In response to “Editorial: Pass/fail” (by the Daily Wildcat Editorial Board, Jan. 15)

Sheesh… this is pretty grim. Check out total violent crimes, rapes, assaults, etc, in the U.K. vs. U.S., for starters, not just gun-related homicide: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime.html. Duh. These are lesser-known factoids that your readers would appreciate. It might tell a more nuanced story than you’re blurting out here, but again, your readers will appreciate it. Second, and this is coming with love from a 30-year-old grownup professional opinionator… the “pass/fail” format sucks! It is the opposite of what a good editorial needs to be: thoughtful, amusing, not pedantic, not dogmatic, not pedagogic (I get it, it’s the way your teachers talk to you. But NEVER talk to readers that way! Show some respect for your audience. “Pass/Fail”? Pass or fail what? From what I understand, you’re not the ones handing out grades — you’re students trying to engaging your community in a reasoned debate, and you’re presenting your arguments — you’re not the judges. For that matter, no professional editorialists I know use this “pass/fail” format — please lose it, it’s a matter of tone and respect for your audience; I doubt this format is netting you any new readers). And above all, an editorial needs to be informative. This is a newspaper, right? Just because it’s the section where you’re allowed to have a point of view, doesn’t mean you don’t still have a responsibility to tell people something they didn’t already know. It’s a newspaper. Tell them something they don’t already know. Dig for better facts, answer real questions — don’t just horseplay around with the same tired buzzwords you hear all over the lazy-ass grownup media. Be better than that! Someone has to be. Also, just saying “it’s about time” and “it’s time for” XYZ-climate-change isn’t actually an argument. It’s simply repetitive and cliche. The opinions section should be the best-written section in the paper — I hope for the Wildcat’s sake that this isn’t the case here.

-Marie