SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 1, Lesson 3

Writing to Investigate and Evaluate

Objective

In this lesson, you'll learn the principles of investigating, or inquiring into, a subject; analyzing it; and communicating your evaluation to an audience who is unfamiliar with the subject. The writing that comes from such an investigation is sometimes called an evaluative essay.

The Evaluative Essay

When you write to inquire, you'll be writing an evaluative essay. To develop this kind of essay, you'll go through at least three steps:

1. Inquire into a problem or issue by investigating and researching it with as little bias as possible.
2. Analyze and critique the problem or issue, enabling you to form (or earn) an educated opinion about it.
3. Present your findings to your audience.

The evaluative essay is different from an expository essay. In expository writing, it's assumed that you already know something--perhaps a great deal--about the subject you're writing on. You may have done a lot of research to develop that authority about the subject. Your job in an exposition is to explain something to the audience by using a thesis statement and supportive details and evidence throughout the essay.

Writing to inquire and evaluate is different. When you inquire into an issue, you're acting as an investigator who may have little prior knowledge about the subject, just as your audience may know little about it. The evaluative essay is written after the investigation is complete and you take the audience along that exploratory path with you. You have two jobs. Your primary job is to report on two sides of an issue where people disagree. You need to approach the issue as objectively as possible, showing the positive (pro) and the negative (con) sides equally. Your secondary job is to evaluate the two positions and write a fair and logical critique that shows you have earned your opinion. The critique itself is the place to express your earned opinion.

When you're writing for a college course, your teacher may or may not be a fellow inquirer. However, your teacher is grading your investigative process on the quality of your thinking and your written evaluation on its effectiveness as a piece of communication. In other instances outside of the college setting, fellow inquirers (such as your boss or work team) won't grade you, but they will judge what you say and how you say it. So it's important that you investigate carefully, earn your opinion by learning what you can about the subject, and report fairly and critically.

Why write evaluative essays?

You need to know how to do many kinds of writing. However, the evaluative essay probably is the writing task that you'll face most frequently in the work world. Managers in every company and all government officials have workers on their staffs who spend time researching and evaluating problems. You might be asked by your manager to investigate an issue for the benefit of your company.

Similarly, you could be chosen by a community group to research an issue on behalf of the entire group. You may even decide to investigate and evaluate something on your own, and present your findings to an audience of your choice. In each case, your job is to be an informed and respected critic of the issue, a person whose judgment people can trust.

In this lesson, we'll make some suggestions that will help you become a better inquirer. We'll take each of the three parts of the job in turn: inquiring, analyzing, and writing. First, however, let's consider an example of the kind of topic you might look at in an inquiry.

An Example

Suppose that you've been asked to investigate and evaluate the controversial issue of using the Internet to digitally record and share music that usually is purchased on compact discs (CDs). People on one side of the issue say that this practice is stealing and unfair to the performing artists who lose money when their CDs are not purchased. People on the other side of the issue say that sharing music on the Internet is a way to exercise the American principle of freedom of information and that the practice actually benefits performers by generating interest in their products. These are polarized positions, or opposing views. Your job is to:

1. Investigate what people say on both sides of the issue;
2. Explain the positions to your reader/s without showing your own opinion, or bias;
3. Critique the positions for their reasonableness and logic; and
4. Form and express your own "earned" opinion based on your inquiry.

Principles of Good Inquiry

• Develop a Desire to Learn About Your Subject
  A good inquiry always starts with a desire to learn something. Some researchers call this "an itch to know." Without this itch, you may find yourself feeling bored or unfairly pressed into research. So, the first principle is to engage the subject by developing good questions to ask. These questions are tied to a second principle. You need a goal for your investigation. What information do you need and what understanding do you want to achieve? Some familiarity with a subject is helpful if you are going to ask good questions about it, but you certainly can investigate a topic that is new to you.
  
  
• Ask Good Questions
  Good journalists begin their investigations of their subjects by asking six basic questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how. These questions form the basis of an objective report on the basic elements of an issue. You can begin your own questioning from these same questions. Remember that you are looking at both sides of the issue, however, and need to ask these questions for each position.
  
