On the lessons, teachers often ask to write an evaluation or a review. Review is a written judgment, opinion which contains an assessment of artistic, scientific or popular scientific works. Most often, it is enough to give only the most general characteristics, the most general estimate of the listened or read works without a detailed analysis, but it may also need a thorough analysis of the work with its critical evaluation.
Features of Writing an Evaluation
In the overall evaluation of a literary work, which is accompanied by its partial analysis, be sure to specify the author of the work, where and when this work has been issued, how many pages it has. Also, mention the genre, the main characters, time and place of action. You can include a brief summary. Usually evaluation is presented in the reasoning form. A narration or description can be included. In general, the form of evaluation has much more opportunities for freedom of expression than the review.
Concerning the reviews, here we have a detailed analysis of a literary work. Our goal is to make as much as possible to justify your opinion. You have to include bibliographic description (author of the work, where and when this work issued and the number of pages), a brief description of the creation, creative concept and meaning of work's title. Also, you should add a summary of the content, the relevance of the filed themes. Don't forget that you should define the main idea of the review. A review should be in a rigid form: according to a certain plan, with restrained tone.
A Model Plan for Writing Book Reviews
There is a certain scheme for the construction of every review. It looks like this.
Introduction:
- The subject of the analysis;
- The relevance of the theme chosen by the author.
- The baseline data about the author and the work. What is the author's purpose, what problem he put into the text?
The main part:
- What are the content of the work, its main problems?
- The evaluation of the content and form of the original text.
- Tell about disadvantages. What are they?
Conclusion: the generalized work evaluation.
Tips for Writing Reviews
In a review, you should carefully substantiate your opinions with a deep and reasoned analysis, reference to the original content, form of the work, its basic idea. The reviewer must see and approve the creative personality of the author and their work.
Yet, we shouldn't rigidly adhere to a standard plan. In the review, there may be reflected not all items from the plan, or vice versa: it may include questions that aren't in the schema.
You shouldn't be too carried away by the supporting structures. The cliche is used in cases where students don't know how to criticize at all. You have to realize that the creative work involves, above all, knowledge of the subject of analysis and strong language proficiency. So, the main thing is courage to show your imagination and your own opinion!