Op-Ed Prewriting

Prewriting

1. When looking at the different Op-Ed articles that were written and published in the Dallas Morning News, I realized just how much opinion is really thrown into these pieces. There was an Op-Ed written about the Dallas police officer, Robert Powell, in which the author didn’t hold any of his feelings back, or so it seemed. After reading a few others, I am beginning to notice how different this paper is from the other two portfolios we have completed. The first two were supposed to be completely unbiased whereas this one is on the opposite side of the spectrum.

2. So what specific topic about the parking at TCU do I feel should be focused on? I feel it should be the fact that a problem exists on campus but yet nobody seems to write about it and the university spends a million dollars on flowers and other landscaping when a parking garage would be much more helpful than a few plants that are going to die or other less useful things.

3. So what should be done? As stated before, I feel the best way to solve the parking fiasco at TCU is to build a parking garage. By doing so it would keep on-campus residents from parking in the lots that commuters rely on. Also think of game days in the fall for the football team. I couldn’t imagine having to park a few miles away from the stadium and walk to the field, a parking garage would be a perfect solution.

4. I believe using logos would be the best approach. By giving statistics on the number of students TCU has commuting each day and showing the limited number of parking spaces available to those students, I think those who read about this will also recognize the problem we have. Also giving the amount of money spent each year by the university could shine some light on the subject.

5. I think a mixture of a few different approaches will be most effective. As said before giving facts and numbers concerning parking spaces and money spent will help uncover this problem as well as using personal experiences. Not only would my personal experiences help but those of other students or faculty that utilize the parking here at TCU.

6. I think the only research I would need to do is looking in to how the money is spent each year, how many parking spaces are available to each group of students or faculty, and getting some personal stories from others around campus.