Writing a commentary for your opinion article
Step One: Read the whole article in one go
Articles sometimes start out sounding like they are about one topic but then shift into a discussion of a
larger issue or theme. For example, an article that starts by discussing bullfighting in Spain may end up
being about animal abuse or protecting cultural traditions. The topic of bull fighting is merely a starting
point for discussing the writer opinion of this larger topic. Reading the whole article will give you a
clearer understanding of the writer’s main purpose.
Step Two: Analyze how the language features of the article help the writer achieve his or her purpose
This time you are the writer so you already know the purpose! What have you done with your writing in
order to achieve your purpose? At this point, read line by line and look for any language feature that
seems to help achieve this purpose. What was your intended effect? How does this support your
purpose?
The writer addresses the reader in the second person,
using “you’d” and “your”, which exposes an assumption
that the audience are of a similar age and cultural origin to
him. The writer encourages the presumed audience to
reminisce alongside him.
Starting with the transitional
word “once” and then
continuing in a long complex
sentence reminiscing tone
because the pace is drawn
out and slowed down.
Assonance of the ‘O’ softens
the over sound of the
sentence and contributes to
the slow pace. The use of
the 5 syllable word
“circumnavigate” is long
winded and further mimics
this almost slow motion
image of the past.
The use of Inverted commas indicates that these words are not the
writers preferred terminology and seems to parody people who
use the word event to describe low scale social gatherings. This
sets up the pervading satirical tone of the piece.
Nothing merely "happens" any more: every occurrence
is now an "event", which leaps up and down pointing
excitedly at itself. Once, the end of a school term would
be marked with a shabby disco down the village hall;
you'd turn up wearing the one pair of jeans you owned
and circumnavigate the dancefloor nodding your head
to the sound of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Now,
in 2011, teenagers don outfits chosen by their personal
stylist weeks in advance and arrive at their school
"prom" in a stretch Hummer. Come, friendly asteroids,
and fall on Earth.
The final statement is an example of hyperbole which
has two purposes. The writer is exaggerating what he
wishes to happen to stop this excessive preoccupation
with spectacle. He is also making a cultural reference to
human’s preoccupation with films based around
spectacular endings. In a sense, he is poking fun at
himself for his own excessive nature.
The use of the proper noun “Hummer” links
back to the idea that no social gathering can
be consider low key. The use of one of the
largest cars on the market is symbolic of this
level of excess that surrounds organized
gatherings in 2011.
Personification of an
event; suggests
events are now
rather self promoting
and have developed
a life of their own. It
could be inferred
that the name of an
event has become
more significant than
the people who
attend it.
Having the word
“prom” in inverted
commas highlights
the writer’s attitude
to the new
Americanized term
creeping into UK
language. This is a
cultural bias in that
the writer seems to
make a veiled
suggestion that the
writer believes
Americans are
responsible for this
culture of excess.
Step Three: Find the overriding themes in your writing
Identify the main ways in which the writer has tried to achieve their purpose. These will become the
main points that you develop into paragraphs.
For example, the purpose of the writer from the example above was to encourage the audience to avoid
being excessive in planning events and life in general. He seems to promote a more casual approach to
event planning. In order to achieve his purpose he has:
a) Established a satirical tone when discussing events in today’s society.
b) Assumed the audience to be similar to him and therefore share his outlook on the world.
c) Makes a detailed comparison that establishes a clear preference for the past
The following list of questions may help shape your response to your article. Each question can be
developed into a possible commentary theme and subsequent paragraph for your commentary:
1. For what kind of audience did you intend to attract? What techniques did you use to attract
them and keep them reading?
2. What way did you mainly aim to persuade the reader? What examples from your article are
evident of this? How successful were you at doing this?
3. Did you intend to have an underlying or obvious bias in your writing? How did language help
communicate this bias?
4. Have you assumed something about the reader or a situation? How does this assumption affect
the language choices you make?
5. What perspective on events do you establish: an older reflective self, a central player, a witness?
How do you establish this point of view?
