| 10 steps to your comment | special vocabulary |
| The task You get a question asking for your opinion on a topic.
“Who of the two people in the text is a fanatic?” You get a statement on a topic and the prompt Discuss! Example: “Parvez and Ali accuse each other of being a fanatic. Discuss!”
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| Your opinion Think about it and form your own opinion on the question or the general topic. Try to phrase it as shortly but clearly as possible. Ali is a fanatic, but Parvez is not.
Write your opinion down on one page of your notepad or one card.Put this paper or card where you can see it throughout your work. This will help you remember what you have to write about. Hopefully then you will not do extra work writing about things that are not relevant. From now on we will not talk about your “opinion” anymore but about your “thesis”.
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| The facts If there are any important basic facts on which an opinion on this topic could be based, try to find them now. In our case it could be a definition of the term “fanatic”. Either your own definition or one from a dictionary. Write these basic facts on the same paper or card as your thesis. Again, this is to help you to always remember what your thesis is based on.
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| Your arguments Think about how you can support your thesis. In our special case you will have to write about Ali and about Parvez; usually you only have one line of argument. Write down a number of arguments that support your thesis. Write only key-words or short sentences. Right now only you have to understand them. Write each claim on one paper or card. Ali is single-minded, focused only on Islam and the Koran. He doesn’t listen to other views. He condemns people with other views or lifestyles. He sees the world in black and white, right or wrong. He lets religion and religious leaders control his
everyday life.
| claim (pro) |
| Counter-arguments Imagine another person with a different opinion. What could this person say against your thesis (= to counter your thesis)? Collect some of these counter-arguments and then find good answers to counter THEM (= rebuttals). Write each of these counter-arguments and your rebuttals on one paper or card. True, but he refuses to discuss these reasons. He does not want to question his view of the world. That is correct. On the other hand he shows him openly that what Parvez does and thinks is wrong and will lead him away from paradise.
| claim (contra) counter-argument rebuttal |
| Explanations, examples & evidence Now imagine the other person saying “Okay, sounds good. Still, how do you know that is true for Ali? Up to now you have only given me a number of claims.”
Take each of your claims and work it into an argument by doing one or more of the following: * explain in more detail why this point supports your thesis. * give examples from real life that show this point to be true or valid. * give evidence from the text. Where does something happen that matches your claim? When you give evidence from the text, you can quote (correctly please!), paraphrase or describe a situation. In any case, you always have to say on which page and line(s) your evidence can be found.
Now do the same for your rebuttals. Find explanations, examples and evidence. | argument |
| In the case of our topic you now have to do the same for Parvez. In most comments you only have to find pro and contra arguments to one question or statement. “Should Islam be taught at school?” “Immigration is a source of energy for a country. Discuss!” “Are 16-year-olds mature enough to vote?” |
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Order your arguments You now have one paper or card with your thesis and basic facts. You also have a number of papers or cards with pro- or contra-arguments. Remember: A claim (“Ali doesn’t listen to other views.”) is not enough. You also need an explanation, examples and/or evidence to support your claim. Otherwise it is not an argument.
Put these notes in a logical and easy-to-follow order. Maybe you order them from weak to strong. You could also order them from obvious to more difficult to see. Whatever you choose, try to find an order that will make it easy for the reader to follow your thoughts.
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| Conclusion Based on your arguments, write a conclusion. In your conclusion you have to “remind” your reader of your arguments.
“Based on the fact that Ali does x, says y and refrains from accepting z, I think that he is a fanatic. Parvez, on the other hand, doesn’t do a, tries b but is always c. From that I conclude that he is not a fanatic.”
| conclusion |
| Introduction Only now do you write your introduction. Describe the basic topic of the text, which makes the discussion question relevant. Then write down the question or problem itself. Maybe give your basic facts, too. | introduction |
| ! If you have already written a summary of the text, you don’t have to summarize it again for the comment. Only describe the situation or basic problem that gives rise to the question!
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Your comment essay Now you have everything you need for your comment. All you have to do now, is to put the individual notes into one text. Be sure to write each argument in a separate paragraph. Make sure that your paragraphs can be clearly seen as paragraphs. For this task remember to use connectors or connecting phrases (on the one hand/on the other hand; furthermore; still; firstly, secondly; in conclusion;…).
General structure: title introduction main body conclusion
| essay paragraph structure connectors |
| Final check If you have to write a comment in an exam, you don’t have a lot of time. You have hopefully done steps 1 to 10 quickly and efficiently. Remember: Quality matters more than quantity - you don’t have to write hundreds of words, if the content of your essay is well-written and to the point. Still, you should use the final minutes to read your text once more, looking for mistakes in verb form or verb tense, spelling mistakes or wrong word order.
If you are writing a comment as an assignment to do at home, you may want to ask someone with a good knowledge of English to proof-read your text for language mistakes as well as content. Afterwards you will of course have to go back to your text, correct the mistakes and improve the content. | proof-reading |
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