Unit Two: Evaluating & Reviewing Culture

Evaluating is something we do all the time. Even buying a pair of jeans involves evaluating the reputation of the manufacturer, the quality of the denim and its particular design, and especiall aesthetic judegments about how the jeans look on us when we wear them. Most of us like to think these decisions are quite rational. On the contrary, many of our evaluations are more emotional than logical. As you know from deconstruction advertisements, we really do buy that pair of jeans because an ad suggests that we'll look sexy or attractive in them.

Consider this: How would you evaluate the quality of your mother or father's parenting? Will this be a rational judgment? It's unlikely. Even though we're qualified to make such a judgment--after all, who is a better authority on the parenting skills of parents than their children--often our views toward our parents are always awash in feelings.

Part of the challenge of evaluating something is keeping an open mind, sometimes despite our initial feelings about it. Since all evaluation stems from what are essentially subjective value judgments, a tension always exists between our desire to prove our point and our need or willingness to learn more about the subject. That emotion figures into our judgments of things isn't a bad thing. It's a human thing. But one of the reasons it's useful to consciously consier how we make such judgments is that we're more likely to introduce logical considerations in mostly emotional evaluations, or emotional considerations in most logical ones. This awareness also helps us suspend judgment long enough to get a more balanced look at something.

Evaluation involves three things:

1) Judgment. Something is good or bad, useful or not useful, relevant or not relevant, convincing or not convincing, worth doing or not worth doing or perhaps shades in between.

2) Criteria. This forms the basis by which we judge whether something is good or bad, useful or not useful and so on. If we were to evaluate a car, for example, our criteria might be performance or appearance or safety features or cost or any combination of the four. Often our criteria are implicit; that is, we aren't consciously aware of the cirteria that inform our judgments. The more familiar we are with the thing--cars, movies, mystery novels, coffeeshop or bookstore--the more elaborate, sophisticated and subtle the criteria become.

3) Evidence. Criteria provide the principles for making a judgment but evidence--specific details, observations, or facts about the thing itself--is what makes an evaluation persuasive. That's why simple saying, "This assigned reading is boring?" produces blank stares from your instructor. What exactly makes it dull? Is the language of the article filled with jargon, and which passgae exactly illustrates this well?

If this sounds a lot like making an argument, you're right, because evaluation is the basis of argument. But I suspect that emotion, at least initially, figures more in our judgments of thing than our reasoned arguments about them. In fact, evaluation can be a way of seeding the field of argument because it helps you identify the things about which you have strong opinions.

For this unit, you will review a piece of culture like a performance, a book, a Web site, a consumer product, a film, a coffeeshop, restaurant, whatever you choose. No matter what piece of culture you choose your review should have the following qualities:

1) Your subject should fit into a manageable category. For example, rather than evaluating a movie against all others, focus on romantic comedies or foreign films.
2) The essay you write must have all three elements of evaluation: judgment, criteria and evidence.
3) The criteria are reasonable and appropriate for what you're evaluating; they aren't overly idealistic or general.
4) The evaluation seems balanced and fair.

We don't usually think of the review as an academic form but evaluative writing, a process you'll practice when writing your review for this unit, is among the most common types of writing in all kinds of college classrooms. Here are some examples:

In a literature class, you may be asked to evaluate the effectiveness of a story or a character.
In a theater class, you may write a review of a dramatic performance.
In a science class, you may need to evaluate the methodology of an experiment.
In a composition class, you're often asked to evaluate the writing of peers.
Philosophy frequently involves the evaluation of arguments.
Business writing may require evaluation of a marketing strategy, a product, or a business plan.

Once you start thinking about evaluative writing, you'll find it everywhere--the book reviews in the Sunday Times, the music reviews in Spin, the analysis of Web sites. It's probably the most common form of workplace writing, from assessing the performance of an employee to evaluating a plan to preserve historic buildings.

Like all forms of writing, evaluation genres vary widely. Perhaps the least likely form is one in which the writer formally announces a judgment, lists criteria, and the offers evidence using the criteria. Evaluative writing is much more subtle and much more interesting because the writer blends judgments, criteria and evidence seamlessly throughout his/her writing. If you've ever read a review of a band, a computer, or a book, you probably never noticed its structure because if the review is well-written the structure isn't noticeable. I expect well-written essays from you, essays which are clear, well written but subtle in their structure. You are good writers at this poin in the course, show off what you've learned.