Essay Evaluation Guidelines

Rhetorical Strategy

• Who is your audience?
• What is the best approach and tone to use with this audience?
• Does the essay use a delayed thesis or forthright thesis? Why?
• Is the writing too biased?
• Does the essay demonstrate an understanding of other views
• Do you avoid inflammatory language?
• Do you provide good reasons to agree with your views?
• Do you provide good reasons for doubting the opposite viewpoints?
• Do you avoid using the pronoun "you"?
• What Audience is most likely to disagree with your point of view? What is the best way to convince them?

Thesis/Focus

• What is the thesis?
• Is the thesis clearly stated?
• Is the thesis too broad or too narrow for a short paper?
• Could the thesis be elaborated further on?
• Is every part of the essay relevant to the thesis?

Support/Detail

• Do you have enough illustrations?
• Do you have enough examples?
• Is the support clearly connected to the thesis?
• Is the support primarily factual? (Statistics are not facts.)
• Is the support true and accurate?
• Could the essay give more details?
• Could the essay be more specific?
• How relevant is the support to the thesis?
• Is all support relevant to the thesis?
• Is any support missing?
• Is support vague?
• Is support too general?
• Do you explain how experts reached their conclusions?
• Are you as specific as possible?

Organization

• What organizational pattern does your essay use?
• Where is the thesis located?
• Why is it located there?
• Does each paragraph have only one idea?
• Is there an order to the paragraphs?
• What is that order and is it the most effective order?
• Does each paragraph only clarify one idea?
• Is each paragraph coherent
• Are all your transitions smooth?

Clarity

• Do the sentences consistently match characters to subjects and actions to verbs?
• Have you deleted words from your sentences that mean little or nothing?
• Have you deleted words from your sentences that repeat the meaning of other words
• Have you deleted words from your sentences whose meaning a reader can infer?
• Have you replaced phrases with a word when the word is enough?
• Changed negatives with affirmatives?
• Do the sentences get to the subject, then to the verb, then to the object quickly?
• Are the sentences free from long introductory clauses?
• Do the Sentences avoid wordy subjects?
• Does the essay deal with the complexities of the issue?
• Is the analysis vague and superficial?
• Does the essay need to consider another point of view?
• Does the make sense to others?
• Does the ideas follow from the facts?
• Does the essay avoid cliches and generally trite language?
• Does the essay show why the ideas that support the thesis should be accepted?
• Does the essay avoid vernacular or if needed does it make meaning clear to a general audience?

Grammar/Punctuation

• What grammar/punctuation errors do you usually make?
• Did you use all the tools of grammar and punctuation well?
• Do you have a variety to your sentences?
• Did read your paper sentence-by-sentence backwards?
• When the essay is read aloud is it euphonic?
• Can some words be cut from sentences?
• Is the paper free from fragments and run-ons?

Quality of Sources

• What is the argument/point/thesis/conclusion of each source?
• What evidence or details are being used to support the conclusions?
• Do you agree or disagree with the conclusions?
• Does your bias affect your perception of the source?
• Does the source present a fair and balanced picture?
• Is the publication subject to review by others?
• What is the publication's reputation?
• What is the author’s expertise?
• Did you choose to paraphrase or quote your source? Why did you make that choice?
• Did you avoid citing reference works like dictionaries and encyclopedias?

ENG 101