WRITING
AN EVALUATION ESSAY
source: Greg Lyons, 4/18/02 to Humanities / Composition MSoutlook
Description
An evaluation (or critique) is a written document
which describes an argument that you have read, states your judgment of the
argument, and explains to readers the bases of that judgment.
An evaluation, thus, consists of three functional components:
1)
an analysis of the essay being evaluated
2)
judgment of the argument it presents
3)
an argument in support of your
judgment; that is, a discussion of the
Key
features
First of all, it's essential that you provide readers
with enough description of the argument so they can follow your evaluation of
it. It's also important to present
them with a clear judgment. After
all, that is why they are reading your piece.
Furthermore, readers will discredit your work if your evaluation is too
one-sided. So, while you must make
a firm and clear judgment, your judgment should also be balanced, recognizing
both the strengths and weaknesses of the argument you are analyzing.
NOTE: No argument is bulletproof.
If you want to be hyper-critical you can shoot down any argument.
Remember that some arguments published in textbooks have been condensed
by editors to fit available space. The
nature of the original publication or its audience also may have limited the
author in one way or another. So,
while evaluating an argument it is important to consider these factors, or else
you'll find yourself overly suspicious of every argument.
And even if an argument does deserve to be rejected, most readers will
not appreciate watching you completely shred another writer’s work.
Evaluation
of an Argument
There are numerous factors you can take into
consideration en route to making your final judgment, the most important of
which is how well the author supports his or her argument.
The discussion that follows is fairly comprehensive, though by no means
complete.
But note that there is no need to evaluate an essay on each and every
potential criteria. Make your judgment utilizing only those criteria that make
sense.
For instance, if the author has an incredibly weak persona, it makes
sense to include this as one factor in your overall judgment.
On the other hand, if the author's persona does not stand out for good or
ill, it can be ignored in your judgment. For
another example, if the author has conducted extensive and worthwhile research
on the subject, it makes sense to consider this (ethos) as one factor in your
judgment and to praise the author for it. In
short, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the argument and base your
judgment upon those.
As mentioned above, the most important criteria on
which to base your evaluation is the author's use of supporting material.
It only makes sense that the quality of the argument depends largely on
whether or not the author's reasons are relevant, whether or not sufficient and
appropriate evidence is provided, and whether the motivational appeals are
effective.
So, after you have read and fully understood the essay you will evaluate:
1) Divide the essay up into its component sub-arguments.
2) If the sub-argument states a reason to accept the author's main claim, jot it down.
3)
Consider if this reason is relevant to the main claim.
Write out why
4) Now tackle one sub-argument at a time with the intent of identifying and evaluating the material offered in support of the section's
sub-claim.
Steps
One and Two
Every main claim is supported by a series or chain of
sub-arguments, which make and support their own sub-claims.
It makes sense, therefore to divide the essay into its parts--as you did
in preparation for your summary assignment.
Once you've divided the argument into its sections, consider the
assertion being made in each section as a reason in support of the main claim.
For example, in an essay called “Competition is Destructive,” one
reason Kohn provides in support of his main claim is this: "competition is
having an equally toxic effect on our relationships."
Step
Three
Once you've extracted the reason, you can then
evaluate whether or not the reason is relevant to the claim.
If you claim that competition is destructive, is it relevant to offer as
support, that our human relationships suffer as a result of competition?
Probably, yes. Why?
That's tougher. We could say that the meanings of the key terms in the claim
and in the reason are essentially equivalent: a "toxic" negative
effect on "our relationships" as a result of competition is equivalent
to saying that competition is destructive.
On the other hand, in the essay "No Red Squirrels:
Mother Nature May be Better Off," the author claims that the
developers and owners of Mt. Graham ought to be allowed to build an astronomical
observatory without being hindered by the Endangered Species Act.
One reason offered in support of this claim is that environmentalists
have ulterior motives in their fight to prevent development.
Relevant? No.
The motives of those in opposition are irrelevant to the issue of whether
the observatory will damage the ecosystem on the summit of Mt. Graham.
Step
Four
Now you can turn your attention to the information the author uses in support of the section's sub-claim. What you see below is called a support tree, which identifies the various kinds of supporting material authors typically provide.
