How to Comment on a Text · Step 3
Learn how to build sentences that do real argumentative work — and develop a language toolbox you can actually use in your paragraphs.
In Step 1 and Step 2, you learned how a paragraph is built. In this step, you now focus more closely on the language inside that paragraph: how sentences connect ideas, explain meaning and guide the reader from one thought to the next.
Strong writing does not only depend on good ideas. It also depends on whether each sentence actually does something useful inside the paragraph.
This step helps you understand sentence function and build a practical toolbox of phrases for different moments in your argument.
Many weak paragraphs are not weak because the writer has no ideas. They are weak because the language does too little.
A sentence can name an idea, but it can also explain it, sharpen it, connect it to the previous sentence or show why it matters.
In strong comments, sentences do not simply sit next to each other. They work together and move the argument forward.
Strong writing is not about sounding complicated. It is about doing more work in each sentence.
The text shows a problem.
This sentence is not wrong. But it does very little for the reader. It does not say what the problem is, how the text presents it or why it matters.
The text shows the pressure young people experience on social media.
Now the reader understands more clearly what the issue is. But the sentence still mostly names the idea. It still does not explain the meaning behind it.
The text highlights the pressure young people experience on social media, which suggests that online platforms strongly influence self-image.
This sentence now does real argumentative work. It not only names the issue, but also interprets it and guides the reader towards a clearer understanding.
Strong sentences do not just state ideas. They develop them.
Better writing often does not begin with a completely new sentence. It begins by making your sentence more precise, more meaningful and more useful.
The text criticises social media.
The text criticises the pressure created by social media.
The text criticises the pressure created by social media, especially on young users.
The text criticises the pressure created by social media, especially on young users, which suggests that online platforms shape identity.
The text criticises the pressure created by social media, especially on young users, which suggests that online platforms play a central role in shaping identity and self-perception.
The sentence improves because each version does a little more. It becomes more precise, then more specific, then more interpretive. That is how stronger academic writing usually develops.
Do not learn phrases randomly. Learn them for the moment in which you need them.
You already have a point or an example — now you need to show what it means.
Use these when you move from evidence to interpretation.
You want the paragraph to feel connected instead of fragmented.
Use these when one thought grows logically out of the previous one.
You want your sentence to sound more precise and more focused.
Use these when you introduce or refine the point you want to develop.
You want your writing to sound more controlled and less simplistic.
Use these when you want to qualify a point instead of sounding too absolute.
Do not ask: Which phrase sounds advanced? Ask: What does my sentence need to do at this moment?
Use this check to see whether your sentences are beginning to do more than simply state ideas.
In the next step, you go one level further: you learn how strong your claims should sound and how to use hedging so that your writing becomes more balanced and intellectually credible.
Go to Step 4 →