How to analyse opinion pieces

If you’re writing about an opinion piece for Paper 1, or if you’re commenting on a collection
of pieces for your individual oral, you may want to organise your body paragraphs around
these major stylistic features. Consider the questions listed below. Analyse how these
features contribute to the opinion piece’s purpose: to inform and persuade readers. Note
that these lists of questions are neither exhaustive nor prescriptive. Depending on the
opinion piece, your body paragraphs may be organised around different features.

Example thesis statement: “Through the use of diction, structure and point of view, the
opinion piece persuades readers to X.”

Diction
● Humour: In what ways does the writer’s choice of words make readers laugh?
● Figurative language: How does figurative language, such as metaphors, imagery
and irony, make the reader engage with the writer’s argument?
● Bias: How does the writer’s choice of words show bias toward a particular ideology?
● Pathos (and emotive language): How does the language of the piece evoke an
emotional response from the reader?

Structure
● Title: How does the piece’s title capture the writer’s argument?
● Image/photograph: How do images or photographs work together with the language
of the piece to comment critically on events or people?
● References: To what ends does the piece refer to current affairs and quote
individuals?
● Logos: How does the structure of the piece appeal to the reader’s sense of logic and
construct an argument coherently?
● Sentence length: To what effect does the writer vary the length of sentences?

Point of view
● Pronouns: How does the author make the reader see their point of view by referring
to “I” and “we” or “us” and “them”?
● Anecdote: How does the inclusion of a personal story add to the writer’s argument?
● Verb tense: How does the writer’s use of verb tenses comment on recent events and
common understandings of what has happened?