A Well-Presented Subject
A Well-Supported Judgment
An Effective Response to Objections and Alternative Judgments
A Clear, Logical Organization
Use the following to help you analyze and evaluate how reviewers use the genre’s basic features. The strategies they typically use to make their evaluations helpful and convincing are illustrated below with examples from the readings in this chapter as well as sentence strategies you can experiment with later as you write your own evaluation.
A WELL-PRESENTED SUBJECT
Read first to identify the subject of the review, which is often named in the title (for example, “The Myth of Multitasking”) and described briefly in the opening paragraphs. Look also to see how the writer classifies the subject in terms of its genre. Here’s an example from the first reading selection in the chapter, by student William Akana:
subgenres
genre
From start to finish, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World delivers intense action in a hilarious slacker movie that also somehow reimagines romantic comedy. (par. 1)
Even if readers don’t recognize the title, Akana makes clear that the film he is reviewing combines elements of three different kinds of movies (or subgenres), so readers can determine whether he is using appropriate criteria, as you will see in the next section.
Knowing the genre is also important because readers need different kinds of information for different genres. For example, most readers of film reviews want to know what the story is about but do not want to know how it turns out. Film reviewers, therefore, try not to give too much plot detail, as you can see in this concise plot summary from Akana’s essay:
Pilgrim’s life takes a dramatic turn when he falls in love with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is, quite literally, the girl of his dreams. However, he soon discovers that Ramona’s former lovers have formed a league of evil exes to destroy him, and he is forced to fight to the death to prove his love. (par. 2)
A WELL-SUPPORTED JUDGMENT
Reviewers assert their judgment of the subject, stating whether it is good or bad, better or worse than other things in the same genre. Typically, writers announce their judgment in a thesis statement early in the evaluation. Below are a couple of sentence strategies typically used for thesis statements in evaluations, followed by examples from reviews in this chapter:
| EXAMPLE | The games industry has dreamed of creating one thing above all else—a game that is indistinguishable from a film, except that you can control the lead character. With LA Noire, it just might, finally, have found the embodiment of that particular holy grail. (Boxer, par. 1) |
Genre
Reason
Subject
Judgment
(reasons implied)
| EXAMPLE | Although the film is especially targeted for old-school gamers, anime fans, and comic book fanatics, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World can be appreciated and enjoyed by all audiences because of its inventive special effects, clever dialogue, and artistic cinematography and editing. (Akana, par. 2) |
Genre
Subject
Judgment
Reason
When reading an evaluation, look for the thesis and examine it to see whether the writer asserts an overall judgment and, if so, what it is. Also note the features of the subject that are being praised or criticized and the reasons supporting the judgment. Finally, consider whether the reasons are based on criteria you would expect to be used for evaluating something of this kind. For example, one of William Akana’s reasons is that the film uses “special effects” that are “inventive.” To support this reason, he devotes two paragraphs to detailing some of the film’s special effects. He also gives examples of “video-game-like gimmicks” such as “gamertags,” describing them and also providing a screen shot to show what they look like (par. 3).
Examples and visuals are two common types of evidence reviewers provide. They also may cite sources. When reading an evaluation that cites sources, determine whether the writer quotes, paraphrases, or summarizes the source material. Also notice whether the writer uses a signal phrase to identify the source and establish its credibility.
| QUOTE | As the educational researchers Patrick Terenzini and Ernest Pascarella concluded after analyzing twenty-six hundred reports on the effects of college on students:After taking into account the characteristics, abilities, and backgrounds students bring with them to college, we found that . . . (Gladwell, par. 8)As neurologist Jordan Grafman told Time magazine: “Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict, aren’t going to do well in the long run.” (Rosen, par. 12) |
| PARAPHRASE | Psychologist David Meyer at the University of Michigan believes that rather than a bottleneck in the brain, a process of “adaptive executive control” takes place, which “schedules task processes appropriately to obey instructions about their relative priorities and serial order,” as he described to the New Scientist. Unlike many other researchers who study multitasking, Meyer is optimistic that, with training, the brain can learn to task-switch more effectively, and there is some evidence that certain simple tasks are amenable to such practice. But his research has also found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline, which can cause long-term health problems if not controlled, and contributes to the loss of short-term memory. (Rosen, par. 8) |
Signal phrase
Quotation (indented)
Signal phrase
Quotation (integrated into sentence)
Signal phrase
For advice on when to indent quotations rather than use quotation marks, see Chapter 26.
