How to Write a Commentary
A. Course Requirement I: Weekly Commentaries
For each article, book, chapter, or excerpt write a few paragraphs indicating 1) briefly, the general theme or message of the work, or what in essence the work is about or what it is trying to say or argue for; 2) description of the overall content, the main sections, the concepts or notions covered, the style of writing, the level of documentation, the geographical or cultural scope, focus, type of analysis and so on; and 3) an analytical and contextual assessment of the work, primarily to show which school of thought, historical background, disciplinary and ideological orientation it is coming from. Write a minimum of half a page and a maximum of two pages per entry. Commentary should be type-written and double-spaced.
B. Some Hints Regarding the Commentaries on the Readings for History of Ethnomusicology as outlined by Prof. A.J. Racy
The following suggestions are based on experience with papers written for this and other courses. They
may or may not all apply to your own work. Also, this is merely a selected list of pointers and not a
comprehensive collection of rules. Hopefully it will be of help.
1. Writing Style
Present a coherent synthesis, rather than an accumulation of detached ideas and themes. Try to be brief and informative and present you commentaries in an organic and digested form, rather than type your sketchy notes in the order they were taken. Try to be creative.
Use simple and direct style. Try to present your ideas in a straightforward and clear manner.
Avoid long and cumbersome sentences in favor of effective communication. Pretend that you are writing for others who do not necessarily know you or know the material you are writing about.
Use your own language and keep quotes to a minimum. Try to avoid lists and outlines in favor of explanatory narrative. Write full sentences with as few “i.e.s, e.g.s, etc.s” as possible.
2. Presenting the Main Arguments
Start with a good topic sentence, one that encompasses the overall background and message of the work. That way the abstract would start on a strong and well-directed track, thus leading to more detailed illustrations and elaborations.
Zero in on the main and most important point or points in the most simple and direct fashion.
Be succinct and avoid filling up the pages with incidental paraphrases and restatements of less
central notions.
Do not skip the key concepts and aims of the work because you thought they were too obvious or too basic to bother with. In this case, use the weekly subheadings as clues and try to incorporate them when applicable into your narrative.
Present your overall project like a well-connected sequence of events, a good story with related episodes. The reader of the various abstracts/commentaries must feel that they are sequentially connected, for example orientations leading to others, trends followed by counter trends, and the like. In other words, always place the work in some historical or intellectual context. Often, the aim of the reading is not so much the quantitative accumulation of musical facts and details as such, but rather learning about the nature and development of the discipline, and cultivating our own analytical and critical skills as scholars. When reading you may ask yourself: a) where does this work fit historically? b) how does it represent the period to which it belongs? c) in what way does it complement other contributions or explore new territories?; and d) what does it tell us about the field and its proponents? Incorporate the answers in your commentaries.
3. The Critical Approach
Focus your critiques or assessments upon the main and most important arguments in the work, not just on incidental or side issues or on matters of excessive detail. Above all, you have to be fair to the work and its overall messages and orientation.
Critiquing is a way of explaining what the work is about and where it is coming from. Basically, it is difficult to draw a clear line between critiquing and simply analyzing the work. Similarly, it is virtually impossible to critique a work if you do not understand the fundamental arguments and conclusions of the author. If you do not develop a sense of why a work was assigned and what it stands for, your critique will most likely miss the target.
Your critical assessment does not necessarily mean voicing negative criticism or harsh value judgments.Terse, cynical, and angry reviews tend to reflect on you and your attitude before anything else. Also, remember that you are assessing ideas, trends, movements, and intellectual views, not authors as individual human beings. Many authors probably no longer believe what they wrote some twenty or thirty years earlier. In a sense, we a re applying our own biases when we talk about theirs. Courtesy, decency, fairness, and intellectual substance enhance rather than impede a successful and interesting critique.
4. When to Write the Commentaries
Do the commentaries during the assigned reading times. Do not leave the work to the later part of the quarter. By writing them on time, you may have the material fresh in your mind and will have more time to check on specific problems or issues related to the specific works.
Many good points about the readings are covered in the class lectures and come up in the class discussions. Furthermore, the main orientation of the work tends to become clearer in the course. Therefore, you may revise your draft of an individual work right after the class when it was discussed and once again later during the quarter.
Obviously, it is essential to take notes in class and to keep track of the various ideas that come up regarding the material.
5. Feedback
In order to find out how effective or communicative your writing is, you may ask a friend to read your work and to tell you what and how much they understood. Also, you are always encouraged to discuss your ideas individually with the instructor. Feel free to show a sample work earlier in the quarter so that you have time to incorporate some ideas and suggestions.