your opinion.
Use research data, facts and figures and other articles. “Make sure that you always cite trustworthy sources of information,” McGowan said.
5. Round up your article in a clear and memorable way.
Sometimes, McGowan said, the last sentence is the most important.
Watch Charis McGowan’s video here:
Learn more about the Mobile Stories project here. Co-funded by the European Union.
Questions to consider:
1. How does an opinion article differ from comments people make on social media?
2. What do you need in an article to make it “persuasive”?
3. What is a topic you are knowledgeable and passionate about?
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This story is part of News Decoder’s open access learning resources.
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