Notice that the writer has quoted specific words and phrases that would be difficult to paraphrase accurately.
| SUMMARIZE | Best-selling business advice author Timothy Ferriss also extols the virtues of “single-tasking” in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek. (Rosen, par. 5) |
Signal phrase
For more on citing sources, see Chapters 26, 27, and 28.
How writers treat sources depends on the rhetorical situation. Certain formal situations, such as college assignments or scholarly publications, require writers to cite sources in the text and document them in a bibliography (called a list of works cited in many humanities disciplines or a list of references in the sciences and social sciences), as we can see in Akana’s essay. In writing for a general audience—blogs and newspaper articles, for example—readers do not expect references to appear in the article, but they do expect sources to be named and their credentials to be identified in a signal phrase.
Another important strategy reviewers use to support their judgment is comparison and contrast. Malcolm Gladwell, for example, sets up his evaluation of the ranking system used by U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” guide by comparing it to the system used by Car and Driver magazine. Steve Boxer also relies on comparison and contrast in his video-game review:
Comparison cue
From start to finish, LA Noire feels like a film—LA Confidential, in fact, along with any similarly hard-boiled example of film noir adapted from stories by the likes of Chandler and Hammett. (par. 2)
LA Noire largely does away with the free-roaming that enhanced the appeal of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. (par. 11)
Contrast cue
AN EFFECTIVE RESPONSE TO OBJECTIONS AND ALTERNATIVE JUDGMENTS
Reviewers occasionally need to respond to objections to their argument or to alternative judgments readers might prefer. Writers may concede (accept) or refute (argue against) alternatives, providing a transition or other cues to alert readers:
| CONCESSION | The one criticism that could be leveled at the game is that the shooting system has been oversimplified so that it feels clunky compared to the likes of Grand Theft Auto. (Boxer, par. 10) |
Often writers use transitions to indicate a concession:
Transition indicating concession
| REFUTATION | Some reviewers have criticized the film because they think that in the end it fails as a romantic comedy. For example, Miami Herald film reviewer Rene Rodriguez argues that the film ultimately fails because of the lack of “chemistry” or “emotional involvement” in the romance between Pilgrim and Ramona. But I agree with New York Times reviewer A. O. Scott, who argues that “the movie comes home to the well-known territory of the coming-of-age story, with an account of lessons learned and conflicts resolved.” (Akana, par. 9) |
The basic structure of a refutation is
Transition indicating opposing or contrasting point
A CLEAR, LOGICAL ORGANIZATION
Read to see if the reviewer provides cues to help readers follow the logic of the argument. Notice, for example, if the reasons are forecast in the thesis or elsewhere in the opening and, if so, where they are brought up again later in the essay. Here are examples from William Akana’s film review:
Thesis with topics forecast
Topic sentences with reasons forecast
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World can be appreciated and enjoyed by all audiences because of its inventive special effects, clever dialogue, and artistic cinematography and editing. (par. 2)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World shines bright with superb special effects that serve to reinforce the ideas, themes, and style of the film. (par. 3)
Another strong point of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is its clever and humorous dialogue. (par. 6)
The best attribute by far is the film’s creative cinematography and editing. (par. 7)
Notice that, in addition, Akana provides readers with logical transitions—such as because to introduce reasons and another to indicate the next reason in a list.
See Chapter 13 for more on strategies for cueing readers.
Reviewers may also use headings to orient readers, as in these examples from Steve Boxer’s game review:
Key word in heading
Key word in topic sentence
Real-life gameplay
LA Noire’s gameplay capitalizes cleverly on this breakthrough technology. (par. 5)
Beautiful pacing
The game’s pacing and narrative arc are as impressive as they are believable. (par. 9)
To see how Akana integrated visuals into his essay, see pp. 396–97.
Finally, where visuals—such as film stills, cartoons, screen shots, and diagrams—are included, determine how they are integrated into the text. Akana, for example, uses the conventional phrase “see fig. 1” in parentheses following his written description and includes a descriptive caption with the visual. In contrast, Boxer simply intersperses screen shots following his descriptions to illustrate his points.