Opinion Essay

An opinion essay is a written work in which the writer expresses an opinion and supports that opinion with facts and examples. Unlike other types of essays, the opinion essay does not necessarily need to rely on hard facts; it can, instead, rely on the writer's opinion only, provided the writer can support his or her opinions with compelling arguments. Most essay writers should avoid using phrases such as "I think" or "I believe," but the opinion essayist is free to use such terms.

· Passive structures with verbs like regard, consider, feel, believe, etc. make statements appear less personal and are therefore often appropriate in an essay. Thus, the sentence “Censorship is undesirable” could be rephrased in this way: “Censorship is usually regarded as undesirable” · We can use different types of passive construction: It + passive(present or past) + that… e.g. It is known that the Earth goes round the Sun. 2) subject + passive(present or past) + to do/to have done something e.g. The Sun was believed by many people to go round the Earth. · Remember that if we are expressing a present belief about a past event, we use the present simple passive followed by a perfect infinitive(to have something done)    

Writing tip

Practical tasks

1. Read the model essay. What is the writer’s basic answer to the question in the title?

SHOULD FREEDOM OF SPEECH ALWAYS BE DEFENDED? The first amendment to the American Constitution defends every citizen’s right to free speech, and most democracies around the world pride themselves on a lack of state censorship. Indeed, the fact that newspapers and TV news stations report stories which are highly critical of the government is seen as one of the signs of a healthy democracy. But how far should this lack of censorship extend? Is it possible to have a society which places absolutely no controls on information? Freedom of speech is usually regarded as one of the cornerstones of democracy. It is essential that the content of newspapers, for example, is decided by the newspaper editors and not by politicians or police. If politicians were allowed to determine what should or should not be printed, they would be able to suppress any information which did not put them in a good light. Corruption would increase and there would be no way of exposing politicians’ wrongdoings. Moreover, it goes without saying that ordinary citizens in democracy should be allowed to voice their personal opinions without fear of intimidation. Having said that, it is clear that total freedom of speech is impossible, or at least extremely risky. This is because sometimes it is necessary to limit freedom of speech in order to protect individual members of society or society as a whole. An example of this would be the laws against libel. These prohibit you from making damaging and untrue statements about somebody. Without this protection, peoples’ lives could be ruined by false accusations. It is widely accepted that some information needs to be kept secret for reasons of national security or crime prevention. If a newspaper was allowed to print details of a secret anti-terrorist operation, there might be catastrophic results. To sum up, I would say that freedom of speech should be defended in the majority of cases. However, there will always be situations in which this freedom would have negative consequences. In those instances, I believe that it is necessary to sacrifice freedom in order to protect people’s lives.

Underline in the model essay the sentences where passive constructions from Writing Tip were used. Choose two other sentences which could be rephrased in this way and rewrite them.

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