Assignment Command Words Explained: Analyse vs Evaluate

Analyse, evaluate and critically discuss ask for different things, and answering the wrong one costs marks even when the research is strong. Here is what each verb requires, with worked examples.

Command words are the verbs in your assignment brief that tell you what to do with the topic, and they are not interchangeable. "Analyse the causes of the 2008 financial crisis" and "Evaluate the causes of the 2008 financial crisis" require different answers from the same reading. Most students who lose marks for a well-researched piece did not misunderstand the subject. They answered a different question from the one that was set.

Key Takeaways

The command word sets the depth of thinking the marker expects, not the topic.
"Describe" asks what happened. "Analyse" asks how the parts relate. "Evaluate" asks how good or convincing something is, and requires your judgement.
Briefs often contain more than one command word. Each one needs answering.
Definitions vary a little between universities, so your module handbook always overrides a general guide.
Rewriting the question in your own words before you research is the single fastest way to avoid answering the wrong task.

What Command Words Actually Are

Command words go by several names. Curtin University calls them directive verbs, other institutions use task words, instruction words or directive words. They all mean the same thing: the verb that instructs you what cognitive work to perform.

Curtin's academic skills guidance breaks an assignment question into three parts, and the directive verb is one of them. The other two are the key concepts, meaning the subject matter, and the limitations and parameters, meaning the word count, source requirements and scope. Students usually read the key concepts carefully and skim the other two.

Here is the practical consequence. Two students research the same topic to the same standard. One notices the brief says "evaluate" and includes a reasoned judgement about which explanation is strongest. The other writes a thorough account of each explanation and stops. The second submission is not badly researched. It is incomplete against the task, and the mark reflects that.

The Ladder of Command Words

Command words sit on a rough ladder of cognitive demand. Lower rungs ask you to reproduce information. Higher rungs ask you to do something with it. Higher marks almost always live further up the ladder.

Level	Command words	What the marker wants	Typical mark ceiling if you stop here
1. Reproduce	Define, list, state, outline, identify	Accurate recall, nothing more	Pass, rarely higher on its own
2. Explain	Describe, explain, summarise, illustrate	Clear account showing you understood it	Solid but capped without analysis
3. Analyse	Analyse, examine, compare, contrast, apply	How the parts relate, why it matters	Good marks available
4. Judge	Evaluate, assess, critique, justify, to what extent	A defended position weighing evidence	Highest marks available

The ladder is a planning tool, not a rule from any single institution. Its value is that it forces one question before you write: does my plan actually reach the rung the brief asked for?

The Verbs You Will Meet Most

Command word	What it asks for	Your answer must contain
Describe	An account of features or events	What it is, in order, accurately
Explain	Reasons and mechanisms	Why or how it happens, with causes
Analyse	Detailed examination of components	Parts, relationships between them, significance
Compare	Similarities and differences	Both, against consistent criteria
Contrast	Differences only	Points of divergence, against criteria
Discuss	Consideration of more than one view	Competing positions plus your reading of them
Evaluate	A judgement of worth or effectiveness	Criteria, evidence on both sides, a verdict
Assess	Close to evaluate, weighing significance	Weighted judgement with justification
Critically discuss	Discussion plus scrutiny of the evidence	Strengths, weaknesses, limitations, your position
Justify	Defence of a position or choice	Reasons, supporting evidence, counter-arguments handled
To what extent	A degree of agreement, not yes or no	A qualified answer such as "largely, but not in X"
Apply	Use of a theory on a case	The framework, the case, what it reveals

Curtin's guide defines analyse as looking at your topic in detail and explaining the main ideas and how they connect, and evaluate as showing the good and bad points then giving your opinion. Different universities word these slightly differently, which is exactly why the handbook matters more than any glossary you find online.

One Topic, Three Command Words

The clearest way to see the difference is to hold the topic still and change only the verb. Take a nursing student writing about hand hygiene compliance.

"Describe the barriers to hand hygiene compliance in acute wards."
A strong answer sets out the recognised barriers: workload and time pressure, skin irritation from frequent washing, dispenser placement, and glove use being mistaken for a substitute. It is organised, accurate and referenced. It does not need your opinion.

"Analyse the barriers to hand hygiene compliance in acute wards."
Now the same barriers must be related to each other. Time pressure and dispenser placement are not two separate problems, they compound: a dispenser sited away from the point of care costs seconds that staff under pressure will not spend. That sentence is analysis, because it explains a relationship rather than listing two items.

"Evaluate interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance in acute wards."
Here you need criteria before you can judge. You might choose sustained compliance at six months, cost, and staff acceptability. You then weigh education campaigns against electronic monitoring against dispenser redesign on those criteria, and you commit to a position: which works best, under what conditions, and what the evidence cannot yet tell us.

Notice that the reading behind all three could be identical. The difference is entirely in what you do with it.

A Five-Step Method Before You Research

Circle every verb in the brief. Briefs frequently contain two or three. "Outline the framework and critically evaluate its usefulness for small firms" is two tasks with different weightings.
Look each one up in your handbook first. Only use a general guide if your institution does not define it.
Rewrite the question as an instruction to yourself. "I must explain what X is briefly, then decide how useful it is for small firms and defend that."
Sketch the shape of the answer. If the verb is evaluate, your plan needs a criteria section and a verdict. If that is missing from your outline, the essay will miss it too.
Check the marking rubric against your plan. Rubrics usually restate the command word as a criterion, often worded as "critical evaluation" or "analysis and application".

This takes about fifteen minutes and saves rewrites later. It is also the stage where a tutor is genuinely useful, because you are asking someone to check your interpretation of the task rather than to produce the work.

