You be the Judge . . .From Reading to Writing Both The Crucible and “The Examination of Sarah Good” are works that excite strong reader responses—either positive or negative. You can present your response to books, movies, or performances in a

Critical Review

critical review.

You be the Judge . . .In writing a review, you use evidence from the work to support your opinion. You already form opinions of what you read and see every day. In this workshop, you will learn to put them on paper.

Critical Review

B a s i c s i n a B o xCritical Review at a Glance

RUBRIC Standards for Writing

A successful critical review should

• identify and give a brief summary of the work

• state your opinion of the work and make clear the criteria you used to judge it

• support your opinion with well-chosen details and examples from the text

• organize arguments and supporting details in a way that is easy to follow

• conclude with a recommendation to the reader regarding the work

Introduction

• Identify author and subject• State overall evaluation

Body• Briefly summarize

selection• Establish criteria for

judging work• Give evidence to support

evaluation

Conclusion

Make a recommendation

It is as hard to find a neutral critic as it is a neutral country in time of war. I suppose if a critic were neutral, he wouldn’t trouble to write anything.

Katherine Anne Porter,short story writer

Writing Your Critical Review1 Prewriting

Writing Your Critical Review1 Prewritin

g

Choose a piece of literature or a film that strongly affected you—either positively or negatively.

Examine a film based on a literary work. Select a work you’ve read in class. Read a new story by an author you like.

Ways of finding a subject for your review:

Planning Your Evaluation

1. Explore your overall reaction to the work. Did you generally feel positively or negatively? If you had both positive and negative reactions, which were stronger? Discuss your impression with a friend. How did his or her reactions differ from yours?

2. List the criteria you will use to judge the work. How did you judge elements of the work such as plot, characters, language, setting and visual elements, or theme? For example, do the characters seem realistic? Does the setting make sense with the plot?

Planning Your Evaluation

3. Gather evidence from the work to support your review. What facts, examples, quotations, and other details from the work support your opinion of each element? If you find evidence that contradicts your view, will you include and respond to it in your review? You might create a chart like the one below to list your evaluation and your evidence.

Planning Your Evaluation

4. Evaluate and organize your evidence. For which criteria do you have the strongest evidence? Which less strongly supported criteria might you not want to include in your review?

Writing Your Critical Review2 Drafting

Freewrite about each of your criteria. State your overall opinion of the work. Think of an interest-grabbing way to begin

your review. Present your criteria for judgment and the

evidence that supports them. Give a balanced view of the work by

including a discussion of both its strengths and weaknesses.

Include a clear recommendation in your conclusion.

Writing Your Critical Review3 RevisingTARGET SKILL AVOIDING CIRCULAR REASONING

To be convincing, your review must show clear thinking. Avoid circular reasoning or trying to prove a statement merely by restating it in different words. Be sure to include detailed evidence to support your statements.

Writing Your Critical Review4 Editing and Proofreading

TARGET SKILL ELIMINATING QUALIFIERS

When writing a review, state your opinion firmly and clearly. Eliminate unnecessary qualifiers—such as the conditional verbs could and might; the adverbs nearly, somewhat, possibly, and probably; and phrases like It seems to me—that weaken your message.