EVALUATIONS
Group #4: The Dream Team
WHAT ARE EVALUATIONS?
• Evaluations are known as everyday arguments.
• - Ex: Choosing low-fat yogurt and fruit over the pancakes you really love.
•
You’ve selected dressy clothes because you have a job interview with a
firm law.
• In both of the examples above, there is applied criteria to a particular
problem and then a decision is being made.
• Today: Life styles, rituals of praise and blame are a significant part of the
American Style
• -Ex: Adults who choke at the notion of debating causual or definitional
claims will happily spend hours appraising the 49ers, Boston Red Sox,
or Detroit Pistons
•
Beauty pageants and Most Valuable Player awards
CRITERIA OF EVALUATION
•
•
Arguments of Evaluation: Produce simple rankings and winners or can lead to
profound decisions about our lives, but they always involve some sort of
standards.
Criteria of Evaluation: Particular standard that are established by humans for
judging anything – whether an idea, a work of art, a person, or a product
Criteria is sometimes self- evident:
•
- Ex: A car that gets fifteen miles per gallon is a gas hog.
•
•
•
A piece of fish that smells a little off shouldn’t be eaten
Serious evaluations always requires reflection, and when we look deeply into our
judgments, we sometimes discover important questions that typically go unasked,
many prefaced by why: (You challenge the grade you received in a course, but you
don’t question the practice of grading)
CRITERIA OF EVOLUTION CONT.
• Most writers have a hard time grappling with criteria and producing the
evaluation.
• When you are writing about a particular subject, you want to take time to
think about the subject and offer an opinion.
• ^ You want readers to learn something from your judgment.
• Take a minute to think about “What makes a good veggie burger?”
• Even though many people have eaten veggie burgers, they probably haven’t
spent much time thinking about them.
• But it wouldn’t be enough to claim merely that a proper one should be
juicy or tasty – such trite claims are not even interesting.
• Criteria of evaluation aren’t static, either. They differ according to time and
audience.
RESPOND AND DISCUSS
Choose one item from the following list that you understand well enough to
evaluate. Develop several criteria of evolution that you could defend to
distinguish excellence from mediocrity in the area. Then choose an item that
you done know much and explain the research you might do to discover
reasonable criteria of evolution for it ( Page 218 ).
Digital cameras
U.S. vice presidents
NFL quarterbacks
Organic Vegetables
Social networking sites
Hot water heaters
TV journalists
Spoken word poetry
Video games
Athletic shoes
Fashion designers
Country music bands
Navajo rugs
Hip-hop bands
CHARACTERIZING EVALUATION
• There are various types of evidence that help give a better understanding
evaluative arguments.
• 1. Hard Evidence: facts, statistics, testimony, and other kinds of arguments
that can be measured or recorded
• 2. Quantitative Arguments: relies on criteria that can be measured,
counted, or demonstrated in some mechanical fashion (something is taller,
faster, smoother, quieter, or more powerful than something else)
• 3. Qualitative Arguments: relies on criteria that must be explained through
language and media, relying on such matters as values, traditions, and
emotions (some thing is more ethical, more beneficial, more handsome, or
more noble than something else)
QUANTITATIVE/ QUALITATIVE
EVALUATIONS
• Quantitative:
•
Explore in their arguments abstract or
complicated issues such as their societal
impact, cinematic technique, dramatic
structures, intelligent casting, and so on.
•
Most of these markers of quality could be
defined and identified with some precision
but not measured or counted.
•
Making judgments should be easy if all it
involves is measuring and counting – and in
some cases, that’s the way things work out.
•
Example: Who’s the tallest or heaviest or
loudest person in your class?
•
If your classmates allow themselves to be
•
measured, you could find out easily enough,
•
using the right equipment and
internationally sanctioned standards to
measurement – the meter, the kilo, or the
decibel.
•
This method is useful, but even the most
objective measures have limits.
• Qualitative:
Make sure to make the case rhetoric
By making the case rhetoric…it means
convincing the audience to accept the
markers of quality you are offering and yet
appreciating that they might not.
HOW TO DEVELOP AN
EVALUATIVE ARGUMENT
• It can seem as a simple process, especially if you already know what your
claim is likely to be.
• Once you have your claim established, you would then explore the
implications of your belief.  drawing out the reasons, warrants, and
evidence that might support it
• Example on page 221
FORMULATING CRITERIA
• Most people don’t defend their positions until they are challenged
(Oh yeah!!!)
• Make sure its in great detail/ spend as much time as possible developing
your criteria of evaluation
• Ask yourself questions such as: Why is a standardized test an unreliable
measure of intelligence  questions that are relevant to your topic.
• You’re most likely to be vague about your beliefs when you haven’t thought
(or read) enough about your subject.
• Push yourself at least as far as you imagine readers will.
• Be certain, too, that your criteria of evaluation apply to more than just
your topic of the moment. Your standards should make sense on their own
merits and apply across the board.
MAKING CLAIMS
• When it comes to evaluations, claims can be stated directly or, more rarely,
strongly implied
• There are examples on pages 223-224 which demonstrate the principle,
that qualifications generally make a claim of evaluation easier to deal with
and smarter.
• The main purpose of qualifying a statement isn’t to make evaluation claims
bland but to make them responsible and reasonable.
• Share your claims with friends and family
PRESENTING EVIDENCE
• More evidence= better claim
• Just as important as relevance in selecting evidence is presentation
• Not all pieces of evidence are equally convincing, nor should they be
treated as such
• Select the evidence that is most likely to influence your readers.
• In evaluation arguments, don’t be afraid to concede a point when evidence
goes contrary to the overall claim you wish to make
• You can turn a problem into an argument
CONSIDERING DESIGN AND
VALUES
• Visual components play a significant role in many arguments of evaluation,
especially those based on quantitative information.
• Use visual elements when you are comparing items to one another.
• Think of how to persuade the readers
• Keep in mind of the basic design features of a text- such as headings for
the different criteria using or, in online evaluations, links to material related
to your subject  inhance your authority and persuasiveness
GUIDE
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pages 229-233 have a guide which will help you write your evaluation
The guide will help you with the following:
Finding a topic
Researching your topic
Formulating a claim
Examples of evaluation claims
Preparing a proposal
Thinking about organization
Getting and giving response: Questions for peer response
THE END
DISCUSSION TIME!!
• Read pages 240-241