What is an Analytical Commentary and how do I write one?

[theKKCD]

I'm pretty lost with how to start writing a commentary, strategies for annotating a text etc. Anyone got any tips? 

[Elayg6]

Ill go with the theme approach where you split the ac into 3 paragraphs: social purpose, situational, and then cultural context and then compare the degree of formality of those 3 concepts in each paragraph if this makes sense

[exit]

Try separating paragraphs into function, formality and discourae features and separate features to each of those categories. Otherwise try  the basic approach of splitting features into subsystems

[Joseph41]

Further to the strategy suggested above, another option is to break the paragraphs down by subsystem. I've been informed that the methods suggested above are preferred, but I always went with the subsystem strategy (in saying that, the year I did EngLang was the very first that included an analytical commentary, so marking may have been more lenient).

Here is an article on writing the analytical commentary in this way.