In out writing guide, we will explain you how to deal with an evaluation essay in women and gender studies. The whole process will be broken down into 5 sections, each described below.

What Is an Evaluation Essay?

The number one goal of a college evaluation essay is to provide a strong point of view on particular events, people, or things. In other words, you have to provide argumentative viewpoint on the topic using the trusted researches, proved facts, and so on. At the same time, even though this type of essay contains the author’s point of view, it is important to include all arguments and facts objectively, and any personal point of view can be included only at the end of the project.

Choosing a Topic in Women and Gender Studies

In case with the evaluation essay in the field of women and gender studies, we strongly recommend you to choose the topics that you have some previous experience with. Thus, it will be easier for you to opinionate your evaluation and make it as specific and fact-based as possible. Don’t forget that your evaluation essay will be stronger if you:

• Include a strong point of view. It doesn’t matter if your opinion is negative or positive, it must be related to the topic.
• Pick the topic that you had previous experience with or that you have an opportunity to review once more before you begin to work on your essay.
• Know a lot about the chosen sub-field of women and gender studies.

You are welcome to use the following list of topics in order to come up with the one that you’d like your evaluation essay about:

• Same-Sex Adoption Rights;
• Historical Causes of Current Differences in Sex Roles;
• Homosexuals in Military;
• Role of Gender Diversity in Science;
• Non-Traditional Roles of Women in 21st Century;
• Patriarchal Stereotypes in Family Relationships;
• Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting.

The topics mentioned above don’t seem to be difficult. However, taking into consideration the fact that you will have to do your evaluation on the basis of a range of criterion, make sure that you know the chosen subject very well.

Choose Criteria to Evaluate

In order to turn your point of view into an appropriate evaluation, you have to make use of special criteria to judge the chosen topic. What are these criteria about? In short, these are the parts of the chosen subject that the author has to consider positive or negative, good or bad, etc.

How can one choose the right criteria? Check out some of the examples that might help you at this stage of your work on your evaluation essay:

• Sex criteria: sexual orientation, sex roles, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sexuality.
• Gender criteria: women’s empowerment, motherhood, feminism, trans-gendering.
• Social issues: childfree, inter-gender, gender imbalance, gender leadership.

How to find the best criteria for your essay on women and gender studies? First of all, the author of the evaluation essay has to decide what kind of topic he or she is evaluating. In case you work on the discrimination, it is important to decide what kind of discrimination it is – sexual, work, or gender. Then ensure to decide what environment would work best as the scene for these criteria. Next, you will have to evaluate the chosen situation in order to find out whether it matches the criteria that you have specified. Do not forget to give specific and precise examples to illustrate the accuracy of your opinion.

Write Your Thesis Statement

At this stage of your work, you have to come up with a strong thesis statement. Just like you write a thesis statement for any other college essay, you provide it for an evaluation project. It is a text fragment that includes a clear purpose of your writing, as well as gives you an opportunity to choose the right criteria and appropriate examples.
Keep in mind that your thesis statement shouldn’t contain any fake information. In other words, choose the materials that can be easily checked. Thus, your readers are not going to be confused in the process of reading.

Criteria for Evaluation Essays in Women and Gender Studies

It is important to mention that criteria are crucial for writing an evaluation essay. The chosen criteria will provide your target readers with a strong understanding of the topic, as well as specify the best way for the issue to develop. For instance, if the evaluation essay that you write is dedicated to the advantages and disadvantages of gender transitioning, you may state that it can have a negative impact on mental health, whereas in ideal, gender transitioning should result in a better quality of life, improved relationship satisfaction, as well as higher confidence and self-esteem.

Build a Strong Outline for an Evaluation Essay

In case with the women and gender studies, the evaluation essay outline may look like an examples we’ve given below:

The Introduction

• Introduce your topic. To inform your target readers about the subject you’re going to evaluate, it is important to provide a complete paragraph. You can do it either by giving a general picture of the topic, discussing the way it influences people, and why it is important to evaluate it. What is more, the author also has to set the range of criteria that he or she is going to refer to in order to prove the stated thesis.
• Produce a strong thesis statement. Write and edit your thesis in order to make sure it contains your judgement and all the supporting issues.

