This is the Commenting Tutorial from ~ Marcaisa. Any comments or should go to the actual deviation on her page.

~Marcaisa says: "This tutorial was inspired by *GoblinQueeen Tips to Critique on D.A. Her tutorial stands directed at visual arts, so I wrote one directed at language arts."

Literature Commenting Tutorial

Though it is always nice to hear someone comment on your writing with "That's lovely, I like it," it is far more helpful if they focus their comment more and explain to the writer what elements of the piece they liked and why. This way, the writer knows what people liked about their work and can refine their skills in those areas, thus becoming a more skilled writer overall.

It is also very constructive if you explain areas in which the writer needs improvement and why. This does not mean that you should be condescending and tear their work down, unless they have asked you specifically, of course. Remember that you are trying to help them, not hurt them. Instead of explaining that you think an area needs improvement, explain more thoroughly why you think the area needs improvement.

When you are commenting on, or analyzing a piece, if you will, you should keep in mind the different elements of writing. In your comment, discuss how well they carried out the following twenty elements:

1. Theme: The writer must be careful that their story has a theme, and it sticks to it. There has to be a focus of the plot, or something that the writing revolves around. Even in poetry, there should be a theme.

2. Interest: The writer has to add interest to the plot. This can just be something that draws the reader to it. The first few sentences must have a large amount of interest to catch the reader’s attention and hold them captive for the whole piece!

3. One tense: Make sure that the writing is in the same tense all the way through. If the events are happening in the past, be sure the writer uses their verbs in the past tense. If it is current, be sure that an active voice is used and that all the verbs are in the present tense. The same goes for the future. Any writing that switches tenses can be confusing.

4. Audience: When the writer writes his or her prose or poetry, they should be keeping in mind their audience. They should focus on a certain age group or people with certain beliefs and write for them. They will write about topics that interest these certain groups of people, and have to be careful to maintain that throughout the piece. If they forget their audience, you, as the reader, should remind them to concentrate on that as well.

5. Structure: The writer should be sure that their piece has a beginning, middle and end. The reader should also be able to tell easily what these three parts are.

6. Character Development: The writer should embellish on heir characters. They should drop hints about the characters’ personalities and situations. It is best if these hints are unobvious, but it is acceptable for them to be blunt as well.

7. Dialogue: Dialogue should read naturally. When the writer writes it, they should be keeping in mind their characters’ personality and nationality. It should flow like a conversation between two people, as they would normally talk. To test if the writer made a good job of the dialogue, do a little role-playing. Put yourself in the character’s position and read the conversation aloud. Does it seem fitting of that character?

8. Spelling: Spelling is always something that the writer should be careful of, but if there are mistakes or typos they miss, point it out to them. There are many commonly misspelled words, such as beginning, tomorrow, disappoint, tries, and accidentally. One thing to keep in mind is the spelling of homonyms. Words such as to and too, as well as there, their, and they’re are commonly mixed up. Watch out for those errors!

9. Grammar: Almost nothing is harder to read than a grammatically incorrect piece of writing. Check over their grammar carefully, and trust that it is well worth the nitpicking.

10. Completion of Thoughts: You, as the reader, should watch for places in the writing where a thought is brought up and dropped immediately afterwards. The writer should embellish each thought unless it is short solely for effect.

11. Sentence Length and Line Division: In prose, sentences should be no more than two lines of normally sized typed script. If they are any longer, they tend to lose their focus. It is often best if the writing contains sentences of various lengths throughout it. The writer can achieve strong flow and effect if the sentence lengths of their piece are scrambled. For example: long, short, long, medium, short, medium, long . In poetry and prose, division of lines and paragraphs is commonly used either too often or not often enough. Each new paragraph should be a new thought, and the same goes for stanzas in poetry.

12. Wordiness: The writer should try to omit extra wordiness. Adjectives and adverbs are fine, but check for unwanted prepositions and such. For example: there is no doubt but that could just as easily be doubtless or no doubt.

13. Detail: To make the piece more effective overall, the writer should include numerous details. Detail such as explaining what characters hear, see, feel, taste, and smell can prove incredibly helpful to pull the reader into the reading.

14. Imagery: When reading a piece of writing, whether poetry or prose, you should be able to set yourself in the characters' places. If the writer's use of language is good enough, the portrayal of the setting should be strong. This can include things such as time, place, and atmosphere; which is close to place, but not quite the same.

15. Use of Language: Check that the words and phrases are used correctly. Often, writers will write one word that does not make a whole lot of sense, and another word would fit perfectly. Keep your eyes peeled! If the writer always chooses words that fit perfectly, you should compliment them for their use of language.

16. Flow: Flow is also of large importance to writing. For the most part, if writing does not flow it is not as enjoyable to read, as it would be, did it flow. An example of writing something without flow would be “a apple,” which happens not to be grammatically correct either. You will notice that when you try to read it aloud, it is quite hard to say and the reader inserts a pause where there need not be one. It should be evident when the writing lacks flow.

17. Rhythm: Rhythm has considerable significance to writing, especially poetry. For example, if each line in a poem had completely different and random lengths, but the ending words of each rhymed, it would be not only hard to read, but it might make little sense.

18. Emphasis: If certain words or ideas are emphasized more than others are, it can add notably higher effect to the overall piece. Be sure, though, that the emphasis is not overused.

19. Effect: Throughout the piece, the writer should be writing each sentence as effectively as they can. They should choose every word, phrase, and idea carefully and arrange them well to create maximum effect.

20. Conclusion: The conclusion should be the strongest part of the piece with the most concentrated meaning and effect. The key is to write the story until it is over, and then stop. Do not build on the conclusion needlessly.

When you are commenting on a piece, you should remember to type it kindly and politely. There is not much worse than a terribly blunt analysis directed at work that the writer is proud of. For every constructive criticism you give, be sure to drop in something positive about it. Focus on the areas needing improvement equally as much as the areas that they are strong in. It also would be nice to have a couple more positive points than constructive. Remember that you are trying to help them.

In the comment, be sure to include points about their style, and not just their technical skill.

One thing I have noticed about Deviant Art is that people with drop a comment like, “I like it, you should check out my gallery.” Not only is their comment incredibly brief, but all they were doing was trying to get some more views. This could be their lack of courtesy or their ignorance. If people drop comments like that on your work, insist on them explaining why they liked it. You will not be the only one to benefit from it.

Good luck with commenting and receiving comments in the future, near or far!