Need this before 1200hrs CET time
MENTION EUROPEENNE
DOCUMENT COMMENTARY - METHODOLOGY
WHAT IS A DOCUMENT COMMENTARY ?
Commenting on a text consists in trying to explain the effect produced on the reader by this text.
A text produces a certain meaning, which causes the reader to think : the aim is therefore to show how and for what purpose it has been constructed.
Basically, commenting is to highlight and put into context, mainly historical, the text.
You need to be careful because with the commentary, the main pitfall (écueil) is to lapse into paraphrase, repeating the apparent or manifest contents of the text without trying to understand how the text tells the reader something more than what seemed obvious at first sight.
To avoid the paraphrase, you need to do several things…
PRELIMINARY WORK
Identify the material you are working on (written sources, primary sources, secondary sources…) ex : official document/private document, a treaty, an Act, a Bill, a report, a speech, an essay, a memoir, memoirs, newspaper article, magazine article, a play…
Number the lines of the text 5 to 5 to make quoting easier
Read the text several times (x 4, 5). Take notes of your impressions, interpretations in disorder… Look for the vocabulary you don’t understand.
Take notes of :
The origin of the document (country, institution, private)
The date of publication
The name of the author (known, unknown)
Pick out anything which will need to be explained later on
Dates (the historical context of a text is essential to its understanding)
Proper nouns, names of places, acronyms of national or international organisations (sigles d’institutions)
Concepts or key words belonging to the discourse of the time as well as historical, political and cultural references
The title. It can be original or given by the publisher. You need to point that out. Most of the time it’s conventional and doesn’t give key about the document.
Distinguish clearly between the information given and the comments or the interpretation of the author. A text is always a point of view. It is not neutral.
This work needs to be done so you can understand why the author uses such or such an argument. It also enables you to spot, underline, point out the omission of the author, the distorsion of the reality, deliberate or not.
Nota Bene : No text ever is really objective, neutral or transparent. Every text shares in an ideology, a culture, values.
Avoid value-judgment
PROBLEMATIC
After all this work, you should be able to see the problematic of the text and to distinguish 2 or 3 parts or main topics. A problematic put into perspective the document within the context.
PRESENTING THE DOCUMENT
Introduction
Origin and nature of the document
What paper or what book was it taken from ? Was it produced by an official body, an institution or an individual ? Does it come from a private or a public collection ? Is it an extract or a full document ?
Specify the nature or the status of the document to be studied : is the document private or public ? Anonymous or collective ? What is it we are dealing with ?
Ex : A speech, an interview, a newspaper article, a pamphlet, memoirs, a travel diary , a constitution, the text of an act, a treaty
Nature helps to define what you have to deal with for the analysis
Ex : journal article wants to convince, speech to persuade, laws act to forbid or state rules, contracts fix rights and do, private letter.
Who is speaking ? Where from ? To whom ? At what precise time ?
Specify the status of the person who is writing. Is he/she a public figure, an ordinary citizen ; is it a group. Specify the sex, the age, the social position. Sometimes, in some text, you have no author. Don’t be afraid to say it. Don’t avoid that fact and try to explain.
Who does the author address and for what purpose ? To convince, intimidate, entertain ; to define new rules ? Any text or document has a bias (parti-pris). Every author is caught in the mesh (maille) of a certain culture, certain ideology.
If the author is famous like king’s etc, what you need to do is a brief description of him in the context. Careful not to do a whole biography ! If not famous, go to look in encyclopedias and mentioned if you can date of birth, career, responsibilities, activities, writings, circumstances of the text if possible.
Should a few biographical indications be necessary to understand at what stage in his itinerary, the author is (political, intellectual, emotional, artistic) only in order to throw some light on the text.
Date of publication: if some chronological data are needed to explain why that particular document was produced at particular moment in time, they should be kept very short. The context should also be given briefly, and only the main features indicated (a political crisis, a war, a famine, the celebration of a victory etc). If the text plays on the distance in time between the date of the event and the date of the publication of the text, you should point this out and explain in what way the time-lag can reorientate the nature of the commentary. The introduction has one aim only : specify what is strictly necessary to identify and to read the text in an intelligent way. It should take 10 minutes of your commentary.
COMMENTARY
It can be organized around two or three main ideas of the text. Title it and subtitle it.
Inside each part, reconstruct the development of ideas of the author, which does not mean repeat what he says but explain how he moves from one idea to the next, why he uses such or such an argument, why he leaves out such or such an aspect of reality, why he chooses such or such a language standard, type of discourse rather than any other.
Use the preliminary work for that : study the keywords, clarify the allusions, analyse the rhetoric, images, metaphors, symbols which can be here to produce a certain effect on a certain audience. Gather all together the elements scattered (épars) throughout the text which are linked to the same occupation or questioning.
Inside each part, explain the details, show how and why the author reasons and writes as he does.
Careful not to start describing the doc and then explain what history out of the text. You must stick to it. You can use the quotation for that.
Silence can be commented but carefully ! It should be about what is going on and not what will happened.
CONCLUSION
If you have the problematic and the introduction, the conclusion should come on its own. It should answer the following questions : where does the interest (or lack of interest) of this document reside ? What constitutes its originality ? This document had an aim (objectif). Has this aim been achieved ? How ? Why not ?
The conclucion should describe the line of argument of the document and its significance.
Conclude on the quality, internal coherence of the text. Is it useful, serious, incomplete, tendentious ? Is it representative of the institution, paper that published it, of the atmosphere of the period, of the culture of the time ? is it on the contrary atypical, marginal, premonitory.
What place should be given to this document within a long term historical perspective ? Has it provided the mould (matrice) for a mode of thought or a tradition still in existence in the country or the culture being considered? If such is the case, if it seems useful to compare it with contemporary events in order to describe better the lasting significance of the text studied, but careful not to overshadow (occulter) the specificity of the document which you had to study.
Never judge a text in conclusion out of its context.
Vocabulary
To begin with :
First/in the first place/first of all/to begin with/to start with
Regarding
To describe the document :
Firstly, secondly, next, lastly/finally
The author points out that
The author’s thesis is
To argue/to explain :
They are different explanations as to why/how/what/when
One explanation is that
The evidence for this is…
An alternative explanation is…
This explanation is based on…
Of the alternative explanations I think the most likely is…
The evidence of the author gives to support the thesis is…
In fact/for example/for instance…
To confront point of view :
On the one hand… on the other hand…
In spite of this…
Admitted/nevertheless/however…
Verbs :
To show, to illustrate, to reveal, to explain, to point out, to indicate
To interpret all kinds of documents :
We can conclude that…
It’s obvious that…/it appear clearly that…
We may notice/observe that…/It may be noticed that…*
All this tends to prove/show that
To criticize :
The author is prejudiced against
The argument is open to criticism because
Actually/in fact
The truth of the matter is
To conclude :
To conclude/As a conclusion
To sum up/to summarize
All in all/on the whole
