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THE GIST Beauty product ads make women feel ugly.

THE SOURCE "The Self-Activation Effect of Advertisements: Ads Can Affect Whether and How Consumers Think About the Self," by Debra Trampe, Diederik A. Stapel and Frans W. Siero, The Journal of Consumer Research.

APPARENTLY it doesn't take much to make a girl feel plain. Just looking at an object intended to enhance beauty makes women feel worse about themselves, according to a study from the April 2011 issue of The Journal of Consumer Research.

The study looked at how women responded to an image of something (say, a high-heeled shoe) depicted in an advertisement and as a simple photograph with no advertising context. According to the authors - led by Debra Trampe, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands - advertised products, unlike unadvertised products, affect both whether and how the viewer thinks of herself afterward. In other words, an image of the high-heeled shoe in a stylish advertisement is likely to trigger a sense of inadequacy.

Of course, you'd anticipate ads featuring Lara Stone and Chanel Iman would make most women feel less than lovely. But here's an interesting catch: the ads in the study did not feature human beings, or the model approximation thereof. While social-comparison theory holds that people gain information about themselves by looking at other people, according to this study at least, they also gain information about themselves by comparing themselves to objects.

In four different experiments with female undergraduates, beauty products were divided into two categories: beauty enhancing, such as mascara and perfume, and problem solving, such as acne cream and deodorant. One group of students was shown ads for both types of products; another group was shown simple images of both, without advertising.

Those who were shown advertised beauty-enhancing products were likely to think about themselves more afterward than other women would. Perhaps not such a big deal. But the thoughts they had about themselves (when asked questions such as "How attractive do you find yourself?" and "How satisfied are you with your body?") were decidedly gloomier.

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Beauty Ads Make Women Feel Ugly, Study Says

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THE GIST Beauty product ads make women feel ugly. THE SOURCE "The Self-Activation Effect of Advertisements: Ads Can Affect Whether and How Consumers Think About the Self," by Debra Trampe, Diederik A. Stapel and Frans W. Siero, The Journal of Consumer Research. APPARENTLY it doesn't take much to make a girl feel plain.

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"People often cite the 1950s as a time when curviness was in, but that's not entirely true," said Elizabeth Wissinger, author of "This Year's Model" and a professor of fashion studies at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. "Yes, curvy bodies were popular, but the people had those achievable, accessible physiques, represented by movie stars like Marilyn Monroe. Fashion was still very separate and models were thin."

Practical and business forces are at work, too. "Plus-size models are obviously needed in fashion because there are plus-size clothing lines," said Jennie Runk, a curvy model who gained popularity after a 2013 H&M swimwear campaign. "But when you're thinking about images where bodies aren't involved, there's not much discussion of size diversity yet."

Fashion companies may garner publicity and good will when they feature curvy models. Ostensibly, beauty companies would not get that same bottom-line boost, because bodies aren't involved in their advertising imagery.

"Also, people just don't think to go to plus agencies or boards," Ms. Runk said. On an agency site, the first faces you'll see are those of "straight-size" models. If an agency does have a curve board, it's a few clicks away, leaving casting directors unlikely to see (and subsequently book) a curve model unless they're actually looking for one.

There have been some exceptions. In the 1990s, the plus-size model and TV personality Emme Aronson became a spokesmodel for Revlon cosmetics. Queen Latifah has been the face of CoverGirl's Queen Collection, a makeup line for dark skin tones, for more than a decade. In a partnership with the television drama "Empire," CoverGirl featured Gabourey Sidibe, one of the show's actresses. And four years ago, MAC did a collection with the musician Beth Ditto.

"There is no formula," said James Gager, creative director and senior vice president, of MAC Cosmetics, speaking of how the company picks its collaborators. "If a model has confidence in who she is and how she carries herself, size is irrelevant."

Even so, he added: "People are accustomed to seeing beauty in a singular way, and it takes time to open up. I see MAC as part of this change."

Gary Dakin, who ran Ford Model's plus board until 2012 and then opened his own agency, JAG Models, also acknowledged this: "I know the casting directors are pushing for size diversity, and agents are pushing for it," he said. "What's the disconnect here?"

The problem, as he sees it, is that the industry is celebrity driven. "Companies want that name, but that doesn't necessarily sell," he said. "That's hurt this cause more than anything."

Beauty contracts are modeling's holy grail - highly visible and lucrative. So they are reserved for a small pool of top actresses, pop stars and big-name models. Because the plus-size category is still niche in the American market, it's harder for those models to reach household name status.

But that is all beginning to change.