The Body

Reason 1

• Criterion 1. Write the topic sentence. Provide your judgement for the first chosen criterion. In order to guarantee smooth transitions, we strongly recommend you to include transition words that will help you to switch from the thesis statement to the reason 1.
• Supporting info for reason 1. It is important to support your first chosen reason using professional testimonials, solid examples, quotes, statistics, and so on.
• Consider objections and disprove them. In order to make your arguments sound stronger, we recommend addressing objections or contradicting points of view to refute them altogether.

Reason 2

• Criterion 2. Write the topic sentence. Provide your judgement for the first chosen criterion. In order to guarantee smooth transitions, we strongly recommend you to include transition words that will help you to switch from the thesis statement to the reason 2.
• Supporting info for reason 2. It is important to support your first chosen reason using professional testimonials, solid examples, quotes, statistics, and so on.
• Consider objections and disprove them. In order to make your arguments sound stronger, we recommend addressing objections or contradicting points of view to refute them altogether.

Reason 3

• Criterion 3. Write the topic sentence. Provide your judgement for the first chosen criterion. In order to guarantee smooth transitions, we strongly recommend you to include transition words that will help you to switch from the thesis statement to the reason 3.
• Supporting info for reason 3. It is important to support your first chosen reason using professional testimonials, solid examples, quotes, statistics, and so on.
• Consider objections and disprove them. In order to make your arguments sound stronger, we recommend addressing objections or contradicting points of view to refute them altogether. Keep in mind that you have to do it this way to prevent your readers from considering your ideas weak and unsupported.

Conclude Your Essay

In the concluding paragraph, you have to restate your thesis statement and clarify the essay purpose once again. Keep in mind that you can’t just copy and paste information from your introduction. Instead, use your conclusion to make a good impression on your readers. This is the last section, where you can provide any recommendations and speak the final “words of wisdom” to your readers.
The author of the evaluation essay in women and gender studies has to be able to persuade his or her audience, or to specify personal point of view, or to prove your status as a professional in the field. Provide the logical closure of the subject to provide your readers with a sense of completeness. At the same time, make sure your audience has enough space to come up with their own points of view or have a desire to know more about the gender roles or inequality.

In order to provide your evaluation essay with a sense of completeness and logical closure, ensure to:

• Finish your evaluation essay by connecting the last paragraph to the introduction. The author can do it through restating the main point that was specified in the opening statement.
• End your essay with a paragraph based on simple language. This will help your readers to better understand your message.

Final Tips for Writing an Evaluation Essay

• Be passionate in your review. The fact is that properly opinionated evaluation essays are more interested for the target audience. We recommend you to use engaging and hooking terms, words and word combinations. Make sure that with every other statement you have to be confident why the chosen subject is better than the rest from the category. Keep in mind that in evaluation essays in women and gender studies, you can provide mixed judgement. For instance, you can state that feminism movement is a good mix of aspects that ease life of women in modern society. However, decline of marriage is known as the negative consequences of feminism.
• Do your best to make sure your readers will be interested in your subject. To achieve this, we strongly recommend providing the sufficient amount of details that clearly explain your subject and supply your readers with all the details needed to either agree or disagree with your evaluation. Sometimes the gender-related topics like abortion, discrimination, and feminism keep readers in suspense and curious about the outcome.
• Choose three criteria at least for your evaluation essay. In case with the paper in women and gender studies, you could choose three of the following: gender, pregnancy, abortions.

Finally, many college students tend to confuse a review and an evaluation essay. That’s a mistake that may cause troubles later, when you submit your assignment. To clarify the matter, keep in mind that a review is the type of academic paper that is a short summary of a play, book or film. At the same time, an evaluation essay requires you to provide your own point of view on a given topic together with a detailed assessment on a particular matter. And by all means, make certain to keep away from the statements like – ‘Sexism is bad because all kids of discriminations are bad’. If you find phrases like these in your essay, do your best to eliminate each and choose the most suitable alternatives.