#03 How to Format your Comments

ProjectComment is a Group of many projects centred around comments, but, more importantly, constructive comments. Every week, one admin from ProjectComment will write an informative article on commenting that will hopefully be useful to you! Please help support us by the article and contribute your thoughts and opinions on the matter.


This article aims to show you how to format your constructive comments, and why you should format them in the first place. 'Formatting' in this case means making your comment more readable with a few simple steps.
Many of us simply write down the good and bad things we notice about an artwork, along with ways to improve the bad ones, which can lead to a unstructurized outcome, which makes understanding the comment and following the advice given harder.

Why should I format my comments?

Clarity and legibility. A wall of text is much harder to read and comprehend than a well-structured text. Just think of having to read a page full of justified text without line breaks or paragraphs. So, the person you wrote the comment for will have an easier time.

It's useful for you as well, since having a structure for what you want to write helps you actually writing it. You're not writing an essay of course, but the same things helping you to write a good essay can help you with writing a good constructive comment. Organising your ideas and thoughts is one of them.

A well-formatted comment has the added bonus of looking better than a wall of text, at least in my opinion.

How can I format my comments?

If you use the 'sandwich method' to comment, you can easily insert a line break between your points. It's the same if you decide to follow the steps of 3wyl 's great article here. Working that way already provides you with a solid structure, so you can use line breaks to emphasise that structure. The same goes for your own commenting techniques of course.

If you're writing a more detailed constructive comment you might want to insert breaks inbetween your main points, or maybe group everything you like about the work, things you think could be improved and how to improve them into paragraphs.

Concerning quotes (literature pieces): Make sure you label them as such, e.g. through italicising the quote for example.

You can also use bold and italics if you want to emphasise a certain point.

An Example

Let's take a look at the following example.

This already is a good comment, stating things the commenter liked and things the commenter felt could be improved at the same time.

"This is a very interesting painting! I love the earthy shades of the girl contrasting with the colourful lights in the background, it creates a lovely atmosphere. I also think that the shading is very well done overall, although it's still a little unrefined in certain areas, like her hair for example, but I guess that's because this is not a finished piece of work. If you do intend to finish it I think it would be best to work on the hair some more, as well as refining her features a little more. Right now the whole picture looks a little blurry, since the shading lacks sharper lines and a clear focal point. Other than that it's a good piece already, and I'd love to see a finished version, as I'm sure that would be even better!"


Now, to make the comment more readable:

"This is a very interesting painting! I love the earthy shades of the girl contrasting with the colourful lights in the background, it creates a lovely atmosphere. [insert line break (1)] I also think that the shading is very well done overall, although it's still a little unrefined in certain areas, like her hair for example, but I guess that's because this is not a finished piece of work. [insert line break (2)] If you do intend to finish it I think it would be best to work on the hair some more, as well as refining her features a little more. Right now the whole picture looks a little blurry, since the shading lacks sharper lines and a clear focal point. [insert line break, change order of sentences (3)] Other than that it's a good piece already, and I'd love to see a finished version, as I'm sure that would be even better!"

(1) I inserted a line break here, because that is the end of the first positive statement.
(2) Another line break, because we're coming to the 'things to improve' section of the comment.
(3) Last line break, because we finished with our 'to improve' section, but still want to say something to encourage the artist. I also changed the order of the two sentences before the line break, as I felt it would work better that way around.


Leading us to this:

"This is a very interesting painting! I love the earthy shades of the girl contrasting with the colourful lights in the background, it creates a lovely atmosphere.
I also think that the shading is very well done overall, although it's still a little unrefined in certain areas, like her hair for example, but I guess that's because this is not a finished piece of work.
Because of that the whole picture looks a little blurry, since the shading lacks sharper lines and a clear focal point. So, if you do intend to finish it I think it would be best to work on that, especially concerning the hair and her features.
Other than that it's a good piece already, and I'd love to see a finished version, as I'm sure that would be even better!"


And that was that! Formatting your constructive comments (especially long ones) can make reading and writing them a lot easier.



Keep watch of ProjectComment to find out more ways to help your commenting!

Riemea, posting on behalf of ProjectComment