Evaluation: You Make the Call!

• a definition and examples of evaluation
• information about using common standards of evaluation for your subject
• tips on using specific reasons to support your evaluation
• tips on using concrete evidence to support your reasons
• a definition of and suggestions for making a rebuttal
• tips on providing context for your audience

There's no escape: evaluation, or judgment, is everywhere. Professional referees, for example, earn their livings by making evaluations. So do book, music, movie, and theatre reviewers. And whether or not you get paid for it, chances are you evaluate something every day, according to your likes and dislikes. You formulate an opinion every time you watch television, every time you hear a song on the radio, every time you finish a meal. Are the Yankees completely overrated? Was The Hulk an over-advertised flop? Is Ani Difranco's double album the best live folk recording you've ever heard? Was the broccoli mushy and yucky? It's your call. 

Standards

When making an evaluation, you judge by certain standards, depending upon what you've chosen to evaluate. For example, if you're evaluating the pizza at a local Italian restaurant, there are certain things you should address: the sauce, the crust, the quantity and quality of toppings, the overall effect on the tastebuds. If you set up your essay as an evaluation of pizza quality but only address, say, the crust, then you haven't judged fairly. Serious pizza consumers will want to know more than that. In order to write an effective evaluation, you'll need to take into account the common standards for judging a pizza. 

Any topic you choose will have its own set of standards. For example, what standards would be necessary for evaluating . . . 
. . . a car? 
. . . a presidential candidate? 
. . . an obedience school for dogs?
. . . an over-the-counter allergy medication?
. . . an instructor's performance in the classroom? 

Reasons & Evidence

After you've decided upon the standards for evaluating your topic, you'll need to give reasons that tell why you've made the judgment you have. You'll also need to provide evidence that shows how your reasons support your the evaluation you've made.

Let's return to the movie example. If the movie was indeed " a waste," why was that? Was it the poor acting, the unbelievable storyline, or the plethora of cheesy car chase sequences? If the reason for the movie's failure is the horrible acting, you might cite as evidence the leading man's wooden delivery, his lack of enunciation, or his inability to change his facial expression during the entire course of the film. Choose your reasons and evidence with care; make sure they're relevant and appropriate to whatever it is you're evaluating. 

Rebuttals

Even though you've established yourself as the authority on your subject, you've made judgments based on concrete reasons, and you've supported those reasons with specific evidence, you're not finished yet. What about all those people who might disagree with you? For your paper to be a success, you'll need to anticipate and address possible arguments against your evaluation. Then you'll need to make a rebuttal: you respond to opposing arguments, then disprove them with your own. Take the following scenario as an example: 

 "Well, well. Didn't I tell you that movie was something else?"

 "Dad--the plot was nonexistent! The dialogue was cornball! The acting was stilted! How can you sit there and tell me that Independence Day is the best movie you've ever seen?"

"You sassin' me, girl? What about the special effects? All those great explosions? You ever seen anything like that?"

"Well, no, but . . ."

 "See? It is a good movie."

 "But Dad . . ."

 "Hush. Let's rewind and watch that part where Will Smith bumps off the alien."  

The first step in making a rebuttal is, as has been noted, anticipating your opposition's stance. If you've read any reviews or heard anyone talk about the movie Independence Day, you've no doubt heard all about the "amazing special effects." Do the special effects make the movie good overall? For some members of your reading audience, the answer may be yes. 

Recognizing this possibility, what can you do to bring those readers around to your side? This is where the second step of a rebuttal--addressing and refuting opposing points-of-view--comes into play. Perhaps you could concede that, yes, the special effects were dazzling--but that they were the only memorable part of the entire film. Or you might point out that the special effects were actually an attempt to camouflage the bad acting and uninspired plot. But remember, however you choose to rebut views contrary to your own, you must continue to keep standards, reasons, and evidence in mind.

Context

In any essay, considering your audience is crucial. Your audience determines the context of your paper--the information your reader needs in order to understand your essay. 

Let's say you're writing an evaluation of Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon. If your audience is unfamiliar with the text, you'll have to provide some background as context before you can make your evaluation. Depending on what you're choosing to address, a brief plot summary or quick character sketch may suffice. Conversely, if your audience is a literature class in which Song of Solomon has been studied, you won't need to provide much background. What's important is that your readers feel comfortable enough with what you've given them to understand the judgments you make.