1. The following appeared in a letter to the editor of Parson City's local newspaper. "In our region of Trillura, the majority of money spent on the schools that most students attend — the city-run public schools — comes from taxes that each city government collects. The region's cities differ, however, in the budgetary priority they give to public education. For example, both as a proportion of its overall tax revenues and in absolute terms, Parson City has recently spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public schools — even though both cities have about the same number of residents. Clearly, Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do." Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the letter to the editor of Parson city’s local newspaper, the author concludes that Parson City residents care more about providing good education in public schools than Blue city residents by citing the amount spent on public school being twice that of what Blue city residents spent. On first glance, the author’s argument seems valid, but on further analysis, it is apparent that the author’s argument is rife with holes and based on two assumptions, that if not substantiated, can dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the argument.
Firstly, the author claims without evidence that Parson city has spent almost twice per year as Blue city has for its public schools. However, the author has not provided any proof of this claim. He states that the money has been spent ‘per year’, but no details regarding the number of years has been given. It begs the question for how many years has Parson city paid twice the amount of Blue city. Additionally, no details about how much money the Parson city government and Blue city government collects in a year have been given. For instance, perhaps, the residents of Blue city don’t pay taxes regularly and that might be the reason why they haven’t given much budgetary allocation for public schools. It is also likely that Parson city government used leftover funds from previous years to pay more this year, this might explain why Parson city has paid (almost) twice as of Blue city. If either of these scenarios is true, then the author’s contention that Parson city cares more about giving to public schools than Blue city does not hold water.
Secondly, the author states that both the cities have equal number of residents and even so Parson city has paid almost twice of what Blue city has paid for public schools. However, this claim might not necessarily be evident. Here, the author assumes that the population distribution of both cities is similar. Perhaps, only a small percentage of Blue city’s population constitute of school going children and therefore they have a smaller number of public schools. This might explain why Blue city has allocated less funds for public education. Consequently, Parson city might have a greater percentage of school going children and hence, need a greater number of schools, which necessitates in more funds to be allocated. If this case is true, then the author’s presumption that Parson city values education more by citing that it has spent almost twice as Blue city on public school funding even though they have equal population, is dubious at best and specious at worst.
In conclusion, it is possible that Parson City’s residents place a higher value on providing good education to students in public schools than Blue city residents. However, as it stands now, the argument resides on two unsubstantiated assumptions that significantly weaken the author’s claim. The author needs to provide additional evidence regarding budgetary allocation report of Parson city and Blue city, population distribution according to age of Blue city and Parson city, and budgetary priorities of both cities for the aforesaid timeline.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 517 350
No. of Characters: 2557 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.768 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.946 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.491 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 113 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.85 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.758 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.428 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 291, Rule ID: ON_FIRST_GLANCE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'at'?
Suggestion: At
...that of what Blue city residents spent. On first glance, the author’s argument see...
^^
Line 3, column 474, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ow much money the Parson city government and Blue city government collects in a y...
^^
Line 5, column 515, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun funds is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ght explain why Blue city has allocated less funds for public education. Consequentl...
^^^^
Line 8, column 484, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...to age of Blue city and Parson city, and budgetary priorities of both cities for ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, first, firstly, hence, however, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, as for, even so, for instance, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2651.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14757281553 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.61269044873 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 206.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.4 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 794.7 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 66.347192857 57.8364921388 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.55 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.75 23.324526521 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.75 5.70786347227 136% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.335719682501 0.218282227539 154% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.132717220247 0.0743258471296 179% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.093819670661 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.250770269269 0.128457276422 195% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0161811898227 0.0628817314937 26% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.57 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.