Evaluation Essay

Lecture 14

Recap

• How to Write an Argumentative/ Persuasive Essay?• Well Written Argumentative/ Persuasive Essay• Steps for Writing a Argumentative/ Persuasive Essay• Topic Selection• Dos and Don’ts• Common Mistakes• Example• General Essay writing Tips

3

• Evaluation essays are just like reviews. • They judge whether something is:– good or bad, – better or worse than other similar things.

• We are familiar with this sort of writing in book or movie reviews.

• Evaluation papers can be serious, or funny.

Evaluation Essay

Evaluation Essay

We all love to read the review of a really bad

movie or restaurant experience. If you like to

write satire, this can be a great paper to try

out your humor. Chances are, you will have a

great time, and so will your reader.

How to Write Evaluation Essay?

• People make judgments all the time about everything that surrounds them.

• Each day we face various facts and scenes, and to act adequately we need to develop our assessment of them.

• This type of critical writing gives fair and sound supporting evidence, so that the reader can form their opinion about the subject.

Steps for Writing Evaluation EssayStep # 1: Choose a topic that you would like to

write about. Since you will need to make a value judgment, based on a set of criterion, you should know your subject well.

Step # 2: Formulate your thesis. The thesis of an evaluation essay is its overall purpose

and should be stated clearly.

Step # 3: Think of the criterion that you are going to

use to make your judgment. It is difficult or even

impossible to evaluate something immediately, so

allocate several touchstones to make this

process easier.

Step # 4: Find supporting evidence to prove your

point of view. You should not make general

statements.

Steps for Writing Evaluation Essay

Step # 5: Make a rough draft of your paper.

In this draft, organize the criterion

and the evidence that you find.

Steps for Writing Evaluation Essay

Step # 6: Write the paper, following the classic structure of an introduction, main body part, and conclusion.

» In the introduction, introduce your value judgment about the chosen topic.

» In the main body part, present your supporting evidences.

» In the conclusion briefly summarize your material and restate your final judgment.

Step # 7: Thoroughly proofread your essay

Steps for Writing Evaluation Essay

Topic Selection

• In order to evaluate something, you need to compare

it with the best example of that particular thing.

• So, to help you develop your topic into an essay,

there are two important questions to ask when you

are choosing your topic to evaluate:

• What category of a thing is it?

• What is the best example of something in that

category?

What are you Evaluating?• What sort of a topic you are evaluating?

– For instance:• If it is a movie, then what genre?

– Horror? – Romance? Disney?– Family Movie?

• Then you need to decide what would make an excellent movie in that genre in your opinion. – For example:

• you may decide that a good Romantic Comedy has to have three things: – humor, – surprising plot twists, and – actors you enjoy getting to know.

• Next, you will evaluate the movie you have chosen to see how well it matches those criteria, giving specific examples of how it does, or does not fulfill those elements of an excellent Romantic Comedy.

Evaluation Essay• Some possible topics of an evaluation essay are listed below:

– Evaluate a vacation spot, or your favorite park.– Evaluate activities that kids are involved in after school. Should kids

be in organized activities or be allowed time for free play?– Evaluate a class you are taking, or evaluate how well your high school

prepared you for college.– Evaluate a product that you really think is superior. Perhaps you have

a favorite backpack brand, or cell phone, computer or video game.– Are there enough places to study at your college? Are there enough

places for students to gather to have fun? Pick a particular place to evaluate.

Key Points to Consider

• Remember, that no matter how enthusiastic or negative your attitude is towards the chosen topic, the general tone of your essay should be reasonable. – In some cases humor is acceptable, but, since it is

still an academic writing, try to write it in an appropriate scholarly manner.

• You can use quotations, personal experience,

descriptions or comparisons with similar objects

as evidence.

• An evaluation essay isn’t about giving an unbiased

point of view – you come up with an evaluative

thesis and provide evidences in its defense.

Key Points to Consider

Key Points to Consider

• The more controversial the subject you have

chosen for your essay, the more supporting

arguments you might need.

• It is also useful to present the opposite point of

view. In this way you will show that you are

aware that other opinions on the topic also exist.

