For starters, learn the rules of good writing.

* You can teach grammar, writing, thinking, even caring. That's a good place to begin.

Several aspects of editorial writing obviously can be taught, assuming the student is a learner. Unfortunately, I don't sense that a whole lot of teaching is going on.

When I was in grammar school, grammar was something to be mastered, not avoided. The same for spelling, punctuation, and syntax. We learned those things so that they became instinctual.

As a part of this training, we learned that accuracy is essential to clear writing, and we began to understand that while all these dreary rules we were learning are important to good writing, so is sound thinking, preferably in advance of any writing effort.

Good writing, like good anything else, requires more sweat equity than nudges from muses. Learning all those rules was a step down the right path.

Then sometime in the late '60s or early '70s, some education innovator decided that all those rules inhibited creative expression. Writing has suffered mightily ever since.

Learning the rules is a prerequisite for meaningful creative expression. It's the difference between music and cacophony, although given certain musical trends I may not want to go there.

Editorial writing is really not much different from any other writing. To be effective, it must first be read. That means writers need to hook readers early.

First paragraph is essential. First sentence is better. First word is best.

The second objective ought to be understanding. If a reader can't make out what you are saying, communication isn't happening, and you have no other reason for writing. Penetrating a reader's experiences and prejudices to present your point unclouded by the reader's personal baggage is hard enough. Indeed, that is more an objective than a regular accomplishment.

Effective editorial writing in part depends on definition. If to be effective an editorial must be able to persuade readers inclined to a different view to consider the editorial's position, my guess is it doesn't happen much.

If effective editorial writing is simply a matter of provoking some thought on an issue, we do that rather more frequently, and it seems to me some rules, or at least some guidelines, can be taught and followed, and will result in some consistency of effectiveness.

Perhaps the most important rule is this: To break a rule is fine, as long as you know the rule and break it for a reason. A wonderful new grammar book (well, it has a wonderful title) is out. It's called Woe Is I. You can see what I mean about knowing when to break rules.

Let me break the question into a few parts. The mechanical skills of editorial writing can be taught, just as general writing mechanics - grammar, punctuation, syntax, composition - can be taught. Advance training in the art of persuasion can be taught. The use of rhetorical devices can be, too. Depending on verbs and nouns more than adjectives and adverbs can be learned.

What's more, I think people can be taught to think. Just because the evidence is not widespread - never mind universal - is not reason enough to disbelieve it, and I have always been an incurable optimist. I will concede this much: Some people learn to think better than others.

I believe people can be taught to care. Again, this is easier with some than others. But passion and compassion, while they can't be successfully faked, can be learned. As important as both are to good editorial writing, editors are probably not the best teachers in this instance. Editors can point out unsuccessful faking, and should.

Two-way street

The process of teaching is a two-way street, just as communicating is. The best editorial writing teacher in the world must have a learner on the other end of the teaching efforts. And the result will depend on the interaction, not just the skills of either person.

Writing is not all that it takes to make a good editorial writer, and some of the intangibles or character traits may not be teachable, at least not to people old enough to be editorial writers without doing an editorial page irreparable damage to its credibility.

Integrity, for example, is something good editorial writers must possess. I don't mean that they must come off as honest and sincere. I mean they must be able to go to bed every night knowing that nothing they did that day would be worth an embarrassing headline in the next day's newspaper.

What seems most to be missing from editorial writing, and I suspect from editorial writers as well, is a sense of humor. We leave the humor to the cartoonists and the humor columnists. (I can see Rick Horowitz's lips moving as he reads this, saying to himself, "As well you should. . . .")

Nothing is mutually exclusive about humor and seriousness, but too often we make no distinction between serious and pompous. Fustian and funny are mutually exclusive.

This is not just about making jokes. It's about getting carried away contemplating the weight we ca