How to Write a Commentary for IB Language and Literature Paper 1

Many students, both HL and SL, come to Lanterna for help with Paper 1, the unseen part of the IB English A: Language and Literature course. This guide covers the most common concerns and gives you a reliable method for writing a high-scoring guided textual analysis, the official name for the Paper 1 commentary.

A lot of older Paper 1 advice is out of date. Under the current syllabus (first assessed in 2021), Higher Level students no longer compare two texts, and the assessment criteria have changed. Everything below reflects the current format.

What Paper 1 looks like now

In the exam you are given two unseen non-literary texts, usually of different text types. Each comes with a guiding question. Texts can be anything from an opinion column, speech or interview to an advert, infographic, web page, brochure or political cartoon, and many of them combine words with images.

• Standard Level: choose one of the two texts and write one analysis. 1 hour 15 minutes, 20 marks, 35% of your final grade.
• Higher Level: write a separate analysis of each text. 2 hours 15 minutes, 40 marks (20 per analysis), 35% of your final grade. You do not compare the two texts.

The guiding question is there to help you into the text, and it is not compulsory. You can answer it directly or follow your own line of analysis. Examiners reward the quality of your analysis, not whether you followed the prompt.

The assessment criteria

Every Paper 1 response, at SL and HL alike, is marked against the same four criteria, each worth 5 marks. It is very important to understand them before you think about how to structure your analysis.

Criterion A – Understanding and interpretation

Examiners want an understanding of what the text reveals and what can be inferred from it, supported by references to the text. Top marks go to a detailed, insightful grasp of the surface meaning together with a convincing and nuanced inferential understanding, backed by well-selected evidence. Show this from the very start of your analysis: it should be the first thing you work out when you read the text.

Criterion B – Analysis and evaluation

This is about how language, style and structure construct meaning, and your ability to evaluate the writer’s choices. Avoid describing what the text says. Explain how specific techniques (including visual features such as images, layout, typography and colour) shape meaning and affect the intended audience, and judge how effective they are.

Criterion C – Focus and organization

Your ideas need to be organised in a coherent, focused way. Avoid a line-by-line approach. Instead, organise your paragraphs around a clear central argument and the key features of the text.

Criterion D – Language

Write with clarity, accuracy and variety, in an appropriate academic register, using relevant terminology where it helps. Avoid slang, and keep your quotations short and well embedded in your own sentences.

How to write a Paper 1 analysis in 14 steps

These steps are timed for a 75-minute Standard Level paper. At Higher Level, follow the same process twice: once for each text (see the HL section below).

1. Read both texts and their guiding questions, then decide which one to write about. Practise many text types (articles, adverts, speeches, infographics, travel writing and so on) so you are comfortable with all of them. Pick the text you can say the most about in an intelligent way. Spend no more than 5 minutes on this decision.
2. Give your chosen text an initial reading and identify its overall message. Useful questions to ask: What is the essence of the text? What is the writer trying to achieve, and for whom? What is its central emotional effect? What can you infer about its context, audience and purpose?
3. Read the guiding question carefully. It usually points to a technical or formal feature, such as tone, visual elements or structure. Use it as a starting point, but don’t feel limited by it.
4. Form a thesis statement: one sentence that states your exact interpretation of the text. Think of this as the what of your analysis.
5. Go back over the text and ask: how is the writer achieving this? Don’t just spot features at random. Consider how language and visual choices serve the text’s central purpose. Annotate thoroughly, looking for as many techniques as you can that support your thesis.
6. After this close reading, you should have three or four main areas of analysis. Choose the strongest three, select a few quotations or visual details for each, and give each area a precise label, e.g. sensationalist diction, juxtaposed imagery or fragmented structure.
7. Now write out your full thesis statement. For example: ‘Through biting satire, the columnist ridicules a political leader’s empty promises, achieving this through dark humour, recurring linguistic motifs and a deceptively simple structure.’ A strong thesis combines your overall interpretation with the three areas you will analyse.
8. Plan your three body paragraphs. Where possible, draw evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text to show how a technique develops across it. For each piece of evidence, note a few words that will prompt you to analyse its language directly and evaluate its effect.
9. Plan linking sentences between paragraphs instead of starting each one with ‘Another aspect of the text is…’. Good links make your analysis feel like one argument rather than a list, which is exactly what Criterion C rewards.
10. Keep your planning tight: about 15–20 minutes in total for steps 2–9 leaves you around 50 minutes to write. A clear plan means you write more fluently and waste less time.
11. Open with a brief introduction: a sentence or two on the text’s type, context, audience and purpose, then your thesis statement, and then the three areas you will explore, described with precise labels.
12. Write each body paragraph like a mini-essay. Its opening sentence makes a claim about how meaning is built, and each quotation or visual detail illustrates that claim. Analyse the specific language and evaluate its effect on the audience, always linking back to your thesis.
13. Throughout the analysis, quote often but briefly, so you have room to unpack the techniques in detail. Remember that layout, images and typography count as evidence too.
14. Keep your conclusion short. Add one final insight that the analysis has opened up, perhaps a subtlety you only noticed while writing, briefly recap your main areas, and end by returning to your thesis.

The more you practise, the more comfortable you will be writing four or five body paragraphs. That is absolutely fine, and the same method still applies.

Higher Level

At HL, Paper 1 is a test of consistency and time management. You write two separate, self-contained analyses, one for each text, and each is marked independently out of 20 against the same four criteria. There is no comparison: comparing the texts earns no extra credit and uses up time you need for analysis.

1. Split your time evenly. With 2 hours 15 minutes, aim for roughly 65 minutes per text, plus a few minutes at the start to read both. Overrunning on the first analysis directly limits the marks you can earn on the second.
2. Run the full method for each text. Each analysis needs its own introduction, thesis statement, organised body paragraphs and conclusion. Don’t treat the second one as a shorter add-on.
3. Expect variety. The two texts are usually different text types (for example, a speech and an advert), so be ready to analyse visual and multimodal features as confidently as written language.
4. Use the guiding questions, then go further. It can be tempting to echo the guiding question in your thesis (‘this is achieved through the use of tone’), but that is imprecise. Specify how the feature works, e.g. ‘a sardonic, conspiratorial tone’.
5. Infer context and audience. Use the source information, the content and your own knowledge to work out who the text is for, then evaluate how its techniques are designed to affect that audience.
6. Stay grounded in the text. In both analyses, keep quoting directly and analysing the language closely. Avoid drifting into general discussion of the topic.