Writing letters to persuade others to see things our way is an activity that’s older than our Republic itself. While we now have many other means to communicate nowadays, letters (sent by post or electronically) can still be effective making a writing/mail campaign an attractive option for individuals looking to make a difference from their own home. Letter are particularly effective in two specific circumstances,
- Letters to the Editor of a newspaper or other media outlet.
- Letters to one’s representatives.
A Letter to the Editor, if published, allows your thoughts to reach a wide audience and can, therefore, be a very effective way of raising opposition to Trump’s problematic policies. That being said, a Letter to the Editor is a very different from a letter to a friend or a family member. Consider the following,
- First and foremost, look up the guidelines for writing a Letter to the Editor of the publication that you’re interested in.
- Then look at the Letters to the Editor that the publication has recently published to get a further sense of what the publication is looking for.
- Consider that while national level publications can give your thoughts wide distribution, they get thousands of letters a day and can only print a handful. A local publication won’t give you such a wide readership but it is more likely to publish your letter in the first place!
- Unless the guidelines say otherwise, your letter should be brief – perhaps 250 to 300 words and one or two paragraphs long. You might consider writing out everything that you want to say and then work on distilling it down until you get it nice and short and powerful.
- With just 250 to 300 words to work with, you’ll want to make sure that your letter addresses just one topic.
- Publications are often looking for letters that respond to an article that the publication had previously published or that comment on something that is currently going on in or is otherwise relevant to the community.
- If you are in a position to speak with authority – for instance, if you are a schoolteacher commenting on an educational reform initiative, be sure to mention this!
- Be civil. If your letter comes across as unconstructive or ranting and raving, it’s destined for a quick journey to the trashcan!
- Address your letter with “Dear Editor” – that way it is clear that you intend it for publication in their paper.
- Sign your name and give your phone number and address. Anonymous Letters to the Editor are very rarely published.
You can find more advice on writing Letters to the Editor available online,
- The Union of Concerned Scientists
- The Community Toolbox hosted by the University of Kansas
- The Salt Lake Community College
- The Association of California School Administrators
- The National Association for the Education of Young Children
- The Council on Foreign Relations
In contrast to a Letter to the Editor, a letter to a representative has a very small audience but, by potentially swaying the vote of a representative, has the potential for a much larger impact. As such, they are a key component in any writing campaign you might undertake. An invaluable site to consult prior to writing such a letter is the University of California at Berkeley Library’s Guide to Contacting Elected Officials. The site not only has links for you to figure out who your national level representatives are (and how to reach them!) but also has a number of tips on how to craft your communication. They even have contact information for regulatory bodies in case there’s a specific proposed regulation that you want to comment about!
Some additional things to keep in mind while drafting your letter,
- Don’t send a pre-written letter drafted by someone else. Representatives get tons of these and tend to dismiss them because they understand that they’re often generated by a click of a button and so don’t necessarily represent true commitment/passion on the part of a correspondent. In fact, these campaigns are often derisively termed “Astroturf” because they’re trying, rather obviously, to fake a “grassroots” campaign.
- Instead, read the pre-written letter and use it as a starting point for your own letter on the same subject but using your own language and examples. This sort of letter counts for much more with the representative!
- Tell the representative what you want them to do in the very first paragraph. Something like, “I am writing to you to urge your opposition to the invasion of Greenland” gets the point across clearly. If there’s a specific piece of legislation that you want the representative to vote for or against, be sure to mention the bill number up front as well.
- If you can, include a personal story about how this issue shapes your life or the lives of the people in the representative’s home community.
- If you have specific expertise in the issue you are commenting on, be sure to mention that. Something along the lines of, “As a public health nurse working in the community of XXX, I am writing to urge your opposition to YYY” can work very well.
- Consider the timing of your letter. If you write your representative about a vote that has already taken place, you won’t have a chance to influence the representative’s vote on that matter (although you might influence his or her thinking on the subject in the future). Similarly, if you write your representative about a vote that’s not scheduled for several months, your letter might well be forgotten by the time the vote comes up.
- Try to address one issue per letter and try to keep the length of a letter to one page.