John Diaz shares his opinions in our Opinion class.

Journalist John Diaz, who is paid by the San Francisco Chronicle to give his opinion, visited my Journalism opinion class last Thursday at SF State. Diaz shared his opinions on various topics related to his profession, namely how to write a good op-ed piece (which he does on a regular basis), how to get off the governments "No fly" list and ways to develop a distinct voice when writing an article.

But out of all of the advice Diaz was gracious enough to give a class of students trying to take his job, one topic struck my interest the most: how to get published. After all, isn't that the point of this whole journalism thing? Getting your work out, making a name for yourself... that's how you play the game, right? Needless to say my attention meter was off the charts when he was giving out these juicy tidbits.

Here are some of the magical keys to success Diaz suggested, let's see how I stack up:

1. Timeliness matters.

So I can't publish the op-ed I've been working on for five years about John Kerry's presidential campaign? Damn.

2. Don't get discouraged if your article isn't published or you don't hear a response because most people don't realize the vast amounts of submissions there are to The Chronicle and other publications every week.

So I'm not the only person in the Bay Area submitting articles to the San Francisco Chronicle? Consider my mind blown! Looks like I'll have to step up my writing game a little now that I know I have so much competition. I guess submitting "I hate Republicans," or "The 49ers stink" won't cut it anymore.

3. When you submit a piece, study the publication you're sending it to and the types of pieces they use.

Good, I have that one covered. I've already sent my pro-abortion article to the Washington Post and my anti-universal health care plan piece to The Chronicle.

4. Be open to being edited.

Now that's something the never taught me in J-School.

5. Write tight, not long-winded.

That's great actually very good news because I'm the type of writer who loves to keep my sentences short, concise and not go on forever because when people do that it gets really annoying and makes me not want to read their work and if I ever knew someone who wrote like that I would tell them that they should quit writing and to consider working in a field other than journalism because they have no future in it and probably shouldn't even have a blog either because no one would want to read that drivel and garbage that they write on a daily basis to the masses who read their work.