Go ahead Daily readers, speak up!

Alright readers, it’s time we had that chat again. We did it last year, but we’ll do it again just to make things clear.

Let me start off with this – the opinions section is a public forum. Anyone who is a member of the campus community can write in and as long as the submitted material is coherent, it will get published on this page. Sometimes that’s in the form of a letter, sometimes it’s a guest commentary. While the rest of the newspaper is strictly written by Mustang Daily reporters and select freelancers, this is YOUR page.

That being said, there is a system to how things work around here. You send us letters (250 words or less) and guest commentaries (about 500 words) and we publish them as we receive them. They aren’t taken out of order but are printed as they come in and if you don’t give us a title for your submission, we’ll give you one.

While we reserve the right to edit your material (check out the “Letters” section to the left), we will only edit it for grammar, profanity and length. If we think you are going overboard with F-bombs, we will notify you that your content should be changed ASAP or we will change it for you. But your opinion itself will never be edited, no matter how immature or “out there” it is. Once again, this is a public forum and you are free to say what you want – just keep it coherent!

So far, the response we’ve had this year is incredible. Since the first day of fall quarter up until today, we have printed 43 letters and five guest commentaries (thanks to the ENGL 102 class). Compare that to the same point last year when 19 letters and zero guest commentaries had been printed since the first day of school. Needless to say, this year’s results have been much better than what we hoped for.

In addition to the growing number of letters, we also have not one, but three editorial cartoonists now. You can check out their cartoons throughout the week in the paper or go online to see them all.

In fact, to accommodate the demand for the opinions section, we are adding pages. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, you can get a double dose of all that is opinions. If the trend keeps up, we’ll likely add more pages on other days as well.

In short, we’re doing what we can. Your letter might not get printed the day after you send it, but we will do the best we can to make sure that it gets in the newspaper in a timely fashion.

The Mustang Daily thrives on the feedback we get from readers. Send us a letter anytime you have something to say – it certainly doesn’t have to be in response to what you see printed in the paper, but can be a local, national or international issue that you feel strongly about. And if you feel really strongly about it, go ahead and send us a guest commentary.

Remember, this is your forum, so speak up.