6. What tone did you want to dominate? Anger? Nostalgia? Bitterness? Why did you wish to
establish this? What language features do you use to achieve this tone?
7. Does the tone vary throughout your article? Give an example of the original tone and then an
example of how you shift this? What effect have you hoped to achieve by varying tone?
8. How is your work structured? Are there patterns or parallels in terms of sentences or
paragraphs? What effect did you hope to achieve by this structure?
9. What is the predominate method of development: argument, narrative, description or
examples?
10. What are the striking features of the style, sentence or paragraph structure or punctuation?
11. Have you used imagery for a specific reason? What effects are achieved by the imagery?
12. What figures of speech (metaphor, personification, allusion etc.) or other literary features are
used? What effects are achieved through the figures of speech?
Step Four: Go back to your analysis and find the best examples to prove your points
For example, here is the list of points that could be made about the Ghastly Events article. Beside each is
a list of language features that were used to establish the point
Points to develop into
paragraphs (overriding
themes)
a) Uses bleak humor to
characterize his extreme
distaste for these overly
sentimental
advertisements.
b) Establishes an extremely
aggressive and
confrontational tone
Language features and examples used to achieve
these points (discussed within the paragraph)


Hyperbole to communicate hatred for this trend
Grim Imagery


Uses expletives
Parodies the language used in horror film trailers
Step Five: Write your commentary
Here is an example of a short commentary based on this plan:
Ghastly Events, an opinion piece written by Charlie Brooker for the Guardian website based in London, is
a rather biting analysis of Christmas advertisements released this year in the United Kingdom. His
overriding purpose is to point out that Christmas is being corrupted by this type of sentimentalized
consumerism; he wants to warn his readers not to be drawn into the consumerism hype by emotive
advertising.
Booker relies first and foremost on a rather dark, cynical sense of humor to point out the ridiculousness
of falling for consumer driven sentimentality. Right from his first paragraph, he establishes his distaste
for people who are “blubbering in front of their televisions” because of advertisements by imploring
“friendly asteroids” to “fall on earth.” This hyperbole conveys his frustration with the current situation
where simple values are overlooked at Christmas. He then creates some rather grim imagery when
imagining the contents of a little boy’s present to his family as “the severed head the family dog”. The
advertisement in question is said to induce crying in many viewers and Brooker is intent on countering
the exaggerated sentimentalism with an equally exaggerated image of violence in order to point out the
ridiculousness of both scenarios. This humor is certainly appealing to those who already agree with
humor but the exaggerated, graphic nature may actually disengage the very people he aims to
persuade.
Brooker complements this dark humor with vocabulary that establishes an extremely aggressive and
confrontational tone. By the time he analyses the third advertisement, which focuses on children singing
with joy about their mothers buying expensive presents on credit cards, Brooker’s humor turns coarse
and he uses several expletives to express his low tolerance for consumer driven Christmases. In his last
comment on this advertisement he speaks from the imagined point of view of the children and says,
“Santa: you’re dead to us.” This is intended to capture the aggressive nature of consumerism that is
even present in the way children approach Christmas these days. Brooker complements all this
excessively dark humor by describing the department stores who have created these ads with a lexicon
usually reserved for horror film trailers: Littlewoods is said to have, “…annihilated the entire concept of
Santa…” and John Lewis has created a, “…chillingly accurate short film about….a psychopath-intraining.” This parody of horror film advertising is used a s away to highlight the horror that Brooker
feels at watching people “ literally sobbing their IQ points away” as they buy into the false nature of a
consumer-drive Christmas. By the end of the article, the language choices lead the reader to view
Christmas as an aggressive time of year where consumerism drives people a little crazy in a number of
ways.
Overall, Brooker uses just as much pathos as the advertisements he complains about in order to grab
the attention of his audience; however, he seems to want this excess of negative emotions to shock the
audience out of their consumerism induced shopping trance and reevaluate what is truly important at
Christmas so perhaps he isn’t as darkly cynical as the piece suggests.