How to evaluate in an essay
NESA defines it as: “Make a judgement based on criteria; determine the value of.”
Evaluate asks you to judge how well or how effectively something is done. The phrase 'based on criteria' is the part to notice: a judgement only earns marks when it rests on reasons, so an opinion with nothing under it will not count.
New here first? Start with breaking down the whole question, then come back for this.
Judge against criteria
An evaluation is a verdict you can defend. Decide it, ground it, prove it.
- 1
Decide the verdict
Commit to how effective or valuable the thing is before you plan, so the paragraph argues toward something.
- 2
Set the measure
Be clear about the standard you are judging against: effective at what, valuable for what.
- 3
Prove it
Treat the text's techniques and their effects as the evidence for your verdict, not decoration around it.
Opinion without criteria is not evaluation. Name the standard, then show the text meeting or missing it.
The shape of the paragraph
Each paragraph states a judgement, names the measure, then proves it on the evidence.
Topic sentence (the verdict)
Open by stating your judgement for this paragraph: how effectively the composer does the thing the question names.
Watch out:A verdict is not a description. 'Miller uses Proctor' is a topic; 'Miller uses Proctor effectively to...' is a judgement.
The measure (criteria)
In a line, make clear the standard you are judging against, so the verdict has a basis.
Watch out:Keep it concrete. 'Effective as social critique' beats a vague 'good' or 'powerful'.
Evidence proving it
Work the Explanation on a quote, tying every effect back to how well the technique achieves the aim.
Watch out:Do not just analyse; keep the analysis pointed at your judgement of effectiveness.
Return line (reaffirm, weigh a limit)
Restate the verdict, acknowledging any limit so the judgement reads as weighed rather than automatic.
Watch out:A limit strengthens an evaluation. Ignoring the obvious counter makes the verdict look unearned.
A model paragraph, labelled sentence by sentence
Here is the structure at work. Read the paragraph straight through first: it should sound like one continuous argument, not a checklist. Then read the label beside each sentence to see the job it is doing. It is written to support this thesis:
The thesis
Miller's use of Proctor is a powerful vehicle for social critique: by making one flawed man's fight for his name stand for resistance to an unaccountable court, the play indicts the machinery of persecution more effectively than any direct argument could.
The paragraph, read straight through
Miller most effectively turns Proctor into a critique of authority in the play's final act, where a private struggle over a signature carries the weight of an entire political argument. The test of that effectiveness is whether one man's choice can make an abstract injustice feel personal, and it does. When Proctor refuses the false confession and cries “Because it is my name!”, the mounting exclamations make his identity the single thing he will not surrender, so that the audience feels the cost of the court's demand in intimate rather than political terms. This is Miller's critique working at full power: by dramatising tyranny as the theft of a name, he makes his McCarthy-era warning land as felt experience, which a lecture never could. The choice is not subtle, and that is precisely the point, since its bluntness is what makes it effective as protest.
Miller most effectively turns Proctor into a critique of authority in the play's final act, where a private struggle over a signature carries the weight of an entire political argument.
The test of that effectiveness is whether one man's choice can make an abstract injustice feel personal, and it does.
When Proctor refuses the false confession and cries “Because it is my name!”, the mounting exclamations make his identity the single thing he will not surrender,
so that the audience feels the cost of the court's demand in intimate rather than political terms.
This is Miller's critique working at full power: by dramatising tyranny as the theft of a name, he makes his McCarthy-era warning land as felt experience, which a lecture never could.
The choice is not subtle, and that is precisely the point, since its bluntness is what makes it effective as protest.
Every quotation above is verbatim from The Crucible (Arthur Miller) and verified against the source text.
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The definition is quoted from NESA's Glossary of Key Words. The structure, teaching and model paragraph are our own, aligned to the 2017 English Advanced syllabus (2019–2026 prescriptions).