An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page, is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board. These are different from editorials (which are usually unsigned and written by editorial board members) and letters to the editor (which are submitted by readers of the journal or newspaper).

Op-ed其實(shí)是opposite the editorial page（社論版對(duì)面）的縮寫(xiě)，指發(fā)表在報(bào)紙上、由非本報(bào)評(píng)論部員工撰寫(xiě)的署名評(píng)論文章，與社論（由本報(bào)評(píng)論部員工撰寫(xiě)的非署名評(píng)論文章）和讀者來(lái)信（期刊或報(bào)紙讀者提交的文章）均有不同。

Although standard editorial pages have been printed by newspapers for many centuries, the direct ancestor to the modern op-ed page was created in 1921 by Herbert Bayard Swope of The New York Evening World. When he took over as editor in 1920, he realized that the page opposite the editorials was "a catchall for book reviews, society boilerplate, and obituaries". He is quoted as writing: “It occurred to me that nothing is more interesting than opinion when opinion is interesting, so I devised a method of cleaning off the page opposite the editorial, which became the most important in America ... and thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts.”

雖說(shuō)報(bào)紙上開(kāi)設(shè)正規(guī)的社論版已經(jīng)有幾百年的歷史了，不過(guò)現(xiàn)代報(bào)紙?jiān)u論版的鼻祖卻在1921年才出現(xiàn)，是由《紐約世界晚報(bào)》的赫伯特•貝亞德•斯沃普開(kāi)創(chuàng)的。他在1920年接任該報(bào)主編時(shí)，發(fā)現(xiàn)社論版對(duì)面的版面“混雜著書(shū)評(píng)、各類(lèi)通用文本和訃告”。他曾經(jīng)寫(xiě)道：“我意識(shí)到，如果評(píng)論有意思，那一定會(huì)是最吸引人的部分，于是，我想出了一個(gè)清理社論版對(duì)面那個(gè)版面的辦法，此舉是當(dāng)時(shí)美國(guó)最重要的變革…自那以后，我就決定在那個(gè)版發(fā)評(píng)論，不發(fā)事實(shí)了。”

But Swope included only opinions by employees of his newspaper, and the first "modern" op-ed page—that is, one that called on contributors outside the newspaper—had to wait until its launch in 1970, under the direction of The New York Times editor John B. Oakes.

不過(guò)，當(dāng)時(shí)斯沃普只在評(píng)論版刊發(fā)自己報(bào)社員工寫(xiě)的評(píng)論，第一個(gè)“現(xiàn)代”意義的評(píng)論版，也就是由報(bào)社以外的人士供稿的評(píng)論版，直到1970年才出現(xiàn)，是由時(shí)任《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》主編約翰 B. 歐克斯開(kāi)創(chuàng)的。