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This Guide provides guidelines and a suggested structure for Guest Op-Eds or Open Letters. You can Submit your Op-Ed or Open Letter either to [email protected] or directly to your Hudson Common Sense correspondent. We can’t wait to read your ideas, critiques, responses, and uncommon questions.
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Often cited by The Economist:
"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race... if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose... clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
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“Op-Ed" stands for opposite the editorial page. It originally referred to articles placed across from a newspaper’s editorial, typically written by guest writers expressing independent opinions. Now it broadly denotes opinion essays by non-editorial voices.
🔗 → Jump to Guest Op-Ed structure & guidelines
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An open letter is a letter addressed to a specific person (like a Mayor, a CEO, or a Department Head) but published in a public forum (usually a newspaper or website) so that the general public can read it.
Dear future Mayor, Common Council Member, or other civil servants: if you have been addressed in open letter, we are happy to publish your response next to the original open letter as a follow up. You can Submit your response to [email protected] or directly to your Common Sense correspondent.
🔗 → Jump to Open Letter structure & guidelines
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Guest Op-Eds, Open Letters, and any other letters to the Editors are independent. The author’s views do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board or other contributors; likewise, publication does not constitute an author’s endorsement of other HCS content.
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Take a look at our example Guest Op-Ed here. Your piece will have similar formatting, layout, and visuals, though we welcome creative guidance & contributions from our Guest Writers. **An example Open Letter can be found here.**
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While we are all entitled to our own ideas and opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts. If we get any facts wrong, please let us know posthaste by emailing [email protected] or even texting one of our editors. We will investigate, correct if necessary, and note the change honestly.
Note that we do attempt to reach out to most entities and persons that we write about in advance, to fact check and give them a heads up. We call this calling in, before calling out. And soon we will publish The Threshold Test, and explain why that is not always possible.
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At Hudson Common Sense, we treat reasoned disagreement not as dissent but as democratic maintenance. Like a good market, ideas thrive on competition. We seek out arguments we oppose, not out of masochism, but conviction: that truth is iterative and critique is civic duty. Publishing our fiercest detractors is not charity, it is epistemic hygiene, meaning keeping our thinking honest, rigorous, and well-informed. Critically, this independence cuts both ways: our contributors do not necessarily subscribe to our editorial views, nor do they bear responsibility for the opinions of their fellow writers. And for the Mayor, that means checking your facts before Facebook posts, not just polishing your podium.
If you disagree with our Editorial opinions, or take issue with a Guest Op-Ed, show some courage and write a Guest Op-Ed with a new idea, a levelheaded critique, or simply a shorter Letter to the Editor to set the record straight or pay a compliment. By sending correspondence, we slow things down. Like coffee over a fresh edition of The Economist or FT, good ideas and dialogue are not rushed.
Hudson has trust issues and we admire self-reliance… if you prefer publishing your Op-Ed yourself, or in another publication, please go ahead and we can link to the source in a “Re-Post”. We may also republish, with full credit and citation existing public Guest Op-Eds to bring key opinion pieces together. In doing so, we respect the intellectual sovereignty of the original author, ensuring their work stands alone rather than as an endorsement of this platform's broader archives.
From time to time, we may issue Requests for Persuasion (RFPs), public prompts on topics where we welcome sharp, thoughtful disagreement. Think of it as our version of a Request for Startups, inviting the world to tell us what we might be missing. We also occasionally issue Requests for Commentary (RFCs) in our Dear Sir/Madam column, where we ask specific individuals to respond. Ideas improve through contest. So, please, disagree with u
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Don’t overthink it. Start with a messy draft, a voice memo, a handwritten note. Our guidance below is just that: guidance. If you have something to say about how our city works or doesn’t, say it however you like. We’ll handle the formatting, transcribe your notes, embed your video, and surface your links. If public officials are paid to write memos, residents are entitled to speak truth by any means necessary.
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Title: ABC Title
Author: Real Name or Column Name, Pseudonym** (See below)*
Abstract/Summary: Tweet length (280 characters) capture the main idea, how you would describe this briefly on the street to a passing resident acquaintance
Headline
Lede (Opening Hook)
Thesis Statement
Body (3-5, or for longer pieces we trust you, paragraphs)
Conclusion
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Let us know if you prefer zero editing and we will not touch a pixel, and work with you on a publication date. Or if you would like to workshop it, get basic editing, get feedback on titles etc., please let the Editors know in advance.
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