Support
Evidence
Appeals
factual evidence opinions
emotions needs values
beliefs
examples
stats
judgments inferences
causal predictive
solutions
To
evaluate the supporting material in an argument, you first need to determine if
it is a form of evidence or a motivational appeal. Appeals are discussed immediately after the discussion
of evidence.
Evaluating
Evidence
It's plain that many kinds of statements we make need
to be supported with evidence. If,
for instance, I assert that women are still discriminated against in the
workplace, you have a couple of options. You
could simply accept my statement because you trust me.
Or you could say, "Oh yeah, how do you know this?"
In the latter case, you are asking for evidence.
Evidence consists of facts and their interpretation, the latter being
called opinions or authoritative testimony.
Factual evidence consists of a variety of material: observations,
examples (real or hypothetical), the raw data from experiments, polls, or
surveys, examples, and statistics.
To evaluate most factual evidence you can simply ask these questions:
•
Is the evidence sufficient? That
is, has the writer provided enough material to justify accepting his or her statement?
Or has the writer jumped to conclusions based on too few examples?
•
Is the evidence relevant?
•
Is the evidence up-to-date or current?
Some evidence can remain current for years, eons...but some data (e.g., in the
scientific, technical, and medical fields) is outdated within a matter of a few
years. Check to see if more recent
data is available--and if that data confirms or contradicts the evidence at
hand.
•
Is the evidence accurate? Is
the writer's depiction of the data accurate?
•
Is the evidence slanted? Almost
any statement can be supported--if you select the evidence carefully.
Be sure, for instance, that the examples provided by the writer are
typical of all examples. For instance, suppose I say that sodas are harmful, and
attempt to demonstrate this by providing two examples of sodas that include
esters of wood resin (turpentine) and propylene glycol (similar to anti-freeze).
While my data is accurate, my examples are really not typical of all
sodas, since only two sodas contain this stuff (it's true!).
Evaluating
Motivational Appeals
People are more than just reasoning minds.
We are a biochemical complex with various physical and psychological
needs, appetites, desires, and beliefs. As
such, we are influenced by more than just logical reasons and evidence; we are
also motivated to satisfy our needs and wants.
Advertisers know this as do writers of arguments.
Thus, in almost every argument you read, you will find that the author
attempts to persuade you to accept his or her claim on the basis of motivational
appeals as well as evidence. If you
are to thoroughly evaluate an argument, it makes sense that you should be able
to recognize those appeals and understand how to evaluate their legitimacy and
effectiveness.
What is a motivational appeal?
The purpose of a motivational appeal is to convince an audience that
doing X will satisfy a particular need or bring about a desirable state.
Appeals can be made to emotions (e.g., pity, fear, guilt), to physical
and psychological needs (e.g., safety, esteem), as well as to values and beliefs
(e.g., self-reliance, justice, patriotism).
Appeals
to emotion
Appeals to emotion are often framed in concrete
images or in narratives. For
example, one student’s argument opposing abortion included a description of
the fetus near the end of the first trimester: the little hands, face, etc.
After describing the fetus, she described the horrific procedure--I'll
omit the details. Needless to say,
readers can be profoundly moved by such description, our emotions swinging from
pity to fear and back again. While
the evidence provided may help us to understand the writer’s point of view,
her appeal helps us to emotionally experience her point of view.
We can feel what she and other opponents of abortion feel.
Evaluating
appeals to emotion
If a writer's appeal to emotion intensifies your
experience of the issue and helps you experience it from the emotional point of
view of the writer, that is fine. However,
appeals to emotion become a problem if they inhibit clear thinking or if the
appeal attempts to arouse emotions that are irrelevant or inappropriate to the
issue. For example, one convict,
attempting to justify his life of crime, appealed to his audience's sense of
pity. Apparently he had been raised
in a lower class neighborhood by parents whose means were limited.
Because he had been denied many of the things he had seen others with, he
turned to theft to procure them. In
this case the appeal to his audience's sense of pity is out of order for two
reasons: (a) his thefts exceeded
his needs and (b) we might believe that, like everyone else, he had free choice
to satisfy his needs by legitimate means. In
this case, the appeal to pity is not legitimate.