"Instagram has given the girls a voice," said Becca Thorpe, a former model who is now agent to Muse NYC's curvy models. "I can push them in a new way. Companies get to know what a model is about and whether or not that persona aligns with their brand. If they're looking for different, bold and street, they're going to start looking at Instagram."

The writer-model Paloma Elsesser 's unpretentious, cool-girl vibe is skillfully articulated through her Instagram account, which caught the attention of the makeup artist Pat McGrath. Last fall she chose Ms. Elsesser as a face for her makeup brand Pat McGrath Labs.

"There is something exquisite in the mix of eccentricity and beauty," Ms. McGrath said. "Paloma is an outspoken voice for body positivity and diversity within the beauty and fashion industry. Beauty brands are slowly starting to embrace diversity, but there is still much progress to be made before women of all colors, sizes and gender and sexual identities are equally represented. I am able to do this is because I am doing this [line] on my own terms."

The model and lifestyle blogger Clémentine Desseaux also jostled the industry late last year when she posted an Instagram video of herself wearing Christian Louboutin red lipstick, looking windblown and unassuming in Paris. The video went viral, and though the relationship between brand and model was unofficial, the public saw possibility. "Everyone was going crazy to see a bare face wearing red lipstick. It was unusual - kind of a clash between this posh brand and something raw and natural," Ms. Desseaux said.

Perhaps most promising is the growing mainstream appeal of curvy models. Ashley Graham, a model on the cover of this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, introduced a nail polish collection in May with Sephora's Formula X. That month, she also Instagrammed some official-looking photos with Revlon product (though no formal relationship exists at this point).

Iskra Lawrence, known for her unretouched lingerie and swimwear campaigns with the lingerie retailer Aerie, is amassing a large following. Her fierce, sometimes cheeky body-acceptance advocacy frequently goes viral, like a flushed-face post-gym selfie posted in May and captioned: "I do this so I can eat what I want (in moderation). I haven't dieted, calorie counted or in 6 years weighed myself." That candor and relatability may yet land her a beauty contract.

"I'm always working to increase my platform," Ms. Lawrence said. "I think when curvy models do that, beauty brands will start to work with us, too. I'm not afraid of showing my skin - my dream is to do an unretouched beauty campaign. We can make change happen if we make enough noise."

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Why Does the Beauty Industry Ignore Curvy Models?

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"People often cite the 1950s as a time when curviness was in, but that's not entirely true," said Elizabeth Wissinger, author of "This Year's Model" and a professor of fashion studies at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. "Yes, curvy bodies were popular, but the people had those achievable, accessible physiques, represented by movie stars like Marilyn Monroe.

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''There's momentum that's finally beginning to build,'' said Debbie Burgard, a psychologist in Los Altos, Calif., whose clients are women with weight problems and eating disorders.

This is not simply a pro-fat movement, or a throwing in of the collective towel when it comes to weight control. In fact, weight experts point to signs that a weakening obsession with skinniness can lead to a stronger attraction to fitness. Curves (formerly called Curves for Women) fitness centers, which are more welcoming to larger women than the average gym, are the fastest-growing franchise in America, according to Entrepreneur magazine. Over the last seven years, the number of locations has grown to more than 5,500, while a new one opens every four hours, said Gary Heavin, the chief executive and a co-founder of the company, which is based in Waco, Tex. Until January, Curves did not advertise.

''Most gyms are more akin to nightclubs than they are to support groups or exercise centers,'' Mr. Heavin said. ''Women felt they needed to lose 10 pounds before joining.''

Curves centers are relatively small -- they fit easily into a modest strip mall or neighborhood storefront -- and offer a half-hour workout designed for women unaccustomed to exercise. A large part of the appeal, Mr. Heavin said, is that average or heavier-than-average women can get together with like-size women to support and inspire one another.

The phenomenal success of Curves, many experts say, is a sign that women are accepting, and therefore taking better care of, their bodies.

WOMEN are also writing more letters to magazine editors, criticizing the spindly fashion models and praising efforts to include bigger women, said Cindi Leive, the editor in chief of Glamour. She has received thousands of responses to her second annual ''body love'' issue in May. ''It's now a mainstream idea that no one should be allowed to tell us that we need to diet in order to have worth in this world,'' Ms. Leive said, ''and it wasn't 10 years ago.''

Emme, perhaps the most famous of the full-figured fashion models, has been lecturing at college campuses and even testified before a Congressional subcommittee about the need to help women overcome their problems with body image.

''What I stand for is accepting your body type, whether you are a size 2 or a size 14, and then taking care of yourself with a balance of exercise and eating really well,'' said Emme, who introduced her own line of women's clothing sizes 14 to 24 last fall.

