Q&A for How to Write a Literary Commentary

A commentary includes opinions or explanations about a subject. For example, you may be given a passage and told to confidently share your thoughts on how the writer expresses his theme using literary devices. On the other hand, an essay is a short piece of writing on a particular subject in which you do not share your own personal thoughts, only facts gathered through research.

Comment on the overall quality of the game (it helps to give it a rating), discuss the story line, graphics, performance, sound and visuals, etc. Is it fun, addictive, too hard/easy?

One should write in first person point of view, as the reader wants your experience and thoughts of the passage that was given to you.

A comment is basically any feedback on a given work, ranging from "I liked this" to a complete paragraph. A critique is an educated and well-formulated opinion, whether negative or positive, that is intended for the writer to actually learn from or gain insight.

A literary device in any technique that is not explicitly described in the words of the text; for example, a tension arc, where you take time to build up the tension before an event to get the most satisfaction out of its resolution. Compare it to wanting ice cream. If you get ice cream as soon as you say "I want ice cream", the satisfaction is small, because it's fun to let it grow a bit first. But if takes three months before you finally get ice cream, then getting it is no longer enough to cover those three months. And there's another example of a literary device: the comparison.

It depends upon the level of analysis and the purpose of the commentary. For high school, it tends to be around 1200 words.