The school year is again upon us and I thought I'd finally get around to something I've been meaning to do for awhile: address the many students who write to me because they've been assigned a paper or a project about op-ed columns.

Though I have railed against the manner in which some of these requests are presented (hint: spell check is good, so is grammar, punctuation; also, perhaps best not to make your requests in text message shorthand; I'm old! I don't understand you!) I try to answer...