Another popular full-figured model is Mia Tyler, the focus of several Web sites. Ms. Tyler, a half-sister of the actress Liv Tyler, has modeled for Lane Bryant and H & M's Big Is Beautiful line.

But will this new awareness be enough to cure the plague of body hating that, mental health experts contend, is widely and deeply ingrained in American women?

That may be too much to ask.

''If there's a change so far, it may be that women have gone from being horribly dissatisfied with their own bodies to being somewhat less horribly dissatisfied,'' said Dr. Kelly D. Brownell, the director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, and the author of the Barbie proportions study. ''It's very hard to find a woman who really likes her body. Even if she likes the shape, she will not like her toes, her knees, her elbows or her ankles. There's always something wrong.''

Prof. Susie Orbach, a sociologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has been addressing the subject since 1978, when her book, ''Fat Is a Feminist Issue,'' was first published. ''I think there could be a zeitgeist change, but there hasn't been yet,'' she said. ''We're still not fully recognizing that the body-image problem is a public health emergency.''

Body dissatisfaction, Dr. Brownell said, stems from two assumptions -- that a body can be shaped at will, so that ''the only thing that lies between any woman and perfection is effort,'' and that an imperfect body reflects an imperfect person. ''Superimposed on these wrong assumptions is the highly unrealistic body ideal,'' he said. ''It leads women into conflict with their own body.''

The conflict can play a role in eating disorders like anorexia nervosa (chronic undereating), bulimia (overeating followed by purging) or chronic binge eating but, psychiatrists say, they are too complicated to be explained by body dissatisfaction alone. Full-blown eating disorders are rare. But even for a woman not suffering a full-blown eating disorder, disappointment with the size or shape of her body can be a daily problem. A recent study at the University of Central Florida, in Orlando, showed that adult women who have a positive view of their bodies are happier no matter what their age is.

The trouble is, most women do not have a positive view of their bodies, experts say.

''It's a subclinical pathology that is so ubiquitous, women think of it as a normal obsession to have,'' Professor Orbach said.

At this point, even if movies, television and magazines all suddenly started promoting images of normal-size or large women, the skinny-body ideal would persist, Professor Orbach said, because it is so embedded in the average woman's psyche. The notion that a woman should be rail thin, she and others said, is transmitted from one generation to the next.

''We're in our third generation now,'' Dr. Burgard said. ''I have patients now whose grandmothers were anorexic.''

About a third of American women are obese, meaning that their body mass index -- a ratio of weight to height -- is 30 or more. Another third are overweight, with a body mass index between 25 and 29.9 (under 25 is considered healthy). The average 152.3-pound American woman who is just under 5 feet 4 inches will have an index of 27, overweight but not obese.

A woman whose body mass index climbs above 25 or, more dangerously, past 30, stands an increasing risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and various kinds of cancer -- like breast, colon and endometrial cancer. Excess fat strains the body's metabolism and the skeleton, leading to insulin resistance, plaque buildup in the arteries and other problems.

THE fact that widespread negative body image coexists with the growing weight problem is ''no accident,'' Professor Orbach said. The ''narrow aesthetic,'' she added, that is promoted in popular culture leads women into a vicious cycle of overeating. ''They think they should deny themselves food, and then they eat more than they want,'' she said, ''and then they feel terrible so they eat too much again, and they don't know how to solve that problem, so they eat more.''

Black women, many studies show, are less likely than white women to hate their size, but that gap is shrinking, experts say.

Dr. Kumea Shorter-Gooden, a psychologist at the California School of Professional Psychology in Alhambra, and a co-author of a book called ''Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America,'' to be published in September, recently interviewed hundreds of black women, partly about their view of themselves. ''African-American women are more comfortable with being overweight than Anglo women are, and African-American women are in general heavier than white women,'' she said. Black culture, she said, does not encourage thinness as extremely as white culture does.

But increasing numbers of African-American women are engaging in such destructive eating-related behaviors as starvation diets, vomiting and using laxatives, Dr. Shorter-Gooden said.

Body-image problems have begun to affect a wider range of age groups -- girls as young as 10 and women in their 50's and older -- psychologists have found.

Another disturbing trend in body image, Ms. Leive said, is the soaring popularity of plastic surgery. ''You're hard pressed to find a Hollywood actress who hasn't either had work done or has spent the last six months nibbling on crumbs,'' she said.

What can be done? Women, Dr. Brownell said, must ''uncouple their body esteem from their basic self-esteem,'' and realize how destructive these unrealistic ideals can be.