Overall, consider the balance. Does the writer rely heavily on appeals to
emotion? That's a weakness in the
argument. Appeals to emotion should
be balanced with logical evidence. Also
watch out for language that seems designed to manipulate your emotions.
Appeals
to needs and values
Writers of ads and argument often appeal to our needs
and values. For example, in an
essay proposing handgun controls, one author cited lots of evidence to show
handguns are responsible for much of America's crime. But in addition, he also appealed to his audience's need for
safety and security, which he believed could be best accomplished by placing a
ban on handguns.
Is this OK? Well yes and no. Actually the issue is not whether this or any appeal is OK,
but rather whether it is effective. In
order for an appeal to be effective, it must be "pitched" at those
values which the writer's audience have uppermost in their minds.
Consider the following example.
An amateur astronomer likes a dark sky.
He doesn’t want his neighbors to light up the night with those blasted
security lights. Suppose he wrote a
letter to his neighbors, asking them to switch from their current mercury vapor
light to a low-pressure sodium light with a full-cutoff fixture.
(The full-cutoff fixture directs light down and prevents light from
spilling out the side.) Clearly the
astronomer needs to appeal to his neighbors' values. For instance, he could appeal to their aesthetic values by
describing the beauty of the night sky that they and others are missing out
on...the awe and wonder. Or, he
could appeal to his neighbors' needs for security (lights with full-cutoff
fixtures minimize dangerous
glare--because they direct the light only where it is needed...on the ground)
and to their thriftiness (low-pressure sodium lights use less electricity while
putting out the same amount of light). In
the first case (aesthetics) his chances of success are probably about zilch.
In the second case, while slim, his chances are better because his
neighbors are more likely to respond to appeals that are pitched to their need
for security and economic well-being.
Evaluating
appeals to needs and values
First consider whether the author's appeals are
effective based on his or her target audience.
Are the needs and values those which are uppermost in that audience's
mind?
Then check to see if the writer provides evidence in support of these
appeals. For example, if the
astronomer writes his neighbors, it's not sufficient for him to say they'll save
money if they switch to low-pressure sodium lights.
He also needs to provide factual evidence that the cost of switching over
is offset over a period of X months due to lower electric bills.
Second, writers often appeal to values such as responsibility,
patriotism, etc. Fine.
But are these terms defined? If
not, who knows what's being appealed to? If
the author's appeal includes abstract terms, are these terms defined?
They should be, or else what readers take to be responsibility may be
quite different from what the writer intended
Other
Criteria
The following list presents additional elements that
can be evaluated in this essay. These
are especially useful to keep in mind as you strive to present a balanced
judgment.
•
Audience: While you are not evaluating the argument on audience,
per se, it makes sense to identify who the author's target audience is,
•
Persona: Ask yourself how effective the author's persona is.
Is it
overbearing? Insulting?
Silly? Pompous?
Respectful? Polite,
Diplomatic?
•
Ethos:
Does the author display the characteristics of good sense, good character, and good will? Or does the author
demonstrate that he/she is ill-informed on the issues, mean spirited (i.e., bent
on attacking the personalities of those on the opposing side), etc.?
•
Credentials: Is the author qualified to argue on the subject?
How well
•
Sources of data:
What are the author's primary source of data?
Is it
personal
observations? The results of
published studies? Government
documents? Scholarly
journals? Are the sources cited?
If not, that may be OK; it would depend on the original place of publication and intended audience. If
sources are specified, you can certainly evaluate their reliability. The
more scholarly the publication, the better; thus, the journal Nature is better than Reader's Digest, which is
better than the National Enquirer.
•
Concession/Refutation: Does
the author consider or ignore the arguments
•
Completeness: Does the author cover all the bases? Or are certain,
crucial
issues overlooked? Obviously, if a
crucial issue is overlooked, this would not be a positive sign.
•
Organization: Is the essay organized to make an effective rhetorical
•
Language: Does the author employ language (e.g., word choice, imagery, metaphors, etc.) in an effective way?
Or do you feel manipulated by loaded language (e.g., "those
gun-toting little boys in the NRA..." is not a phrase likely to win
critical acclaim since it substitutes the use of put-downs for substantive
argument).
Evaluation Essay
URL of this webpage: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Assignments/evaluation_essay.htm