How to Write an Evaluation Essay

What is an Evaluation Essay?

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. In order to do this sort of writing well, you need to determine what sort of a topic you are evaluating. 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.

What are some other topic choices? You can evaluate a live performance, a museum, a book, a newspaper, a website, a restaurant, a company, a product, a sports program, or just about anything that you think is better or worse than other things of its kind.

How to Write an Evaluation Paper

1. Present the Subject in an Interesting Way

A. Be sure to explain clearly what it is and to provide enough information for the reader to agree with your judgment. Sometimes movie reviews leave the reader in suspense as to the outcome of the story. You will have to decide what you want to tell.

B. One reason people like reviews is to find out whether they would like that subject themselves, so make sure your reader knows enough about the subject to evaluate for themselves.

C. Warning—make sure that the summary of the subject is no more than 1/3 of your paper. The main part of your paper is supposed to be the evaluation, not the summary. It is possible to do the summary separately and then do the evaluation, or you can summarize as part of your evaluation.

D. It is often effective to use an introduction which describes the subject or gets the reader involved in the action quickly.

II. Make a Clear, Authoritative Judgment (2/3 of paper)

A. Be sure you have one thesis sentence which tells exactly what you think. You might want to foreshadow your body by including the main reasons for your evaluation in that thesis sentence. (ex: The movie XXX is perfect for a college student study break because of the hilarious comedy, intense action, and fantastic visual effects.)

B. Be sure to define the audience you are addressing as well as the genre of the subject (in the above example the audience is college students and the genre is action comedy). C. Once you have defined the genre and audience, you can establish the appropriate criteria for making your judgment of the subject. Create a Three-Column-Log to help you make notes for your paper. Separate them into three columns like this:

Criteria Evidence Judgment

D. Pick at least three criteria to talk about in your essay. Three different aspects of this particular genre (ex: for a mystery play it could be three of the following: plot, setting, costumes, acting of main characters, acting of minor characters, the pace of the action, the unveiling of the mystery).

E. Your paper will be stronger if you have a strong judgment about how this subject is either better or worse than similar subjects. Your judgment can be mixed. For example, you might say the concert on the mall was a good mix of bands, and that the new songs from the main act were energetically played, but that the sound equipment was poorly set up and tended to make it hard to hear the singers.

F. Make sure you order the judgments in the body of your paper from least to most important.

G. Be opinionated! Stronger reviews are always more interesting to read. Use vivid nouns and engaging verbs. Be sure to back your opinions up with concrete examples and convincing evidence.

II. Argue for your Judgment

1. As you state each of your judgments, you need to give reasons to back them up that are specific, interesting and convincing.
2. Evidence can be describing the subject, quoting, using personal anecdote or comparing and contrasting with a similar subject.
3. 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.

How do you Organize an Evaluation Essay?

1. Comparison/Contrast: evaluate your subject by comparing it to one of the best of that genre (use something everyone would know so that you don’t have to spend time describing it, you can just mention it). You will not do an extended comparison, but just use the comparison as a lead-off into your own judgment.
2. Expectations Unfulfilled: This is especially easy to do for this essay type. Use the intro to describe what you were anticipating before seeing the subject. Then describe how the subject was either better or worse than you expected.
3. Frame: Use a description of the subject to frame the essay. That way you get right into the action but then break off half-way through, which keeps your reader in suspense. Give your evaluation and then conclude with the finish of your frame.
4. Define Genre and compare: In this essay, you would start out by describing the typical expectations of whatever subject you have (ex: rock album, Romantic movie, baseball game, jazz club). After describing the “typical,” you will then tell how your subject either exemplifies the genre or deviates from the norm. Probably this type of organization is best used for a satire, or for some subject that deliberately tries to break out of the normal expectations of that genre.
5. Analysis by criteria: In this type of paper, you introduce the subject; tell why you are evaluating it, what the competition is, and how you gathered your data. Then you order your criteria according to chronological order, spatial order or order of importance.
6. Chronological Order:You might use this for all or part of your paper. It means telling what happened in the order it happened. This is particularly useful for a performance or restaurant review.
7. Causal Analysis: This measures the effect on the audience. How does this subject cause a certain effect?
8. Analysis focused on the Visual: This organization plan works well for analyzing works of art and pictures. The analysis focuses on composition, arrangement, focus, foreground and background images, symbols, cultural references and key features of that visual genre. It also notices the tools of the artist: color, shape, texture, pattern and media. The paper analyzes these details in order to explain how they are related to the cultural and historical context of the picture and then tells how they relate to the overall meaning of the piece. Because we are doing an evaluation paper, be sure that you use these tools to help you evaluate why this piece is effective or ineffective.
9. Analysis focused on the Social Context or the Story: This type of evaluation takes an image and analyzes how it is effective for a particular point in type. Usually, the image is about a controversial or emotionally charged historical event. You analysis can describe how this picture either demonstrated or contributed to the emotion/debate surrounding the event. It may be that the image is ironic or misleading.

Pre-Writing
This exercise is intended to help you prepare to write your paper. As you fill out these questions, you will be starting to write notes that can turn into your paper.

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?

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?

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:

Here are some parts I thought were not as effective:

(Or you can make a 3 column log with criteria/evidence/judgment)

7. If I had to put my evaluation in one sentence it would be:

In-Class Exercise (or do this with some friends)

Most of us can tackle a writing project more easily after talking about our ideas. Instructors may have you work in groups in a class to talk out your ideas. If your instructor doesn't do that, you can get together with some friends to answer the following questions and take notes to help you get ideas for your paper. Take turns in your group. The main goal is to help one another be ready to write your papers. Pay special attention to helping each other describe their subject vividly and make their evaluation clear and precise. Also look for good ways to organize papers.

1. Tell your subject to your group. Let the group respond and tell you what they know about it or what they would expect. You write down their answers.
2. Explain your subject. Have your group ask questions (someone else can record for you if you want)
3. Explain your criteria for judging it (number 5). Have the group respond. Do these seem like the best criteria? Any other suggestions?
4. Tell your group your one sentence evaluation. Get suggestions as to how to make that sentence effectively written (this is your thesis).
5. Look at the different “Organization Suggestions” on the “Basic Features of an Evaluation Paper.” What type of organization would work best for this paper? Try to write a simple outline.