Writing the Commentary

The commentary is a 750-word piece that accompanies your original writing. It is not a separate, optional extra — it is an assessed component worth a significant portion of your original writing marks. The commentary is where you demonstrate that your creative choices were deliberate and linguistically informed, not accidental. Many students lose marks unnecessarily on the commentary because they treat it as a simple description of what they wrote. In reality, the commentary requires analytical, metalinguistic writing of the same quality as your language investigation.

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The Purpose of the Commentary

The commentary serves three main purposes:

1. To explain your creative choices using linguistic terminology — you must show that you understand the language features you have used and can label them accurately
2. To link your choices to your style model — demonstrating that you have studied a published text and used it to inform your own writing
3. To reflect on audience, purpose, and genre — showing that you understand how these contextual factors shaped your writing