Techniques for writing evaluations

Any writing that requires a value judgment uses the techniques of evaluating — whether you're writing about consumer products or services, works of art, or performances of people. Effective evaluations use the following techniques:

• Stating an overall claim about your subject. This statement serves as the thesis for your evaluation.
• Describing the person, place, object, event, service, or performance being evaluated. Readers need basic information — who, what, when, and where — to form a clear judgment.
• Clarifying the criteria for your evaluation. A criterion is a standard of judgment that most people interested in your subject agree is important. A criterion serves as a yardstick against which you measure your subject.
• Stating a judgment for each criterion. The overall claim is based on your judgment of each separate criterion.
• Supporting each judgment with evidence. This can include detailed description, facts, examples, testimony, and statistics.

In the following evaluation of a Chinese restaurant in Washington, DC, journalist and critic Phyllis C. Richman illustrates the main features of an evaluation:

Hunan Dynasty

215 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. 546-6161

Open daily 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. for lunch, 3 P.M. to 10 P.M. for dinner, until 11 P.M. on Friday and Saturday.

Reservations suggested for large parties.

Prices for lunch: appetizers $2 to $4.50, entrees $4.75 to $6.50; for dinner, appetizers $1 to $13.95 (combination platter), entrees $6.75 to $18. Complete dinner with wine or beer, tax and tip about $20 a person. Chinese restaurants in American were once places one went just to eat. Now one goes to dine. There are now waiters in black tie, cloths on the tables and space between those tables, art on the walls and decoratively carved vegetables on the plate — elegance has become routine in Chinese restaurants. What's more, in Chinese restaurants the ingredients are fresh (have you ever found frozen broccoli in a Chinese kitchen?), and the cooking almost never sinks below decent... And it is usually moderately priced. In other words, if you're among unfamiliar restaurants and looking for good value, Chinese restaurants now are routinely better than ever.

The Hunan Dynasty is an example of what makes Chinese restaurants such reliable choices. A great restaurant? It is not. A good value? Definitely. A restaurant to fit nearly any diner's need? Probably.

First, it is attractive. There are no silk tassels, blaring red lacquer or Formica tables; instead there are white tablecloths and subtle glass etchings. It is a dining room — or dining rooms, for the vastness has been carved into smaller spaces — of gracefulness and lavish space. Second, service is a strong priority. The waiters look and act polished, and serve with flourishes from the carving of a Peking duck to the por¬tioning of dishes among the diners. I have found some glitches — a forgotten appetizer, a recommendation of two dishes that turned out nearly identical—but most often the service has been expert...

As for the main dishes, don't take the "hot and spicy" asterisks too seriously, for this kitchen is not out to offer you a test of fire. The peppers are there, but not in great number. And, like the appetizers, the main dishes are generally good but not often memorable. Fried dishes — and an inordinate number of them seem to be fried—are crunchy and not greasy. Vegetables are bright and crisp. Eggplant with hot garlic sauce is properly unctuous; Peking duck is as fat-free and crackly-skinned as you could hope (though pancakes were rubbery). And seafoods — shrimp, scallops, lobster—are tenderly cooked, though they are not the most full-flavored examples of those ingredients.

I have found only one dismal main dish in a fairly broad sampling: lemon chicken had no redeeming feature in its doughy, greasy, overcooked and underseasoned presentation. Otherwise, not much goes wrong. Crispy shrimp with walnuts might be preferable stir-fried rather than batter-fried, but the tomato-red sauce and crunchy walnuts made a good dish. Orange beef could use more seasoning but the coating was nicely crusty and the meat tender...

So with the opening of the Hunan Dynasty, Washington did not add a stellar Chinese restaurant to its repertoire, but that is not necessarily what the city needed anyway. Hunan Dynasty is a top-flight neighborhood restaurant—with good food, caring service and very fair prices — that is attractive enough to set a mood for celebration and easygoing enough for an uncomplicated dinner with the family after work.