Evaluative essay: The Great Gatsby Movie
focus more on strengthens and weakness on the film. Make sure you introduce the director of the film MI
in this essay. Do not summarizes. Summary is NOT evaluation. You may need to use a little bit of
summary in your essay to set up the criteria, but the summarized material is secondary to the actual
point you’re making.
Minimum 700 words. Minimum five well-developed paragraphs.
Purpose: To review something: a film, a restaurant, a play, a book, an album, a concert, or something else I’ve approved for you.
Getting started: When you review anything, consider several criteria on which you base your judgments. Consider several criteria that you deem critical
to a thorough evaluation of whatever you’re reviewing. (If you’re reviewing a film, for instance, you might consider the strengths and weaknesses of
the performances, the dialogue, the director’s aesthetic, the socio-cultural commentary the film makes, or the film’s music.) You then develop
paragraphs in which you identify and analyze the strengths and/or weaknesses of those criteria. Remember that each body paragraph can only develop a
single point.
Writing Tips:
• You should consider the intended audience for whatever you’re reviewing, as the review may be different for a specialized audience than for a
general one. Consider the typical expectations an audience has for whatever you’re reviewing.
• As with other papers you write this semester, your impressive use of detail in explaining your points will help you tremendously. For example,
if one paragraph is about a restaurant’s lack of cleanliness, your topic sentence will state that weakness up front. Then you’ll provide examples of
this lack of cleanliness (dirty silverware, messy floor, untidy restrooms, sticky tables) that you analyze in detail. (Note: it’s never enough to tell.
Showyour audience. Don’t just claim that the floor was messy; engage some of your senses: what did it sound like to walk on a sticky floor? What did
the floor look like? What did it smell like? How did it feel to walk on it? Why else was the dirty floor so unpleasant? The more detailed your review,
the better.
• To analyze strengths and weaknesses, it may be useful to compare expectations with the actual product.
• Whatever you review, you must provide an introduction with sufficient background information/contexts and a clear, direct thesis. The thesis
indicates the overall evaluation of whatever you’re reviewing: is it strong, weak, or moderately strong or moderately weak? Why? Your thesis should
answer the question.
• You must provide a conclusion after you’ve finished the analysis and evaluation of each of your criteria that restates the thesis (using
different words) and sums up your points.
• Your audience is academic. Use the conventions of academic writing I posted to Canvas. Do not use second person: you, your, you’re, yourself,
yourselves. Don’t say “you should avoid this movie if you have enjoyed the director’s previous two in the series.” Instead, rephrase to “viewers who
hope for the delicate nuance and intellectual probity of Director X’s previous films should avoid this one, as these qualities are miserably replaced
with cheap thrills and bombastic overtures.” Avoid clichés, slang, colloquial speech, non-standard speech. Your grammar, punctuation, and syntax need
to be correct, so proofread carefully. Read your sentences aloud. Make sure every sentence is syntactically correct.
• If you are reviewing a film, introduce the director: (e.g. Christopher Nolan’s Memento.)You may also want to provide the names of notable
actors within the film.
• If you quote from the film, please provide a works cited page and parenthetical citations. Here’s how to cite a film:
http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/MLA/film(Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. . The parenthetical
citation should provide the Director’s last name: (Nolan). If you are mentioning more than one Christopher Nolan film and it could become confusing,
use the film title in the parenthetical citation rather than the director’s name: (Memento). If you’re quoting from a book or a play, review the MLA
section from AWR and find those entries.
• Film titles should be italicized, even in the parenthetical citation.
• As with other essays involving analysis, use present tense verbs to analyze whatever you’re reviewing. “Actor X plays the part too cautiously”
not “Actor X played the part too cautiously.”
Caution:
• Do not summarize whatever you’re reviewing. Summary is NOT evaluation. You may need to use a little bit of summary in your essay to set up the
criteria, but the summarized material is secondary to the actual point you’re making. (For example, if you’re evaluating the chemistry between two
actors, you may need to summarize a crucial scene to describe what you mean, but you don’t need a full, detailed summary of the film or play itself,
and the scene description should not account for as much detail as your analysis and evaluation of it.
• If you’re reviewing a restaurant based on a recent visit, avoid organizing your essay linearly by time, and instead organize your essay by
criteria.
