Open Letters - Motivations For Writing Open Letters

Motivations For Writing Open Letters

There are a number of reasons why an individual would choose the form of an open letter, including the following reasons:

  • As a last resort to ask the public to judge the letter's recipient or others involved, often but not always, in a critical light
  • To state the author's position on a particular issue
  • As an attempt to start or end a wider dialogue around an issue
  • As an attempt to focus broad attention on the letter's recipient, prompting them to some action
  • For humor value
  • Simply to make public a communication that must take place as a letter for reasons of formality

Read more about this topic:  Open Letters

Famous quotes containing the words motivations, writing, open and/or letters:

    The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults.
    Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994)

    In our period, they say there is free speech.
    They say there is no penalty for poets,
    There is no penalty for writing poems.
    They say this. This is the penalty.
    Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)

    Meanwhile Snow White held court,
    rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut
    and sometimes referring to her mirror
    as women do.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    When griefs are genuine, I find, there is nothing more vacuous, more burdensome, or even more impertinent, than letters of consolation.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)