Tutorial 2: Skills tutorial

 What is evaluation? How to evaluate and how to structure it.

 Understanding how essays are marked
 Sample essay for self-marking

What is evaluation?

 Evaluation / Analysis means thinking critically about points

o Do not take the points at face-value and just accept them for what you read from the notes
o Think carefully, is this point really valid? or true? or strong?
o Thinking critically of the points will automatically lead you to form an opinion on the question
which will be your thesis
o But always keep in mind evaluation has to help you address the question
o Evaluation is not done in a vacuum it has to show you something to help your thesis
 There should be as many points of evaluation (e) as possible but oftentimes in a single essay there will
only be a few. Some points just cannot be evaluated. But a few (e), at least five proper full P E E Ls, and a
proper conclusion with comparison and explanation of your argument will give an A grade already.
 Always leave a line and start a new paragraph if you are starting on a piece of evaluation.

How to evaluate?

Imagine that you are having a discussion with your friends about whether money is the most important thing to look out
for when searching for your future life partner. Remembering tutorial one, “Looks is the most important criteria when you
want to find a stead/gf-bf/muse/partner.” How far do you agree with this statement? Some other factors possible can
include intelligence, money and humour.

Answer 1: Money is the most important.

Answer 2: The main factor depends on age. When people are older they prefer… but when they are younger then maybe
they want more of…

Method of evaluation Example/s

 Comparison and linking of points to show
which has larger sphere of influence
o Which point comes first in time?
o Which point increases the effects of
another point?
Looks – ego. Showoff to friends. Look good at functions.
Money – stability. Family. take care of my parents
Intelligence – can tell you interesting things.
Humour – entertainment. Make you laugh.

With money I can also gain some LOOKs too through

plastic surgety, clothing etc.

Intelligence comes first as it will lead in the future to the

person knowing how to dress up, better clothing, etc.

 Discuss weaknesses of other points (on the side Looks – ego. Showoff to friends. Look good at functions.
you want to make weak) Money – stability. Family. take care of my parents

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 o –ve
o This is not a contradiction of your own
point as long as you phrase the
discussion of the weakness properly
o The point is valid, it is just not as
strong as it seems on face-value
o 70% is true, but 30% is weak
 Discuss further strengths of points (on the side
that you support)
o +ve
o Why this point is even stronger than
what was mentioned in the basic
PEEL
o Should not just be a repeat of the
explanation in your P E E L
o (sometimes similar to linking of points)
 Observe big trends that cover the entire region
o This evaluation often comes with an
observable example to prove your
argument
o Always done in conclusion as you
need to evaluate all the points together
to see the trend
o Is there categorisation of the points
into bigger groups? (internal, external,
etc)
o Is the outcome dependent on a
context? So this context will mean this
point is more impt, whereas that
context will mean another point is
more impt
o Some things to look out for in spotting
a trend include, time, geography,
Intelligence – can tell you interesting things.
Humour – entertainment. Make you laugh.
Looks will change across time. Pple get older. Looks
doesn’t mean love. What if he/she only likes you for your
looks.
Money is tangible. Can have but your partner but not
love you? What if you partner loves you only for the
money?
Looks is indeed important (70% +ve) but as we all know
everyone grows old (30% -ve) and looks never last
forever. Maybe it is important only when we are young
so that we can “show off” our trophy gf/bf.
Looks – ego. Showoff to friends. Look good at functions.
Money – stability. Family. take care of my parents
Intelligence – can tell you interesting things.
Humour – entertainment. Make you laugh.
Probably intelligence (until you get dementia). The
effects last the longest. (120% weight)
With money there are many things that can benefit our
relationship. We can buy a comfortable house we both
like. We can also go on holidays to have fun. We can also
buy a car for our daily convenience. We can go for
plastic surgery!
Pt A – one effect
Pt A – three effects
Looks – ego. Showoff to friends. Look good at functions.
Money – stability. Family. take care of my parents
Intelligence – can tell you interesting things.
Humour – entertainment. Make you laugh.
It is difficult to say which factor is the most important
because i realised that
- people who needs stability will place more emphasis on
money.
- Some people who are young and passionate may think
looks is the key.
- I think overly idealistic people will argue that
intelligence is the most important factor.
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 before and after, change or continuity,
attitude of colonial masters, etc
Either way the conclusion is that different people look for
different things especially at different stages of life.
When I am younger probably looks is important, when
I’m older and want to start a family probably money is
more important then.

An example of a real trend observation evaluation at A-levels: Is Democracy suited for independent
Southeast Asia?

Rather than just conclude:

 As can be seen, democracy was unsuitable because it had a lot of flaws and was unable to address
many of the problems facing early post-independent Southeast Asia.

Be more specific and note the observation that the suitability of democracy changed over time:

 Democracy is indeed unsuitable in the early years of independence for Southeast Asia but I
noticed that as time went by it became increasingly popular and effective as a political system.
This is likely because post-independent Southeast Asia was… while later on societies matured
and people were…

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There are two main types of structuring of evaluation.

(A) Individual points evaluation and brief sum-up at the end

Introduction

Point One Point Two (evaluation +ve)

Point Three Point Four (evaluation +ve)
Point Five (evaluation -ve)

Conclusion

- Brief sum-up
- The numerous evaluation above of individual points will already show the examiner
how you came to your thesis for the essay

(B) Concluding evaluation with not that much analysis in the body of the essay

Introduction

Point One (link to another factor) Point Two

Point Three Point Four (evaluation -ve)
Point Five

Conclusion

- Not that much evaluation within the individual points themselves

- Observe a trend from all the points you have discussed
- From the trend modify the question statement to make it more accurate, more specific
- Look out for time and geography or personality when trying to observe a larger trend

Introducing the marking format:

At each part of your essay where there is a valid content you will see a number followed by C

Example
1C = means the PEEL is correct
0.5 C = means maybe the eg. is invalid, or weak explanation in the PEEL

At each part of your essay where there is a valid evaluation you will see a number followed by EV

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Example
1EV = one valid explanation of an evaluative point
1.5 EV = one valid explanation of an evaluative point with good explanation

Two numbers at the end of your essay:

(first number on top) – content score
(second number below) – evaluation score

This will allow you to understand what you are supposed to improve on for each of your essay. If you cannot
even hit a decent content score it means you may not have understood and memorised the content
sufficiently. In which case you need to look at doing up your own notes again for the content needed for the
different types of questions. If you have a high content score but a low evaluation score, it means you are on
the right track and have done the necessary hard work. Now you need to concentrate on thinking more
critically about your content points and how to have your own stand and how to defend and prove your
stand for the different questions.

Examples
An “A” essay of 24/30 will be at – 6 or 3.5
1 2.5

A “B” essay of 19/30 will be at – 6 or 4.5

0 0.5

There is no maximum score for content or evaluation. But a minimum respectively of five content score and
one evaluation score should be your target. That will give you a comfortable A grade essay already.

Use your time wisely and aim for two essays with a strong A instead of one essay with super strong A and
another is poor due to a lack of time.

Key:

NAQ = not answering question

WDYSS = why do you say so?
HDYK = how do you know?
FE = factual error
CE = concept error
LE = logic error