EVALUATION Essay
An evaluation asserts a judgment about a person, place, idea, object, or service. Consider the magazine Consumer Reports which consists largely of “objective” evaluative arguments. Consider local news and entertainment magazines which often offer “best of” issues or articles touting readers’ or critics’ favorites: the best place to go on a first date, best movie theatre, best bookstore, best coffee house, best news anchor, best ice cream, best actor, best nail salon, or even, “sexiest man alive”. For the subject of an evaluative argument, select a product or service to develop your own “best of” essay. On which products or services do you consider yourself an authority? On which have you developed an opinion that can be supported by evidence?
First, discover the qualifying reason to bring these three or four product or service brands together: are they the top-grossing? in the same neighborhood? most popular for a particular demographic? Make sure that you are evaluating like things: Ice cream and frozen yogurt are not the same thing. Frozen pizza and freshly-baked pizza from a restaurant are not the same. Yoga and cross training are not the same sport. Denny’s and Benihana’s are not parallel restaurants. If you operate on this wide a scale of subjects, the evaluation will be obvious and generalized.
You will need to determine the criteria that will support your evaluation. First, discover the specific criteria by which you can measure your “best” choice. Seek to make use of both quantitative and qualitative evidence to examine how those subjects meet or fall short of the stated criteria. Compare/contrast one brand against others in that same category (for example, one brand of pizza against another: Dominos, Little Caesar’s, Pizza Hut in a point-by-point format (which means weaving the brands/services together by one piece of criteria at a time rather than discussing each brand/service ina separate block.) . Be specific in weighing each against the same criteria (“The Domino’s pizza crust chewed like cardboard, was topped with a sauce bitter from too much oregano and was meager in the amount of cheese, in contrast to the Pizza Hut pizza that. . .) to justify your “best choice” claim. Also consider whether your readers will accept your criteria or whether you will need to defend those chosen criteria also. Do you have enough criteria? Will your readers understand and agree with your criteria in order to consider your choice a well-informed one? Are you employing the same criteria for each product (density of crust must be compared/contrasted to density of crust).
In your introduction, establish the subject of your evaluation along with your ethos. What credentials do you bring to your subject to make your evaluation credible? The thesis in your introduction should establish your specific evaluative claim, products under examination, and suggest by which criteria you have made your judgment
750-1000 words
