We looked above at how a paragraph might be structured with a point, elaboration, evidence, comment, and conclusion.

You needn’t see this as a rigid rule for paragraphing but more of a guide to the parts that should be included somewhere in your paragraph as you write.

That fourth segment - the comment - is really important. It is in here where you show your own thinking.

This section of the module will focus on this comment section. What does it mean to comment? What sort of thing could you do in this part of the paragraph?

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You have made a point. You have introduced some evidence to support your point – a reference to a journal article, a book chapter, or a report – and now you need to comment. Students sometimes find this tricky. What does it mean to comment?

The comment is the part of the paragraph where you comment on the evidence that you have introduced. How does this piece of evidence support the point you are making, and support your overall argument? It is here where you can really show off your thinking and demonstrate that you can read, think and write critically.

There are lots of different types of comment. We’ll look at a few of them here.

Say something evaluative

You will often see the word ‘evaluate’ or ‘evaluative’ in a mark scheme. To evaluate simply means to say how good something is. If you are going to evaluate the evidence then you are saying how good it is. You are commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of the article/chapter/report that you have read. Students sometimes think that critical reading means saying what is bad about something. Certainly, this might be a part of being critical. But you will likely want to also evaluate things positively, saying what is good about them. So, you might introduce your evidence and then, in your comment section of the paragraph, talk about why that evidence is useful or valuable. These simple words ‘useful’ and ‘valuable’ can be helpful in indicating to the reader that you are being evaluative.

You might say..

This research is valuable because…

This study has been influential because…

This argument is interesting because…

This represents a useful example because …

Say something analytical

To analyse is to look carefully at something in order to offer an interpretation. You could try to look closely at one aspect of the evidence that you have introduced. You might have heard this phrase:

‘It is better to say a lot about a little rather than a little about a lot’.

This is true in essays. It means that you can do a few things well rather than trying to write about everything on a topic. With analysis, it can be nice to choose a few details to focus on. You might comment on a particular point that is made by an author, a method that has been adopted, or a statistic that features in a report. You might want to comment on a word or phrase that the author has used that you find to be telling in some way. What does the phrasing reveal about their position? Can you interpret or explain something that is interesting and relevant to the point that you are making and the overall argument that you are building?

Students are sometimes advised not to quote but to paraphrase instead. This guidance might come from a concern that long quotations will leave no room for thoughtful commentary. In some disciplines, however, a short quotation can work well, and allow you to demonstrate some thoughtful analysis. Why have you picked out that quotation? What does it reveal? What light can you shed on the example?

Make a connection

Another way to comment is to make a connection. This could be a connection between the evidence that you have introduced and some other piece of evidence.

You might want to compare the evidence with something which is similar or to compare the evidence with a piece of research which is saying something different. You’ll want to think about the overall argument you’re trying to build to decide what to discuss.

These sentence starts might be useful for pointing to similar examples.

This aligns with …

Something similar can be seen in …

This is also borne out on the literature on …

Andrews’ (2009) research sheds light on this …

Yang (2001) offers a way of examining this …

These sentence starts might be useful for pointing to contrasting examples.

This departs from Yang (2020) …

Something different can be seen in the work of …

By contrast, Andrews (2009) argues that …

Another theoretical lens brings a different perspective on this ...

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In short, the comment section should say something thoughtful about the evidence that you have introduced. A thoughtful comment often goes beyond just describing the article or report that you have read and instead says something evaluative, analytical or connection making.