Ch. 10 Response

Evaluating is a simple verb that is a common occurrence in everyday life. While reading Chapter 10 on the subject of evaluating, it is something that I came to realize that I never really thought about before.  As humans, we perform several evaluations before we even walk out of the door in the morning, which is something I thought was very intriguing once I thought about it. For example, we evaluate what to eat for breakfast, how to best manage time, what routes to work are best to take, and so on.

In every evaluation, there are always several questions that seem to arise from them. What makes one decision better than another? Why does someone choose to do this task and not another? The fact of the matter is the only way to answer these types of questions is by determining what criteria your evaluation is based on. In other words, the things that are taken into consideration to make a decision that one action needs to be taken here over another. This chapter has taught me that criteria differs for everyone, and when it comes to presenting or evaluating an argument, it is vitally important that criteria is mentioned. The criterion by which one formulates he or she’s opinion on has to be presented in an argument’s thesis early on. Something new to me was discovering just how necessary the criteria portion is to an argument. It is important and necessary because the audience needs to know how the opinion that is presented came about. For example, in my upcoming paper I need to make sure that I discuss all of the criteria of why I believe or don’t believe in social networking being used in the workforce. When presenting the criteria to an audience it is imperative that is not vague in any sense. Criteria has to be specific and detailed enough, so that an audience should have no question as to how the author has come to that he or she’s opinion. To conclude, be clear and never leave the audience guessing.