Contents Prewriting Writing The Lead The Concession The Body The Conclusion Another Tutorial

Thesis XXXXXXXXXXXXX
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Something extra XXXXXXX
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An effective ending to an editorial is to state or to restate the thesis, then leave the reader with a little something extra: a call to action, a vision of the future, food for thought, etc.

Aregood concludes his editorial with the following:

There remains one good old-fashioned way to punish crimes like rape and murder. We put rapists and murderers on trial, convict them and put them in prison, thus punishing the person responsible for the crime. We do not go back and file a civil action against, say, Charles Manson's mother, for mistreating him and assertedly making him a monster.

But what, you might ask, do we do about pornography. We don't buy it, that's what. More importantly, since today's climate is much more influenced by television that it is by all the pornographers on earth, we stop watching all the pant and snort and shoot epics on TV and we stop buying the products that are hawked on such shows. Maybe we even stop watching the TV news and thus become a little less frightened.

We use our rights without taking anyone else's. And all of us win.

In this example, Aregood restates his implied thesis, then gives a call to action to all citizens who are concerned about pornography.

Of course, this basic outline of the editorial has many variations, and many professional editorial writers do not use the form at all, or perhaps use it as one of several different organizations for their editorials.

But high school students often appreciate being given a structure. When they have more experience writing, they may wish to experiment with other organizational patterns.