"To know what is a commentary essay is the essential skill not only for students, teachers, editors but life in general" - says our editor Mike, who provides dissertation writing services. Critical thinking, the strength to communicate clearly are always increasingly requested. It makes you the king of the situation. It is essential to be able to express your commentary on a subject or person in such a way as to show your erudition, humanity, understanding of the situation.

Writing a commentary essay serves as an enhancement mechanism in the process of critical thinking. Do not expect to discover the magic formula for a commentary essay. The easiest way is to plunge deeply into a subject as much as possible and to express your own thoughts, supplemented by strong supporting or opposite arguments, and, accordingly, make some conclusions.

If you bypass these tasks in another way — do not expect fast results! So let's take a look at how to properly do writing a commentary essay while not wasting time and thus improving yourself.

A Commentary Essay Definition Which Is Obligatory to Know

The commentary essay definition is not as complicated as it seems. That is the genre of academic writing, which consists of a representation of feedback in the form of thoughts to confirm the understanding of the learned material for students. The main components of this kind of essay are critical statements based on objective and subjective arguments. A commentary essay focuses on your thoughts, but not on you.

The definition of a commentary essay can be better understood by the following varieties: Personal Commentary about cases from own experience and Social Commentary concerning works of art or large-scale events. In both cases, it is necessary to pre-analyze the topic or to make additional research of literature about the work that you are to comment on.

Commentary essays are based exclusively on sound judgments and evidence in order to convince the reader. The subject of the essay, containing a controversial nature, can interest more. In the central part of writing, you must express all the pros and cons, analyze all possible points of view and "make the final conviction" — highlight what you think is more important.

How to Do a Commentary Essay in the Simplest and Most Effective Way

To understand how to do a commentary essay, you must first learn how to formulate your thoughts correctly. That is a prerequisite, without which further work is impossible. However, you can learn this with the help of the following techniques of the formulation of thought:

• Sometimes external, distraction or disturbing factors interfere with the idea formulation. Do not pay attention and do not get stuck in the external environment.
• Often the problem of formulating thoughts is a misunderstanding. It is necessary to understand what you are going to say clearly.
• When conveying your ideas, focus on the main thing you want to convey. Avoid verbiage and excessive talkativeness.
• Hope for understanding from hints leads to a misunderstanding. Formulate your thoughts clearly, do not expect your interlocutor to guess what you want to say necessarily.

After you think about the main issue in a right way, you will immediately want to take the ink into your hand and pour all thoughts on paper. From now on, you need to write a commentary essay using the following algorithm:

• Focus on your audience. For whom are you writing this and why?
• Define the main thesis statement of the work, and this should be your main idea or argument, which you will later refute or confirm.
• Structure. A commentary essay is a kind of common essay, so it should have a clear structure. Accordingly, the text should have an introduction, the main body that includes both sides of your argument, and an expanded conclusion.
• The main body. Here you have to give all the arguments. First, describe the general attitude to the topic and provide confirmation of this. Therefore, use the method of rejection and try to go the opposite way and write the antithesis. Remember, each thesis must have several arguments-confirmations.
• Write formally. Do not use such reduction as "don’t, we’ll, won’t, we’re" — these statements should be complete — do not, we will, will not, we are; use introductory words, for example: First of all, However, Therefore; do not use spoken vocabulary.

Checklist for a Commentary Essay

Check all the items after writing a commentary essay, it will improve your result and will protect you from bad mistakes:

• Is your topic controversial?
• Does your work contain a reasoned thesis?
• Did you use the antithesis?
• Did you complete your thesis with confirmations?
• Were you honest in expressing your thoughts?
• Are your arguments logically formulated?
• Is there background information on what you describe?
• Are you interested in reading what you wrote?

Now, you know what is a commentary essay and how to deal with this assignment successfully. Hope that our guidelines will help you in maintaining your academic performance on the highest level!