Society, he said, must learn to appreciate a greater variation in body shapes and sizes. ''We accept variations in hair color, eye color and facial features, and we should do that with body weights,'' he said.

''Size acceptance is really important,'' Dr. Burgard agreed. ''I don't see how we're going to stop eating disorders until we stop reading character into the size of people's bodies. It's stereotyping. We've made progress against other stereotypes, and we can make progress against this one, too.''

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BODY AND IMAGE; One Size Definitely Does Not Fit All

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''There's momentum that's finally beginning to build,'' said Debbie Burgard, a psychologist in Los Altos, Calif., whose clients are women with weight problems and eating disorders. This is not simply a pro-fat movement, or a throwing in of the collective towel when it comes to weight control.

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In recent years, The Times has reported on a number of cases of students apparently driven to suicide by bullying or cyberbullying.
Schools have responded by creating curriculums, having students sign anti-bullying pledges, hiring specialists and more. Yet the problem seems to be growing.

How big a problem do you think bullying and cyberbullying are in your own school or community? Why? What do you think adults don't understand about bullying? What, if anything, do you think can be done?

In the article " Girl's Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies," Lizette Alvarez writes about a 12-year-old girl in Florida who jumped to her death:

... In jumping, Rebecca [Sedwick] became one of the youngest members of a growing list of children and teenagers apparently driven to suicide, at least in part, after being maligned, threatened and taunted online, mostly through a new collection of texting and photo-sharing cellphone applications. Her suicide raises new questions about the proliferation and popularity of these applications and Web sites among children and the ability of parents to keep up with their children's online relationships.

For more than a year, Rebecca, pretty and smart, was cyberbullied by a coterie of 15 middle-school children who urged her to kill herself, her mother said. The Polk County sheriff's office is investigating the role of cyberbullying in the suicide and considering filing charges against the middle school students who apparently barraged Rebecca with hostile text messages. Florida passed a law this year making it easier to bring felony charges in online bullying cases.

Rebecca was "absolutely terrorized on social media," Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County said at a news conference this week.

Along with her grief, Rebecca's mother, Tricia Norman, faces the frustration of wondering what else she could have done. She complained to school officials for several months about the bullying, and when little changed, she pulled Rebecca out of school. She closed down her daughter's Facebook page and took her cellphone away. She changed her number. Rebecca was so distraught in December that she began to cut herself, so her mother had her hospitalized and got her counseling. As best she could, Ms. Norman said, she kept tabs on Rebecca's social media footprint.

Students: Tell us ...

How big a problem is bullying in your school or community? Where is it most likely to happen?

Do you know of anyone whom you would describe, as the sheriff did Rebecca Sedwick, as "absolutely terrorized on social media"?

In your opinion, why is cyberbullying such a growing problem?

What do you think adults don't know or understand about bullying?

What can parents and teachers do? Why? What more, if anything, do you think Rebecca Sedwick's mother could have done?

What advice might you give a younger student on this topic?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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How Big a Problem Is Bullying or Cyberbullying in Your School or Community?

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In recent years, The Times has reported on a number of cases of students apparently driven to suicide by bullying or cyberbullying. Schools have responded by creating curriculums, having students sign anti-bullying pledges, hiring specialists and more. Yet the problem seems to be growing.

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Does using marijuana lead to the use of more dangerous drugs, making it too dangerous to legalize?

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How the love we give people can benefit everyone

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The use of green resources has grown but recent bankruptcies in the industry raise questions about the future.

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Contests

One of this year's winners wrote about school lockdown drills. Related Article Credit... Alec Soth/Magnum, for The New York Times

Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here.
For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

Students often start with thoughtful questions from their own lives: Why is my school's athletic program better funded than its music program? Why do we hide in the corner of our classroom during active shooter drills? Why don't my classmates stand during the Pledge of Allegiance? And they develop sophisticated, sincere and well researched answers in response.

Students look at the nation's and world's problems and hunt for solutions - to improve the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China, for example, or to reduce recidivism rates for U.S. prisons.

We really like this contest because it asks students to look closely at their world and find something, large or small, they want to change. So, if you don't like being last in line all the time because your surname starts with "Z," then take a stand. If you want more characters in books and movies to be more like you, then write about it. If you want society to be less wasteful or more tolerant, then tell the world. Change starts with noticing, thinking critically, and starting meaningful conversations - and that's what these students have done in their editorials.

But winning this contest? It's no easy task being selected as a winner out of 7,895 entries, a record. How do you make your writing stand out from the piles of other editorials submitted to our contest - especially when you have no more than 450 words to get your point across?

Here's one way: Start strong. Grab our attention in the first few sentences, but don't take too long to state your argument.

