When pitching to an editor it is important to start off with why someone would care to read it, start with the most interesting sentence first. Because if you don’t the editors going to immediately push it to the bottom of their list when trying to organize which interesting stories get priority.

 

So that’s what I would do. My first sentence would be, “I want to write a story about comparing schooling in the U.S. to schooling in Northern Ireland. I was told that religious segregation was a big deal there and some people never meet a person of a different religion until well into their 30s. I think it would be an interesting perspective piece to compare other cultures.”

 

And then the editor would say, “great, two sources, 700 words, due Thursday.”

 

I would hope that a comparison piece would be interesting to readers because students are generally interested in study abroad programs and the variety of information that comes with them. This story has a bizarre element because in the United States religion isn’t the first thing you notice about a person, so when you meet someone from a different religious background it’s a new experience, interesting, this is not always the case in Northern Ireland.