Responding to a non-fiction text - EduqasWriting the main body

Use each paragraph to make one main point. A paragraph should contain:

• a link to the previous idea
• a statement of the main point in this paragraph
• some evidence from the text to support what you think. This will probably include something on structure and/or language
• a discussion of the quotations, and links to any other possible evidence
• a link back to the question, or to the next point

Start each paragraph with a link to the question, and the point which came immediately before. This way you are able to make a chain between your different paragraphs. Connectives help to show the relationship between them:

• Firstly...
• Secondly...
• On the one hand....
• On the other hand...
• Similarly...
• In contrast...
• However...
• Alternatively…
• Finally…

Example

To use Charlie Brooker’s MasterChef article as an example, a student could begin to support their initial opinion by commenting on how the writer’s methods are effective.

The question is:

How successful is Charlie Brooker at persuading us to his point of view on the television show MasterChef?

Have you seen MasterChef? Of course you have, even if you've been trying to avoid it, because it's always there, like the sky or the ground or that skin you're in. MasterChef dominates the schedules like a slow-moving weather system dictating the climate. Your TV's stuck on MasterChef mode. It's not even a TV these days, more a MasterChef display unit. Cooking doesn't get more omnipresent than this.

Masterchef is the best television show in broadcasting history, if you ignore all the other ones, Charlie Brooker (2014)

In their introduction, the student summarised their overall opinion:

Charlie Brooker is successful at persuading the reader that ‘MasterChef’ has taken over television – and is not to everyone’s taste. He does this through establishing a heavily sarcastic and exaggerated tone.

The main body could include points such as:

• Brooker addresses the reader directly with a rhetorical question, “Have you seen MasterChef?” The immediate statement, “Of course you have, even if you’ve been trying to avoid it” implies that you might want to “avoid it” but can’t.
• He uses the rule of three, “like the sky or the ground or that skin you’re in” to emphasise how impossible it is to escape watching MasterChef.
• The simile “like a slow-moving weather system” makes the reader imagine an uncomfortable atmosphere that traps you, like humidity or dark clouds.
• His metaphor suggesting that a TV is “more a MasterChef display unit” exaggerates his point and suggests that nothing else is ever shown.
• The verb “dominates” and adjective “omnipresent” (present everywhere) imply that MasterChef is forceful and inescapable.

All of these points, support the view that Brooker is successful in persuading us that MasterChef is not “the best television show in broadcasting history”.