Raising Awareness, Part III: Write an Article on Animal Rights

Writing is a great way to share your views with other people. (That’s why I have this blog, after all.) Your written article could be published in a magazine, newspaper, website, ‘zine, blog, or anywhere else people agree to display it. This has the capacity to reach a great number of people.

In writing an article, you should follow some sort of guideline—is your article going to be a formal essay complete with thesis statement and all, a story recounting a personal experience involving animal rights, a cause-and-effect article, or a more informal piece with introduction and conclusion? You decide—but make sure that it suits your audience. Make sure that you have a specific topic—instead of writing an article on animal rights in general, you could write about the meat industry, animal testing, or the controversy surrounding the animal rights movement.

Next, you start writing. In gathering any data you may need, take note of where you got statistics and controversial information—it helps to cite other people’s work. And don’t limit yourself to one source. If you got all your information from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), for instance, some people who dislike PETA might not trust your article at all. Try to include information from a range of sources, from radical to scientific.

Give your opinion in your article (that’s why you’re writing it!), but I find that very many passionate people give the wrong impression when they write about animal rights. For example, WHEN YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPS WITH PLENTY OF EXCLAMATION MARKS (!!!), people might think that you’re a little, er, strange. Also avoid being too personal (as in, “All meat-eaters are trashy idiotic *****”), because you’ll not be able to convince anyone to join your cause by using that sort of language! Instead, be polite.

Once you’ve finished writing your article, you’ll need to find someone who’ll publish it. Newspapers and magazines require excellent writing skills and so are hard to get published in, but they help you reach a great number of people, which is important. A number of websites may publish your work. Here is one for teens:

Teen Ink: A website for teens to publish their short stories, articles, poetry, and artwork. Almost all entries get published on this website, but if you write well enough, they might also publish it in their magazine. www.teenink.com

Good luck in writing your article! I promise you, there aren’t many better ways to easily raise awareness for the animal rights cause.