Evaluating and Explaining Essays - Understanding the Differences Between Critiquing and Analyzing

Evaluating and Explaining Essays - Understanding the Differences Between Critiquing and AnalyzingFor students of English composition, it is often essential to make a distinction between justifying an evaluation essay and analyzing a paper. There are many situations that will call for these two kinds of essay topics. Here is a brief analysis of the difference between the two.The first kind of essay is a justification or explanation of the writer's own position. In this situation, the student is writing with the objective of explaining why their essay is better than all others written. Typically the author of the essay is basing this on empirical information, namely statistics that show a higher number of students chose their assigned topic. This type of essay usually requires a lot of research into the assigned topic and proofreading of the paper. The information must be presented in such a way that it can be understood by the reader.The second kind of evaluation essay is the analysis of the content of a paper. This requires a more analytical style and is not as easy to read. Instead of showing how the argument of the essay is better than the others, this type of essay shows why one's argument is better. It can also use the same statistics or just different ones to prove that the other essays were wrong.To write an evaluation essay, one must read both types of assignments closely and apply the appropriate method to each type of essay. A good method is to study the topic of the paper and choose the most compelling reason to support your point of view, and then write an article that follows the format of a handout.Sometimes an evaluation essay will be a follow up to an evaluation. In such situations, a much shorter evaluation essay will be required. All the relevant material is already used in the evaluation essay, and the student will need to read it and rewrite it according to their own thoughts. This can be written quickly, but should still be researched and pr oofread to make sure it is well presented.Most schools will allow you to use the term 'explaining an essay topics' for this type of essay. This is fine because it is used to explain what is meant by evaluation and analysis essays. The one disadvantage to this is that it is not specifically defined by the standards, making it difficult to determine which form of the essay is acceptable. In a discussion-based school, most of the assignments will be evaluation essays, as well as both the one above and below the standards essays.Writing an assignment this way makes the essay easier to understand, as well as less likely to cause problems with reading comprehension. In an exam setting, this will make the essay easier to understand for those taking the test. However, when writing a handout for reference purposes, a little less care should be taken, as there are no expectations in the answers. Be prepared to go back and reread sections that have questions, and revise if necessary.Before doi ng an analysis of the comparison between this type of essay and justifying an evaluation essay, a student should first read both types of essay to get a feel for the format. For reference purposes, the structure and style of both assignments will be similar. Then after reviewing both formats, the student can make a decision whether they want to analyze an essay or justify one.