Best way to learn how to write good Chinese essay

[Ian_Lee]

What is the best way to learn writing good essay in a foreign language?

From my own experience in learning how to write good English essay, I guess reading editorials from some established newspapers is the best way.

I have started reading editorials and op-ed from NYT and Washington Post many years ago and still do it everyday.

But which Chinese editorial should we read?

I suggest the editorials from Wen Wei Po published in Hong Kong and China Times in Taiwan. (It does not imply that I agree with their editorial views.)

[trooper]

Are newspaper editorials the best model for essay writing? They aren't the only one. From my experience of reading in English, newspaper articles conform to a certain style, although there are variations as each newspaper has its own "house style".

A newspaper editorial is tightly constrained by space, "plain" vocabulary, immediacy, accesability and the conventions of rhetoric, impersonality and formality.

I think you would be limiting yourself if you only modelled your writing on editorials.

[Ian_Lee]

Trooper:

I guess it all depends on what kind of foreign language essay you aim to write after certain years of intensive study.

But I bet generally most learners desire communicability in their essays. They wish that their essays can be accessible, immediate, formal and understandable by everyone.

That is what the editorials can teach them.

Of course, if they aim to write a love letter to their Chinese girl friends, then the editorial is not what they should learn from.