Evaluation/Review
You have likely visited an unfamiliar city or neighborhood. When you aren’t in familiar surroundings, what do you do if you want to find something to eat or do for fun? You probably open your phone and search on Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google, or another app or website dedicated to providing reviews, or critical appraisals. Even when closer to home, many people, whether looking for a unique local restaurant, a new hiking trail, or an auto mechanic, may base their decisions on online reviews.
You may even have written a review of a product or service and posted it online yourself. In your review, you shared your evaluation—your overall thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses—of the customer service, atmosphere, prices, quality, and so on. You decided on a set of criteria, or characteristics that determine a positive experience, and made your evaluation of the business according to those criteria and your experiences with similar products or services. Maybe you used a rating system to give five stars or used the phrase “would not recommend” to make your negative judgment clear.
In performing these tasks, you engaged in the evaluation or review genre, or form of writing used to evaluate businesses, products, and art forms—including restaurants, health care, cell phones, cars, video games, books, films, and more. Throughout this chapter, you will learn about the characteristics of evaluations and how to write them.
Examples of Evaluations/Reviews
Key Features of an Evaluation/Review
A Description of the Subject
You should include just enough information to help readers who may not be familiar with your subject understand it. Remember, the goal is to evaluate, not summarize. For instance, if writing about a movie, you’d want to describe the main plot points, only providing what readers need to understand the context of your evaluation, avoiding retelling the entire story.
Another thing to keep in mind is that depending on your topic and medium, some of this descriptive information may be in visual or audio form.
Clearly Defined Criteria
Since you are evaluating the subject, you will need to determine clear criteria as the basis for your judgment. In reviews or other evaluations written for a broad audience, you can integrate the criteria into the discussion as reasons for your assessment. In more formal evaluations, you may need to announce your criteria explicitly. For instance, you could evaluate a film based on the stars’ performances, the complexity of their characters, and the film’s coherence. There are lots of other criteria to choose from, depending on your film choice.
A few things to keep in mind when coming up with your criteria:
- Don’t try to have too many things to evaluate. Using three to four elements to evaluate should be enough criteria to support an overall evaluation of the subject.
- Pick things relevant to evaluating your subject. For instance, if you are specifically reviewing a movie, you don’t want to include criteria evaluating the popcorn at the movie theater.
- Remember, you’re going to have to define the criteria for your evaluation, so make sure you pick things you either know about or that you can learn about.
Example Criteria for Various Subjects
Smartphone: Camera quality, Battery life, Screen resolution, Screen size
Academic Source: Author’s credentials, Publication’s reputation, Sources cited, Timeliness of research
Film: Writing/script, Acting, Special effects, Sound/music
Employment: Punctuality, Ability to meet goals, Ability to work on a team, Communication skills
A Knowledgeable Discussion of the Subject
To evaluate something credibly, you need to show that you know it yourself and that you understand its context. Cite many examples showing your knowledge of the film. Some evaluations require that you research what other authoritative sources have said about your subject. You are welcome to refer to other film reviews to show you have researched other views, but your evaluation should be your own.
A Balanced and Fair Assessment
An evaluation is centered on a judgment. You can point out both its weaknesses and strengths. It is important that any judgment be balanced and fair. This is why it’s important to select your criteria before starting your evaluation. Seldom is something all good or all bad, and your audience knows this. If only presenting the positive or negative, your audience may feel you aren’t that credible of a source. While it may feel weird to include less-than-positive comments about something you enjoy, a fair evaluation acknowledges both strengths and weaknesses.
Well-Supported Reasons or Evidence
You need to argue for your judgment, providing reasons and evidence with several specific examples from your subject that align with your chosen evaluation criteria. Rememberthat criteria are fluid; no reviewer will always use the same criteria for all works, even those in the same genre or subgenre.
Whether or not the criteria are unique to the particular task, a reviewer must look closely at the subject and note specific details. If you are evaluating a product, look at the product specifications and evaluate product performance according to them, noting details as evidence. When evaluating a film, select either quotations from the dialogue or detailed, vivid descriptions of scenes. If you are evaluating an employee’s performance, observe the employee performing their job and take notes. These are examples of primary source evidence: raw information you have gathered and will analyze to make a judgment.
Gathering evidence is a process that requires you to look closely at your subject. If you are reviewing a film, you certainly will have to view the film several times, focusing on only one or two elements of the evaluation criteria at a time. If you are evaluating an employee, you might have to observe that employee on several occasions and in a variety of situations to gather enough evidence to complete your evaluation. If you are evaluating a written argument, you might have to reread the text several times and annotate or highlight key evidence. It is better to gather more evidence than you think you need and choose the best examples rather than try to base your evaluation on insufficient or irrelevant evidence.
Writing an Evaluation/Review of a Film
Step 1: Choosing a Topic
For this assignment, you will choose a film you have watched that was meaningful enough to evaluate. It can be one that was meaningful because it changed your perspective, for instance. You are also welcome to choose a film that was critically acclaimed, but you have objections to it. Choose something that strikes you as a film worth analyzing and discussing.