Language That Signals the Right Level

Markers look for linguistic signals that you are analysing rather than describing. The University of Leeds guidance on critical writing puts it plainly: your writing needs to show your interpretation of the evidence, how you have used that information, and your position on the topic.

The Manchester Academic Phrasebank is the most useful free resource for this, offering phrase templates for evaluating sources, such as constructions like "Smith fails to fully define what ..." for identifying a weakness. Borrowing sentence frames of this kind is standard academic practice and is not plagiarism, because the frames carry no content of their own. The ideas and evidence must still be yours.

Some quick contrasts:

Descriptive: "Porter's five forces has five elements." Analytical: "Porter's model treats supplier power as independent of buyer power, which breaks down in the platform economy where the same firm is often both."
Descriptive: "The study surveyed 200 nurses." Evaluative: "A sample of 200 from a single trust limits transferability, so the compliance figures should be read as indicative rather than representative."

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Mistake	Why it costs marks	Fix
Answering only the first verb in a two-verb brief	Half the task is missing, so half the criteria score zero	Number the verbs and allocate word count to each
Treating "discuss" as "describe both sides"	No position emerges, so the work reads as a summary	End sections with your reading of which case is stronger
Evaluating without stated criteria	The judgement looks like personal preference	Name your criteria early and judge consistently against them
Saving all analysis for the conclusion	Conclusions cannot introduce new argument, so it is wasted	Analyse inside each body paragraph as you go
Answering "to what extent" with yes or no	The verb asks for degree, so a binary answer misreads it	Use qualified language: "substantially, although not in cases where ..."
Using a generic online glossary over the handbook	Definitions vary between institutions and disciplines	Check your module guide first, every time

Country and Discipline Notes

UK, Australia and New Zealand: "critically evaluate" and "critically discuss" appear constantly, and "critically" is a genuine escalation rather than decoration. It asks you to scrutinise the quality of the evidence itself, not only the argument.
United States and Canada: briefs more often use "argue", "make a case for" or "take a position". The expectation of a defended thesis is the same, but the wording is more direct.
India: examination questions frequently pair a low-level and high-level verb, such as "Define and critically examine". Both halves are marked, and the second usually carries more weight.
EU institutions teaching in English: wording is often translated from the local language, so verbs can be used loosely. Ask your lecturer to clarify rather than guessing.
Law: problem questions rarely use these verbs at all. They expect an established structure such as IRAC or ILAC, which performs the analysis implicitly.
Sciences and engineering: lab and design reports use "calculate", "derive" and "justify your design choice", where justify means defending a decision against alternatives you considered.

Where Ethical Support Fits

Understanding the task is a skill you keep for the rest of your degree, which is why it is worth building rather than outsourcing. Legitimate support at this stage looks like a tutor confirming that your reading of the brief is sound, feedback on whether your plan actually reaches the level the verb requires, or proofreading once the thinking is yours.

What is never legitimate is having the work produced for submission. That is contract cheating, and it is a criminal offence in England under the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, in Australia under the TEQSA framework, and in New Zealand. Beyond the law, it defeats the point: the student who learns to decode command words writes better in every module that follows.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between analyse and evaluate?

Analyse asks how something works and how its parts relate. Evaluate asks how good, effective or convincing it is, and requires you to reach a judgement using stated criteria. Evaluation usually contains analysis, but analysis alone is not evaluation.

My brief says "critically discuss". Does critically mean I should criticise?

No. Critically means examining the strength of evidence and reasoning, which includes acknowledging what is convincing. A critical discussion that finds a theory largely sound, and says why, is perfectly valid.

What if my assignment has three command words?

Answer all of them, and let the highest-level verb shape the structure. Give the lower-level verbs less space. A brief asking you to define, apply and evaluate might reasonably run 10 per cent, 40 per cent and 50 per cent.

Does "to what extent" mean I have to agree partly?

Not necessarily, but it does invite a degree rather than a binary. You can conclude "to a very limited extent" provided you show why, and acknowledge the strongest case against you.

Where do I find my university's official definitions?

Check the module handbook first, then your library's academic skills pages, then the assignment brief's own rubric. If they conflict, ask the module leader, and keep the reply.

Is using phrase templates from something like the Academic Phrasebank allowed?

Yes. Sentence frames carry no subject content, so using them is a language-learning aid rather than borrowed ideas. The evidence, reasoning and conclusions must still be yours, and anything substantive still needs a citation.

How do I know if my draft has actually analysed rather than described?

Read each paragraph and ask what work its final sentence does. If every paragraph ends by finishing a fact, the piece is descriptive. Analytical paragraphs end by saying what the fact means for the question.

Your Next Step Today

Open your current assignment brief and circle every verb in it. Write one sentence per verb explaining, in plain language, what you must actually produce. If you cannot write that sentence for a verb, that is the exact point to ask your tutor, and it takes two minutes rather than a rewrite.

Trusted Sources

Curtin University UniSkills, Understanding the question, directive verbs and the three-part breakdown of an assignment question.
University of Leeds Library, Critical writing, on moving from description to interpretation.
University of Manchester Academic Phrasebank, Being critical, phrase templates for evaluative writing.
QAA, Contracting to Cheat in Higher Education, sector guidance on academic integrity.
TEQSA, Identifying, avoiding and reporting illegal cheating services, the Australian legal position and the risks to students.
Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, explanatory notes, the offence of providing or arranging contract cheating services in England.

Definitions of command words vary between institutions and disciplines. Where this guide and your module handbook disagree, follow the handbook.