Here's another: Pick a fresh topic, or a new angle on a popular topic, and be very clear about what you are arguing. Often when students narrow in on a specific concern, their editorial becomes more persuasive.

What else? Write with an original, confident voice and avoid formulaic language and structure. And if appropriate, acknowledge, and deftly dispatch, counterarguments.

Below, we list 10 winners, 15 runners-up and 45 honorable mentions. We also include a PDF of all the finalists, including 58 who made the cut to the third round of judging, but didn't quite reach the winner's circle.

Starting May 22, we will be publishing one of the Top 10 essays each weekday in posts that we hope you will spread on social media, hang on school bulletin boards and perhaps even use as "mentor texts" for next year's contest.

Thank you for participating - and we hope you'll take part in our Summer Reading Contest, starting June 16.

_________

Each category below lists our favorites in alphabetical order by title. Where titles were missing, we came up with our own.
Top 10 Winners
" A Psychedelic Cure?" by Reagan Briere, age 16
" In Nothing We Trust" by Francesca Kelley, age 18
" Leave the Citizens to Their TV Shows" by Yijia Hu, age 17
" Losing the Internet" by David Scharts, age 15
" Reform the Prison, Then the Prisoner" by Katherine Leonard, age 16
" Stopping Bullets With Locked Doors and Silence Is Already Pulling the Trigger" by Daina Kalnina, age 15
" The Anguish of the Rich" by Yiqi Wang, age 17
" The Asian Misnomer: What the Affirmative Action Debate Misses" by Matteo Wong, age 16
" The Collateral Damage of Defending Democracy" by Sarah Heiland, age 18
" The Missing Anthropological Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History " by Alec Farber, age 16
_________ Runners-Up
"America First" by Safa Saleh, age 17
"America? More Like Ameri-Can't Vote" by Gianni Carcagno, age 17
"Climate Literacy: A Critical Step Toward Climate Stability" by Ella Shriner, age 14 and Hannah Witscher, age 15
"Cultural Appropriation: A Measure of Empathy" by James Chang, age 16
"Discourse Is Democracy: Allowing Uncensored Speech on College Campuses" by Abigail Hogan, age 17
"Drone Warfare: The Failing Fight Against the Modern Hydra" by Michael Levinger, age 16
"Generation Code Red" by Grace Scullion, age 16
"Humane Human Zoo?" by Ella Ward, age 15
"Paper or Plastic? How About a Paper ON Plastic!" by Melody Markert, age 17
"The Future Disintegration of American Democracy Through Athletics" by Julianne Yu, age 16
"The Case for Teaching News Literacy" by Mary Hannah Grier, age 17
"The Unspoken Alphabet Problem" by Stephanie Zhang, age 14
"The 'War on Drugs' Will Never Work; Legalization Will" by Kristina Vakhman, age 18
"There Is No Happily Ever After Without Once Upon a Time" by Bridget O'Leary, age 17
"When Will This Class Be Useful?" by Casey Stark, age 15
_________ Honorable Mentions
"#WorldChanger" by Joyce Zhou, age 17
"A Case for Impassiveness" by Lea Marchl, age 16
"A Scoop in the Right Direction" by Emma S., age 18
"AP Tests Don't Leave Enough Room for the Human Side of History" by Tom Malmgren, age 16
"Are My Shoulders Distracting You?" by Mairi Alice Dun, age 17
"Autism: Educated and Extraordinary" by Isabella Zhang, age 17
"Bittersweet" by Rena Rachlin, age 15 "Child Labor in the U.S. Today" by Jasmine Campos, age 16 and Charlotte Principal, age 16
"China Needs Silver Lining" by Wangchen Zhou, age 17
"Colleges Should Abandon Race-Based Affirmative Action to Achieve True Diversity" by Eric Davis, age 18
"Embrace the Mess" by Chi Yu, age 14
"Fast Fashion Is Destroying Our World" by Melissa Wang, age 17
"Food Stamps Need a Change" by Patrick Meara, age 17
"Governor Cuomo Frees the Plastic Bagss" by Jiayan Chen, age 17
"Help Wanted: Moderate Politicians" by Ireland Degges, age 17
"High School Should Not Just Be About Sports" by Swathi Kella, age 16
"How Far Can Post-Truth Democracy Take Us?" by Jiahe Yang, age 18
"How to Revitalize the Public Education System" by Dhara Yu, age 18
"Last Man Standing" by Kathryn Porter, age 16
"Leave Me Alone" by Celia Silver, age 17
"More Than a Morning Kick" by Emma Cary, age 16
"Multiple Choice: Not Multiple Enough" by Yi-Mei Templeman, age 17
"Picking Cotton: An Immigrant's Perspective" by Allan Njomo, age 16
"Post-Democracy" by Nadav Ziv, age 17
"Should Juvenile Offenders Receive Life Sentences Without Parole on Their First Offense?" by Tayler Gavetti, age 16
"Should Obamacare Be Repealed?" by William Pharo, age 16
"Single Payer: A Cure for America's Healthcare Woes" by Akshay Manglik, age 13
"Streaky Friendship" by Yuxin Long, age 16
"Technology: A Hindrance to Learning" by Zachary Weiss, age 17
"Teens, Technology, and The Pursuit of Happiness" by Sam Jagolinzer, age 17
"The Bluest Note" by Nicholas Dasoveanu, age 18
"The College Conspiracy" by Serenity W., age 17
"The Cost of Health Care May Be in Your Genes" by Sophia Lo, age 16
"The Demoralizing of the Elizabethan Language" by Olivia Seymour, age 14
"The Disposable Nightmare" by Tianxin Guo, age 14
"The Education Gap" by Adam Traweek, age 16 "The Environment in the Age of Trump" by Elliot Tuttle, age 17
"The Growing Problem of Screen Addiction" by Kaitlin Craig, age 16
"The Picture of Education We Must Change" by Danielle Naidrich, age 17
"Tipping the Pay Scale" by Ruhee Damle, age 14
"Untitled" by Melinda Hartz, age 16
"We Should Be Teaching Rap Music in Schools" by Jack Zuckerman, age 19
"What Do You Call Someone That Only Speaks One Language? An American." by Paige Patton, age 16
"Where Are All the Rainbows?" by Storm Viridian Murray, age 17
"Where Trump's Ban Stands Legally" by Marcus Linde, age 16
_________ And All the Finalists, Including 58 More Great Editorials That Made It to Round 3 (PDF) Judges: Amanda Christy Brown, Shannon Doyne, Caroline Crosson Gilpin, Michael Gonchar, Annissa Hambouz, Thomas Houston, Shira Katz, Willow Lawson, Linda Leavitt, Sue Mermelstein, Anna North, Roxie Salamon-Abrams, Katherine Schulten, Matt Schwarzfeld, Natlie Shutler and Kate Spence-Ado

