1. Find two newspaper articles from the newspapers listed below that reflect conservative and liberal views, and write a two-page essay (around 500 words) on each article discussing why you think the article is written from a conservative or liberal perspective. (Note: You’ll analyze both articles in one paper).

The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/global/index.html

The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp01-dyn/content/opinions/

The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-opinion-commentary.html (
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/comment
The Financial Times http://www.ft.com/intl/comment

2. You can find the article either from the last issue of the paper or previous issues using the Archive section and/or the Search engine of the newspaper website. (Some newspapers may prompt you to register or subscribe before giving you access to the full content of an article. The registration is usually free of charge.) Make sure that the piece you find is a commentary or an opinion piece (“kose yazisi” in Turkish) rather than a news report. The links provided above direct you to the opinion pages of the papers.

3. In selecting your article, you should also pay attention to the difference between the author’s opinion and the content of the article. The content may be about a conservative/liberal policy, individual, or group and yet the author may be criticizing the targeted subject rather than agreeing with it. What matters in this case is the author’s political orientation not the issues or persons that are criticized.

4. Use the following questions to write your essay.

a. What is the subject of the article and what is the author’s opinion about it?

b. Is the author criticizing or defending a certain policy, issue, event, individual, or group? If so, identify their respective positions.

c. What is your evidence for identifying the author as conservative or liberal? (Please highlight or underline on the article those sentences, phrases, or passages that provide you with clues about the author’s political orientation.)

d. Do you think the author definitely belongs to one of these two ideologies, or are you hesitant to classify the author so categorically? Why?

e. Are there similarities between our textbook descriptions of conservatism and liberalism and the author’s opinions? If so, what are they?

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