Why they don't like to read editorials.

* A group of college students examined the editorial page and found it directed at an audience other than themselves.

"I don't like editorials. I am a woman."

So explained a student in my opinion writing class at Johns Hopkins last spring.

I had assigned my 13 students to write a final paper on an editorial page they were required to read regularly during the semester. (Most read The Sun, but The New York Times, the Washington Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today also were used.)

This young woman expressed a common theme from the papers and from classroom discussion. Editorials don't appeal to certain audiences. "Editorials are written using men's language" and men's "thought processes." Women want "particulars" not "principles," she said.

Another female student thought editorial writers appeal to the wrong audiences on a generational rather than a gender distinction. "Editorial boards are still directed toward old-school readers," she wrote. "Those who buy newspapers today are younger than they used to be."

She also complained that figures of speech often went over her and her friends' heads. "What exactly is a one-armed bandit?" (Another student complained that an editorial used the word "kudos.")

Another young student (also a woman) hadn't read a newspaper until assigned to do so. "As a young person, in that golden demographic of 18-25-year-olds, I prefer to get my news from CNN and my analysis from Time and Newsweek," she wrote.

She also complained that the editorials (in The Sun) are too long. "We of Generation X are renowned for our short attention span."

Others objected to the fact that almost all editorials are the same length. Some should be longer. One student said the lengths of the editorials should vary according to the importance of the topic. He said he prefers the letters to the editor for that reason - and for the fact that letters express the opinions of identifiable individuals.

That is an oft-stated view. "Perhaps one reason why many readers shun editorials is simply because the reader has no idea whose opinion he or she is reading," one young man wrote.

Another said, "People don't care what the editorial boards of newspapers have to say [because] newspapers generally have a political bias one way or another of which the reader is aware."

Most students believe bias is not shown enough on editorial pages. "The piece was informative but completely directionless." "The piece would have worked well as a news article, and that comment shouldn't be made about editorials."

That student compared editorials he read to "sixth-grade school reports." He offered a rule of thumb: "If a piece can be picked up from the editorial section and put down in the news section without having changed a word, then the piece was never an editorial."

Another criticized an editorial that "had no opinion but merely stated the situation." Another said, "When your newspaper gives an opinion, it should take a stand. Too often your paper gives its 'opinion' sitting down."

Another student had an interesting take on this point. He wrote, "Newspapers daily abdicate their promise to be objective [in the news columns]. By the time readers reach the editorial page, they feel they've gotten enough of the newspaper's opinion. Why should they read the editorials? If editorial pages are to be read, readers have to believe the rest of the paper is unbiased."

Another difference of opinion among the students comes on the question of timeliness. "Editorials are printed days after the news articles relevant to them were reported," one objected.

Another was more specific. "Readers today have become used to extremely fresh news, yet the editorial page is often days behind the rest of the paper. In the last month, less than 10% of the editorials were on topics which appeared in the rest of the front section. The result is that the reader feels that the editorial page is out of touch with and behind the news."

On the other hand, one student complained about the fact that an editorial, a news stow, and an op-ed page column on the death of a former public official all appeared on the same day - and all three pieces said approximately the same thing.

Some complaints were more technological than journalistic. A student who prefers news magazines for analysis wrote, "Contributing to the news magazines' user-friendliness is the fact that they don't smudge and smear ink all over your hands. You would figure that in the century when man has put a man on the moon, newspaper publishers would have come up with better ink."

Another got to a consensus point: "The editorial page is the pet dinosaur that the newspaper staff forgot to feed. While front pages all across the country are getting face lifts - color, new type faces, new layout etc. - the editorial page is damned day in and day out to the same blocky format. No drawings. No names. No fun."

Another student said that this way: "The layout of the op-ed