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A Call to Action: Winners From Our Fourth Annual Student Editorial Contest (Published 2017)

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Contests Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here . For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

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By: Nicholas Kristof

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So I asked Trang why Asian-Americans do so well in school.

"I can't speak for all Asian-Americans," Trang told me, "but for me and my friends, it was because of the sacrifices that our parents made. ... It's so difficult to see my parents get up at 5 each morning to go to factories to earn $6.30 an hour. I see that there is so much that I can do in America that my parents couldn't."

Of course, not all Asian-Americans are so painfully perfect - Filipinos are among the largest groups of Asian-Americans and they do very well without being stellar. Success goes particularly to those whose ancestors came from the Confucian belt from Japan through Korea and China to Vietnam.

It's not just the immigrant mentality, for Japanese-American students are mostly fourth- and fifth-generation now, and they're still excelling. Nor is it just about family background, for Chinese-Americans who trace their origins to peasant villages also graduate summa.

One theory percolating among some geneticists is that in societies that were among the first with occupations that depended on brains, genetic selection may have raised I.Q.'s slightly - a theory suggesting that maybe Asians are just smarter. But I'm skeptical, partly because so much depends on context.

In the U.S., for example, ethnic Koreans are academic stars. But in Japan, ethnic Koreans languish in an underclass, often doing poorly in schools and becoming involved in the yakuza mafia. One lesson may be that if you discriminate against a minority and repeatedly shove its members off the social escalator, then you create pathologies of self-doubt that can become self-sustaining.

So then why do Asian-Americans really succeed in school? Aside from immigrant optimism, I see two and a half reasons:

First, as Trang suggests, is the filial piety nurtured by Confucianism for 2,500 years. Teenagers rebel all over the world, but somehow Asian-American kids often manage both to exasperate and to finish their homework. And Asian-American families may not always be warm and fuzzy, but they tend to be intact and focused on their children's getting ahead.

Second, Confucianism encourages a reverence for education. In Chinese villages, you still sometimes see a monument to a young man who centuries ago passed the jinshi exam - the Ming dynasty equivalent of getting a perfect SAT. In a Confucian culture, it is intuitive that the way to achieve glory and success is by working hard and getting A's.

Then there's the half-reason: American kids typically say in polls that the students who succeed in school are the "brains." Asian kids typically say that the A students are those who work hard. That means no Asian-American ever has an excuse for not becoming valedictorian.