Things to consider while making this selection:
- What is the purpose of your evaluation? Are you writing to affect your audience’s opinion of a film?
- Who is your audience? To whom are you writing? What will your audience already know about the film? What will they expect to learn from your evaluation of it? Are they likely to agree with you or not?
- What is your stance? What is your attitude toward the subject, and how will you show that you have evaluated it fairly and appropriately? Think about the tone you want to use should it be reasonable? Passionate? Critical?
What film are you going to evaluate in this essay? Make sure it is accessible to you (accessible as in you own it, you have checked it out from the library, or it’s available through a subscription you have like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, etc.). You will need to watch it and take detailed notes so that you have specifics, dialogue, etc., to include. So, what film will you evaluate?
Step 2: Generating Ideas and Text
Now that you know the film you want to evaluate, it’s time to watch it. Make sure you take extensive notes as it needs to be clear that you have taken the time to watch and study your film and that you have thought through not only the criteria that you want to talk about but also specific examples of those criteria.
Explore what you already know. Freewrite to answer the following questions:
- What do you know about this subject?
- What are your initial or gut feelings, and why do you feel as you do?
- How does this film reflect or affect your basic values or beliefs?
- How have others evaluated subjects like this?
Now, it’s time to identify criteria. Make a list of criteria you think should be used to evaluate your film. Consider which criteria will likely be important to your audience.
Here are ideas for specific criteria:
- Evaluate your subject. Study your film closely to determine to what extent it meets each of your criteria.
- You may want to list your criteria and take notes related to each one as you watch the film.
- You may develop a rating scale for each criterion to help stay focused on it.
- Come up with a tentative judgment. Choose 3-4 criteria to discuss in your essay.
- Compare your subject with others. Often, evaluating something involves comparing and contrasting it with similar things. We judge movies in comparison with other movies we’ve seen in a similar genre.
- State your judgment as a tentative thesis statement. Your thesis statement should address both pros and cons. “Hawaii Five-O is fun to watch despite its stilted dialogue.” “Of the five sport utility vehicles tested, the Toyota 4 Runner emerged as the best in comfort, power, and durability, though not in styling or cargo capacity.” Both of these examples offer a judgment but qualify it according to the writer’s criteria. Experiment with thesis statements and highlight one you want to use.
- Anticipate other opinions. I think Will Ferrell is a comic genius whose movies are first-rate. You think Will Ferrell is a terrible actor who makes awful movies. How can I write a review of his latest film that you will at least consider? One way is by acknowledging other opinions–and refuting those opinions as best I can. I may not persuade you to see Ferrell’s next film, but I can at least demonstrate that by certain criteria he should be appreciated. You may need to research how others have evaluated your subject.
- Identify and support your reasons. Write out all the reasons you can think of that will convince your audience to accept your judgment. Review your list to identify the most convincing or important reasons. Then, review how well your subject meets your criteria and decide how best to support your reasons through examples, authoritative opinions, statistics, visual or audio evidence, or something else.
Step 3: Organization of the Evaluation/Review Essay
There are two ways to organize an Evaluation: Subject-First or Criteria-First.
Subject-First Organization
In Subject-First Organization, begin by describing the subject you are evaluating and giving your judgement up-front. Then provide your criteria and reasoning for your judgement and acknowledge possible objections or other opinions. Conclude by restating your overall assessment.
Criteria-First Organization
In Criteria-First Organization, begin by explaning the criteria you will use for your evaluation. Then describe your subject, connecting your points to the criteria while also acknowledging possible objections or other opinions. Conclude by stating your overall assessment.
Step 4: Drafting
Now that you’ve watched the thing, written the notes, and collected your thoughts, it’s time to draft. Use the organizational scheme you created in Step 3 to help you create your evaluation.
Step 5: Get Feedback
Step 6: Revising
Once you’ve received feedback, if possible, read through it and then walk away from the work for a little while. This will allow your brain time to process the feedback you received making it much easier to sit back down to make adjustments. While revising, try to avoid messing with punctuation or fixing any grammatical issues. Revision is when you focus on your ideas and make sure they are presented properly, so make sure you’ve set aside plenty of time or scheduled multiple times to go through your project.
Once you’re finished with revision—everything is well defined, claims justified, and conclusions given—it’s time to edit. This is when you correct punctuation and adjust grammatical issues. During this stage, try to only focus on one or two issues at a time. Work all the way through your project looking for these two things, and then start again with the next couple of issues you may need to smooth.
ATTRIBUTIONS AND LICENSE
“Evaluation/Review” by Rachael Reynolds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License and adapted from:
- “Evaluation or Review: Would you Recommend it?” from Writing Guide With Handbook by OpenStax and is used under a CC BY 4.0 license.
- “Writing the Evaluation Essay” by Sara Layton and is used according to CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.