Choosing a style and design

Evaluations can be composed in any style, from high to low — depending, as always, on aim and audience. (define your style) Look for opportunities to present evaluations visually too. They can simplify your task.

Use a high or formal style. Technical reviews tend to be formal and impersonal: They may be almost indistinguishable from reports, describing their findings in plain, unemotional language. Such a style gives the impression of scientific objectivity, even though the work may reflect someone’s agenda. For instance, here’s a paragraph in formal style from the National Assessment of Educational Progress summarizing the performance of American students in science:

Of all the racial/ethnic groups reported, Asian/Pacific Islander students had the highest percentage of fourth- and eighth-graders performing at or above the Proficient level in mathematics and reading in 2013. Results by gender show higher percentages of male students than female students at or above Proficient in mathematics at both grades in 2013. In reading, female students had higher percentages at or above the Proficient level than male students at both grades.

— Nation’s Report Card, 2013 Mathematics and Reading Assessment (http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2013/#/student-groups)

Use a middle style. When a writer has a more direct stake in the work — as is typical in book or movie reviews, for example — the style moves more decisively toward the middle. You sense a person behind the writing, making judgments and offering opinions. That’s certainly the case in these two paragraphs by Clive Crook, written shortly after the death of noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith: Words, phrases, and even sentence fragments that humanize the assessment are highlighted, while a contrast to economist Milton Friedman also sharpens the portrait.

Galbraith, despite the Harvard professorship, was never really an economist in the ordinary sense in the first place. In one of countless well-turned pronouncements, he said, “Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.” He disdained the scientific pretensions and formal apparatus of modern economics — all that math and number crunching — believing that it missed the point. This view did not spring from mastery of the techniques: Galbraith disdained them from the outset, which saved time.

Friedman, in contrast, devoted his career to grinding out top-quality scholarly work, while publishing the occasional best seller as a sideline. He too was no math whiz, but he was painstakingly scientific in his methods (when engaged in scholarly research) and devoted to data. All that was rather beneath Galbraith. Brilliant, yes; productive, certainly. But he was a bureaucrat, a diplomat, a political pundit, and a popular economics writer of commanding presence more than a serious economic thinker, let alone a great one.

— “John Kenneth Galbraith, Revisited,” National Journal, May 15, 2006

Use a low style. Many reviewers get personal with readers, some so direct that they verge on rudeness. Consider the product reviews on Amazon.com or almost any comment section online. In contrast, the evaluations you write for academic or work assignments should be (relatively) polite and low-key in style. But you do have an enormous range of options — especially when offering social and political commentary. Then, if your evaluations turn into satire or parody, all the gloves come off. In such situations, humor or sarcasm can become powerful tools, full of insider humor, colloquial turns of phrase, bizarre allusions, and grammar on the edge. But no style is more difficult to manage. So look for models of the kinds of evaluation you want to compose. Study the ones you admire for lessons in style using language effectively.

Present evaluations visually. Evaluations work especially well when their claims can be supported by tables, charts, graphs, or other visual elements. These allow readers to see relationships that could not be conveyed quite as efficiently in words alone. (display data) And sometimes the images simply have more impact. Consider your response to images of real fast-food items posted on an offbeat Web site called the West Virginia Surf Report. Here’s the description of the feature that appeared on the site:

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. It is an accurate representation in every case. Shiny, neon-orange, liquefied pump-cheese, and all.

Here are several of the images the site presented of products purchased from well-known national chains:

All you need to do is recall the carefully crafted professional photographs of these items you’ve seen posted in the fast-food restaurants and you can draw your own conclusion: Caveat emptor!