Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect.

Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of or an illicit student-teacher relationship

on our favorite show. We're Suzy Banna-Karim and Jessica Bennett,

posts of the new podcast in retrospect, where each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from

the past that shaped us and probably you to try to understand what it taught us about the world

and our place in it. You're the first person that I've talked to about this for years and years.

Listen to in retrospect on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is that most writing is better when you have a simple and strong opinion.

Ideally you can sum up your point in a sentence. So try asking yourself,

do you come out for it or against it? You will probably make your writing better as a result.

This week I will be sharing some of my favorite writing tips. Even if you don't write for a living,

you likely have to write from time to time, whether it's emails, reports, or articles for an industry

publication. Years ago when I was trying to figure out how to structure an opinion essay,

and I had talked myself into all sorts of knots. A wise person asked me,

do you come out for it or against it? With a particular matter it was somewhat of a funny question,

but overall I realized that it is a great question to ask. The point of writing is to communicate

something. You want people to take away a simple idea that they will remember.

Yet too many times we start writing without a clear idea or a strong opinion.

We may end there all over the place, and at the end of the day readers can't sum up what we

were saying in a few sentences. When people can't sum things up, they are likely going to forget them.

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