Evaluation & Argument

Structure
Structure will be especially important for this essay. You are expected to write a certain kind of introduction and conclusion, to use topic sentences and transitions, and to carefully organize the entire essay sentence by sentence. The essay should be organized according to criteria. See “Sections” below.

Introduction: You must begin the essay with a broader context. As you do that, you must establish why the subject and mode (evaluation) for the paper are important. For that matter, you must identify the subject and mode of the paper. You must provide a keyword/phrase preview of the structure of the paper (the criteria). Finally, you must deliver a clear, concise thesis statement.

Sections: Each section is devoted to a single criterion and has five parts. Each section should be broken into paragraphs as needed. For each criterion, you must do all of the following:

First, in this order:
Identify the criterion in a topic sentence
Explain what it is
Explain why it is an important factor to you
Then, in a sensible order:
Explain what makes something great when it comes to this criterion. This will likely involve breaking the criterion down into sub-factors.
Explain what makes something bad (or less great) when it comes to this criterion/sub-factor
Address your choice for the best thing and compare and contrast it to other options. Be specific. Provide examples.

The compare and contrast portion is not brief. It is a thorough account of how several options measure up when evaluated according to this one factor.