Improve your Writing
November 10th, 2015Is it possible to draw attention to egregious sexism, make clear the consequences of rape myths, and place a judge under review in a single op ed? Yes on all counts — as two university law professors demonstrated yesterday. Monday’s Globe and Mail ran a commentary by Elaine Craig (above left, Dalhousie University) and Alice Woolley (above […]
read more...How to leverage 700 words for maximum impactOur Advocacy Work
June 6th, 2014It’s often seen as a dirty word, and I usually avoid using it. So when Lisa Kimmel, the general manager of Edelman PR agency recently invited me to debate the merits of imposing a gender “quota” on journalists as a means of increasing the number of women quoted in the news, I balked. Even though […]
read more...Why Journalists Should Be Forced to Quote More WomenImprove your Writing
May 12th, 2014Informed Opinions’ Writing Compelling Commentary workshop is chock-full of concrete suggestions designed to help you write a timely and persuasive op ed and get it published in an influential media forum. And previous blog posts have offered lots of content that expands on the hand-outs we supply and the examples we offer in the session. […]
read more...3 Tricks to Improve Readership of your Op EdImprove your Writing
November 8th, 2013Hanging out with teenagers can be an enlightening experience. Last week, I participated in a panel discussion convened by MediaSmarts, “Canada’s centre for digital and media literacy” and a repository of fabulous resources for teachers, parents and kids. The teenagers present from across Canada asked really smart questions, many of which betrayed both deep scepticism […]
read more...TL;DR – advice to ignore, but implications to heedOur Advocacy Work
April 9th, 2013There’s no predicting what impact your media intervention might have, but here are a couple of recent examples of the ripples created by published op eds… ****** Two days after Kathleen Wynn was elected leader of the Ontario Liberal party, becoming the sixth female premier in the country, The Globe and Mail published a thoughtful commentary by […]
read more...Media exposure creates ripples of influenceImprove your Writing
August 9th, 2012If you saw the following sentence at the start of a piece in your daily newspaper, would you keep reading? “You don’t see a lot of naked men in advertising.” Lots of people did — no thanks to me. The lede I’d originally placed at the top of an essay I wrote 20 years ago […]
read more...Don’t Bury the Lede!Improve your Writing
April 29th, 2012Yeah, but I’m not Eddie Greenspan. That’s what I thought last December when Globe and Mail op ed page editor, Natasha Hassan claimed to a room full of Osgoode Hall profs that her paper’s online commentary hub was an enormously influential platform. Most participants in Informed Opinions workshops, if they submit an op ed to the […]
read more...Lessons from a published op edOur Advocacy Work
June 30th, 2011Yesterday, sharing my Top 7 Reasons Smart Women Should Speak Up with a group of scholars at Carleton University in Ottawa, the conversation turned – as it often does – to the potential aftermath of gaining media profile. Many women worry about the fall-out from this, not wanting to be slagged – either by colleagues […]
read more...Implanted breasts and concerned scholarsOur Advocacy Work
January 17th, 2011Is it a measure of the fact that I’ve been a largely self-employed freelancer for most of my career that I’d never heard of so-called Blue Monday until today? This morning — before having read the Lifestyle section of the Globe and Mail, which featured a column by Sarah Hampson exploring the day’s questionable origins, […]
read more...Blue Monday a bad example of scholarly contributionImprove your Writing
December 17th, 2010Further to my last post about letters to the editor, I heard from several people — some I knew, one I didn’t — after my letter about the retrograde fashion photo in The Globe was published. All shared my discomfort with and critique of the image, expressing appreciation for the fact that I’d bothered to write. […]
read more...Letters 2: Mission Accomplished!