"Anybody can be smart, can do great on standardized tests," Trang explains. "But unless you work hard, you're not going to do well."

If I'm right, the success of Asian-Americans is mostly about culture, and there's no way to transplant a culture. But there are lessons we can absorb, and maybe the easiest is that respect for education pays dividends. That can come, for example, in the form of higher teacher salaries, or greater public efforts to honor star students. While there are no magic bullets, we would be fools not to try to learn some Asian lessons.

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So I asked Trang why Asian-Americans do so well in school. "I can't speak for all Asian-Americans," Trang told me, "but for me and my friends, it was because of the sacrifices that our parents made. ... It's so difficult to see my parents get up at 5 each morning to go to factories to earn $6.30 an hour.

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By: Hope Kurth

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Third Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. You can find them all here.

Below, an essay by Hope Kurth, age 17.
How Ableism Lives On
Five-star restaurant, four family members. A hostess sets down thick, leather menus in one, two, three places before proceeding to drop a flimsy half-piece of paper in front of my brother. He scrunches his eyebrows together and glares at my parents as if to say "not this again" - the kid-menu debacle that automatically ensues when you have Down syndrome. He's 22 years old, a working man with a diploma, yet abled people always seem to have one inability: to see him as anything but a kid.

Fortunately, the world is changing - with implementations like Best Buddies, Rosa's Law and the Americans With Disabilities Act. But a couple of things are keeping America from fully including and involving people with disabilities into everyday life naturally: society's colloquial language and the style of disability advocacy.

Thankfully, Spread the Word to End the Word and similar campaigns have attempted to mark words like "retarded" as taboo (however, 56 percent of Americans don't think it's offensive to call themselves the r-word, and 38 percent don't find a problem in calling their friends it either). But left in their wake are "boom-boom," "mental" and "slow." Of course, any well-intentioned person can forget and succumb to using these words - but if we ever want to see full integration, we have to let them go.

Some say that nitpicking words like "crazy" and "lame" will just start another political correctness battle, and that there is no easy way to eliminate them. But before deeming this challenge "too hard," think about how difficult it is for 48.9 million Americans to not only have a disability, but to be reminded of it in everyday conversations.

Another problem arises in the fact that two-thirds of people claim to be uncomfortable talking to people with disabilities because they don't know how to act politely around them. This awkward silence is too often filled with well-meaning (yet meaningless) statements like "You're God's special gift." But again, people who are uncomfortable around those with disabilities aren't usually out to discriminate. However, with the rise of politicians like Donald Trump, who "mocked" a reporter with arthrogryposis, more citizens are following the path to discriminatory speech.

Lastly, viral posts about those with disabilities have lately been deemed "inspiration porn," mainly for the reason that they've been used to inspire a retweet or a reblog, but no actual action. These posts make it seem as if the only purpose of those with disabilities is to inspire abled people - not to live a fulfilling life in the way they please.

Many of us possess good intentions about disabilities - but if we really want to solve ableism in America, we have to watch our patterns of speech (even jokes) and consider taking action instead of just hitting repost.
Works Cited
Haberman, Maggie. "Donald Trump Says His Mocking of New York Times Reporter Was Misread." The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Nov. 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Higgins, Karrie. "Dear Able Friends, I Am Not Your Inspiration Porn." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"NSIP - Basic Facts: People with Disabilities." NSIP - Basic Facts: People with Disabilities. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"20 Amazing Disability Discrimination Statistics - BrandonGaille.com." BrandonGaillecom. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"Announcing 'The Shriver Report Snapshot: Insight Into Intellectual Disabilities in the 21st Century.' " Maria Shriver. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.

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Editorial Contest Winner | 'How Ableism Lives On'

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We are honoring each of the Top 10 winners of our Third Annual Student Editorial Contest by publishing an essay a day. You can find them all here. Below, an essay by Hope Kurth, age 17. How Ableism Lives On Five-star restaurant, four family members.

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Contests

One of our 2017 editorial winners wrote about China's unofficial ban on Korean cultural exports, such as the boy band Exo. Credit... Starnews, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view.

Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself. When you're done, submit it using the contest form below by Thursday, April 5, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Be sure to read the rules, also below, before posting.

Our judges will then use this rubric (PDF) for selecting winners to publish on The Learning Network.

As teachers know, the persuasive essay has long been a staple of high school education, but the Common Core standards seem to have put evidence-based argumentative writing on everybody's agenda. You couldn't ask for a more real-world example of the genre than the classic newspaper editorial - and The Times publishes, on average, two of them a day.