How to Write an Evaluation Essay

1. Present the Subject in an Interesting Way:

– Give the Right Amount of Detail

– Help Reader Decide their Evaluation

– More Review than Summary

• Summary should not be more than 1/3 portion of

essay

– Make Sure What You Are Evaluating is Clear

How to Write an Evaluation Essay

2. Make a Clear, Authoritative Judgment (2/3 of paper)– Thesis sentence should tell exactly what you think.– Define the audience– Create a Three-Column-Log• to help you make notes for your paper. • Separate them into three columns like this:

Criteria – Evidence – Judgment– Order the body paragraphs (your judgment)of from

least to most important.– Back up your opinions with concrete examples and

convincing evidence.

How to Write an Evaluation Essay

3. Argue for your Judgment• As you state each of your judgments, you need to give

reasons to prove that they are specific, interesting and convincing.

• Evidence can be describing the subject, quoting, using personal anecdote or comparing and contrasting with a similar subject.

• Sometimes you may want to counter-argue, if you disagree with what most people think. – For example, if your subject is very popular and you think it

is terrible, you may want to state what most people think and tell why you disagree.

Dos

• When choosing your topic, mind that some

subjects may be of an interest for one group

of people, but, at the same time, completely

uninteresting for another one.

Dos• Do pick at least 4-5 criteria to make an

assessment. – The more criteria you come up with, the more

exact and clear your viewpoint becomes for your readers.

Dos

• Do make sure that your evidence is balanced

between the criteria.

– Your essay will look much better if you find

convincing arguments for each of your criterion.

– Avoid situations when you use one strong

evidence for one criterion, and none for others.

Dos

• Do find the conventional standard within the

topic you’ve chosen to use it as a model for

distinguishing your own points, and writing an

essay.

• Do use proper grammar and punctuation, and

proofread your essay carefully.

Don'ts• Don’t forget to state clearly your value judgment,

otherwise it will be difficult to understand what

your paper is about.

• Don’t be afraid to be concrete in your

assessments.

– Use catching verbs and lively nouns in your arguments,

and avoid being too general or stating the obvious.

Don’ts• Don’t be afraid to give both positive and negative

assessments to the same object in one paper.

– For example, when describing a restaurant:

• you might write that cuisine was delicious and the

atmosphere was very sophisticated, but at the same time

the service quality could be better, and the location of the

restaurant was chosen badly.

Don’ts

• Don’t be too informal.

– Of course, your style of writing will be better if

kept within some limits.

• Don’t use topics that are overused.

– People will not be motivated to read your essay, if

it is going to cover the same ground.

• Confusing the evaluation essay with a review.

– A review is a brief summary of a book, a movie or a play, while

an evaluation paper provides readers with your personal

assessment about a certain object.

• Choosing a too broad topic.

– If you go too wide, you will have to deal with a large amount of

possible criteria and supporting evidence, not to mention that

it will be more difficult to make an evaluation.

Common Mistakes

• Distinguishing an insufficient number of criterion.

– If you have less than at least three criteria, you won’t be able

to assess your object entirely.

• Using routed arguments.

– Even if you are intellectually exhausted and cannot come up

with anything worthwhile, by any means avoid using

arguments like: “This restaurant is the best in the city because

it is great”.

Common Mistakes

Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

• This exercise is intended to help you prepare to write your Evaluation Essay.

• As you fill out the questions, you will be starting to write notes that can turn into your Essay.

1. What is your subject? Do a short description

or summary of it. This can be in a list or a

paragraph.

2. What did you expect before you viewed your

subject? Did your experience match your

expectation or reverse it?

Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

3. What category does your subject fall into?

Be sure to try to get as specific and narrow as

possible.

4. What would you consider to be the very

best example of this category? Explain why?

Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

5. Using your analysis in number 4, what do you think a good example of this subject needs to have? – These can turn into your criteria for judging your

subject. If you are having trouble, you can also think of how you can divide your subject into parts, or aspects of your subject.

6. Answer: Here are some parts of my subject that I thought were very effective:

Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

7. Here are some parts I thought were not as effective:

8. Use your answers to make a 3 column log by putting three lines down a paper and heading them with: – Criteria- Evidence- Judgment.

9. If I had to put my evaluation in one sentence it would be_________. This sentence can be your thesis.

Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

Recap

• What is Evaluation Essay?• Evaluation or Review; Similar yet Different• Steps for writing Evaluation Essay• Topic Selection• What are you Evaluating • How to Write an Evaluation Essay• Dos and Don'ts• Common Mistakes• Pre-Writing Exercise for Evaluation Essay

References

• http://virginialynne.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Write-an-Evaluation-Review-essay

• http://academichelp.net/academic-assignments/essay/write-evaluation-essay.html