  
• Know Yourself
  What is your personal reaction, or bias, to the subject or problem? Is there anything in your background that causes you to react to the problem in a particularly negative or positive way? In other words, is there anything that will keep you from investigating the subject in an objective, or unbiased, way? By knowing the answers to these questions, you can put aside some of your opinions to conduct a more fair inquiry.

Exercise

In the textbox below, write five good questions that will help you to investigate the problem of "sharing" music on the Internet. Remember to question both sides of this issue (10 questions total). Do you have any personal bias that you will have to put aside in order to do an objective investigation?

The Principles of Good Analysis

• Choose a Strategy
  You need a logical framework for posing questions about the subject and evaluating the answers that you uncover. Here are some examples of strategies that you could use to ask questions about a topic. Remember, these are only examples and not all strategies will work equally well for all subjects.
  
  
  • Examine the issue from the perspective of a hypothetical "average person." Would such a person have a different point of view than "experts"? What does the average college student think about using the Internet to share music? What does the average musician think?
    
    
• Examine the question from a quantitative or mathematical perspective. To do this, you'll need to find a relevant numerical standard that relates to the subject, and then compare your subject to the standard. How much money does the average musician make on a CD? How much money does the average college student spend on CDs each month? What would the net loss be to performers whose recordings are "shared" using the Internet?
  
  
• Examine an issue from a social, economic, or political perspective. What economic principles are involved with the sale and purchase of CDs? How is the economy affected by the free sharing of property on the Internet?
  
  
• Examine an issue in historical context. How are the views of musical performers related to the historic practice of making and selling records, tapes, and CDs? How are the views of the college student as consumers influenced by this historic practice?

The key to good analysis is to choose a framework for questioning that works for the subject, and then to stick to it. Asking questions from too many different perspectives will confuse you and may confuse your reader when you write the essay.

• Be Objective When you analyze a subject that you have investigated, you are representing yourself to your audience as a neutral and unbiased observer. It's critical that you set aside any preconceptions you have about the subject and approach it with an open mind. It's also important that you tell your audience about personal or financial interests that you have in the subject.

Exercise

Choose a framework for inquiring into the issue of "sharing" music on the Internet. In the textbox below, answer the following questions. Why did you select this framework? Where will you have to go to get answers to your questions? How can you maintain objectivity?

Principles for Writing

• Organization of the Essay
  1. Introduction: Identify the issue
  2. Body: Present both sides equally
  3. Body: Analyze the reasoning of both sides, and
  4. Conclusion: Express and support your informed opinion.
     
     
• Beginning the Essay
  Begin your essay with an introduction that will guide your audience. Tell the reader/s:
  1. What your issue is
  2. What the two polarized positions are, and
  3. What your conclusion, or thesis, is regarding the issue.

  As you report objectively on both sides of the issue, remember that you must show that you have researched and really understand it. Your own bias and opinions do not belong in this part of the essay. In fact, you'll earn your audience's trust and respect by being objective here.

• Analyze the Issue
  Having completed the objective report, your next job is to analyze the issue. Here you may reveal an "educated opinion" by judging the reasons that both sides have for their positions. You can make comparisons, show their differences, or reveal the causes and effects of the positions. This is your opportunity to question one side's position against the other's and determine which one makes the most sense to you. Your analysis must include why you have formed this opinion.
  
  
• Support Your Conclusions With Evidence
  You can convince your readers that your conclusions are fair and valid by providing strong reasons and accurate details when you write your analysis. Use examples, facts, statistics, quotations from authorities, and other credible research to support your conclusions. Don't state your analysis as an opinion; instead, use evidence to root it in facts.
  
  
• Look For the Positive and the Negative
  Many new writers make the mistake of focusing their writing only on the positive or the negative side of the subject they're discussing. As an objective "reporter," you should let the audience know ALL sides of the issue. Only in the end of this type of an essay should you reveal the opinion that you have earned. You do this by presenting the results of your analysis in a fair manner.

Summary

Investigating a subject and communicating your analysis and conclusions to an audience is an important responsibility. Following the principles of good inquiry, your writing will reveal that you're a person whose judgment can be trusted.