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. Evaluation papers can be serious, or funny. 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 an Evaluation Paper
I. Present the Subject in an Interesting Way
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Give the Right Amount of Detail: 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.
Help Reader Decide their Evaluation: 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.
More Review than Summary: 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.
Make Sure What You Are Evaluating is Clear: 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)
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Thesis sentence should tell 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.)
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).
Create a Three-Column-Log to help you make notes for your paper. Separate them into three
columns like this: Criteria Evidence Judgment
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).
Be opinionated! Stronger reviews are always more interesting to read. Use vivid nouns and
engaging verbs. 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.
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Order the body paragraphs (your judgement)of from least to most important.
Back up your opinions with concrete examples and convincing
II. Argue for your Judgment
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As you state each of your judgments, you need to give reasons to back them up that 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
How do you Organize an Evaluation Essay?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Causal Analysis: This measures the effect on the audience. How does this subject cause a certain
effect?
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.
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.