The "Letter to the Editor" Genre
- Who reads your forum? It may help for you to characterize an "average" reader. What are they interested it? Who are they demographically? What do they like or dislike? What do they want from the forum?
- What are the "rules" for writing a letter to the editor for your forum? That is, after closely examining your particular forum, can you determine:
- In order to maximize it's chances of being accepted for publication, how long should a typical letter be?
- Who should it be addressed to?
- How should it be structured? Look at the information presented in the published letters, and the order in which it is preseted.
- How should the letter be written? What is the langauge like? What is the manner of address? What kind of vocabulary does it use?
- What does the the typical letter aim to accomplish? How big or small is this goal?
- How should it be signed?
- Which letters in your forum are particularly sucessful? (Keep in mind that you may not be the intended audience). More importantly: what makes them sucessful?