And at a time when breaking out of one's "filter bubble" is more important than ever, we hope this contest also encourages students to broaden their news diets by using multiple sources, ideally ones that offer a range of perspectives on their chosen issue.

So what issue do you care about? Gun violence? Sexual harassment? Social media? You decide.

Good luck, and please post any questions you might have in the comments. We'll answer you there.

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Note: The submission form has been removed from this page. The contest is closed.
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Video

The New York Times's editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal provides seven tips for writing an effective editorial.

To help with this challenge, Andrew Rosenthal, in his previous role as Editorial Page editor of The Times, detailed seven pointers in the video above. And we have published related lesson plans, including " For the Sake of Argument: Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials," " I Don't Think So: Writing Effective Counterarguments" and " 10 Ways to Teach Argument-Writing With The New York Times," that offer additional teaching ideas.

We have also culled a list of 401 prompts for argumentative writing organized by category, to help inspire you - although, of course, you are not limited to those topics.

We encourage you to look at both our comments on last year's winners and the winning essays themselves. They can serve as excellent models, and they cover topics from active-shooter school lockdowns to Korean television shows in China.

In addition, you can watch our free, archived webinar, featuring the Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and Kabby Hong, a high school English teacher.

1. Use at least one Times source. You can write your editorial about any topic, as long as you use at least one source from The Times. That should pretty much open the whole world to you, as you may be surprised how much you can find in The Times.

Be advised that nytimes.com has a digital subscription system in which readers have access to five free articles each month, but after that you will be asked to become a digital subscriber. The Times also offers K-12 digital subscription plans for schools. But all Learning Network activities for students, including our daily writing prompts, as well as Times articles linked from them, are free, so you can access them without exceeding the five-article limit.

2. Use at least one non-Times source. But make sure that the source you use is a reliable one. We encourage you to find sources that offer different perspectives on an issue.

3. Always cite your sources. Our submission form contains a required field for entering your citations. We include an example as well, though you can use M.L.A. or A.P.A. styles, or just list the website URLs. Even if you use a print source or an expert interview, you must provide a citation. Readers (and judges) should always know where you got your evidence.

4. Be concise. The editorial must not exceed 450 words. Your title and list of sources are separate, however, and do not count as part of your 450-word limit.

5. Have an opinion. Editorials are different from news articles because they try to persuade readers to share your point of view. Don't be afraid to take a stand.

6. Write your editorial by yourself or with a group. If you are working as a team, just remember to submit all of your names when you post your entry. But please submit only one editorial per student. If you're submitting as part of a team, you should not also submit as an individual.

7. Be original and use appropriate language. Write for a well-informed audience, but include enough background information to give context. Be careful not to plagiarize: Use quotation marks around lines you take verbatim from another source, or rephrase and cite your source.

8. Submissions must be from students who are 13 to 19 years old, and they may come from anywhere in the world. Unlike in previous years, students can now use their entire name if they want.

9. All entries must be submitted by April 5 at 11:59 p.m. Easternusing the contest form above. If you have questions about the contest, feel free to post them in the comments section, and we'll respond to you there.

10. Follow these instructions if you need proof that you entered this contest. Within an hour of submitting your editorial, you should receive an email from "The New York Times" with the subject heading "Thank you for your submission to our Student Editorial Contest." If you don't receive the email within an hour, even after checking your spam folder, then you can resubmit your entry. Be sure your settings allow emails from nytimes.com.

After two attempts and waiting over one full day, if you still have not received a confirmation email, you can contact us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com with the email address you used in the contest form. Use the subject heading "Please send me an email confirmation for my editorial contest submission." Be sure to include your name and editorial title (or subject) in your email. You may have to wait up to a week for a reply.

11. We will use this rubric (PDF) to judge entries, and the winning editorials will be featured on The Learning Network.

" Writing an Editorial" Unit Plan, by Lindsay Thompson

" Reader Idea | He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument Essay," by Danielle Harms

" Reader Idea | Using an Op-Doc Video to Teach Argumentative Writing," by Allison Marchetti

" Reader Idea | Using Room for Debate to Teach Argumentative Writing and Discussion Skills," by Gerard Dawson and Justin Rex

" Reader Idea | An Argument-Writing Unit: Crafting Student Editorials," by Kayleen Everitt

Good luck and have fun. We welcome your questions and comments if we have omitted details that might be useful. Let us know how we can help.

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The Learning Network runs contests for teenagers all year long. See our full calendar.

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Our Fifth Annual Student Editorial Contest: Write About an Issue That Matters to You (Published 2018)

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Contests The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view. Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself.