The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview. (61, 141)
"Our citizens are well aware of the fact that while the Grandview Symphony Orchestra was struggling to succeed, our city government promised annual funding to help support its programs. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent, and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Such developments indicate that the symphony can now succeed without funding from city government and we can eliminate that expense from next year's budget. Therefore, we recommend that the city of Grandview eliminate its funding for the Grandview Symphony from next year's budget. By doing so, we can prevent a city budget deficit without threatening the success of the symphony."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation
In this memo, the budget planner for the city of Grandview claims that the funding for Grandview symphony has to be discontinued from next year to prevent a city budget deficit. To support her argument, she says that the private contribution to the symphony increased by 200% and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. And she cites symphony's officials announcement which indicates that the symphony will increase its ticket price. And she assumes that these can show the stability of finance state of the symphony and limiting funding for the symphony will not result financial problem of the symphony. It seems plausible first, however, careful scrutiny reveals that this argument has several logical problems.
To begin with, based on the fact that the personal donation for the symphony increased by 200% last year, author assumes that the increased rate of the contribution is meaningful number. However, the number, 200%, cannot be actually helpful to the symphony. For example, increased amount of personal contribution cannot cover overall necessary budget of the symphony. If this is true, we cannot be convinced by this argument.
Secondly, even if the increased personal contribution could bear overall necessary budget of the symphony, based on the same evidence which I mention just previous paragraph, the author assumes that this increased personal contribution of last year is common case and people will donate same degree of money in the future. However, the amount of contribution could not be stable and could be changed in the future. Common sense tells us that people tend to donate their money to institution like schools. symphonies and NGO when their property can afford it or national financial state is good. If financial state of the nation become bad in next few years, they will be more likely not to contribute. If she cannot explain why she thinks this phenomenon-increased contribution-will be continuous in the future, this argument has no ground.
Finally, even if we admit other problems are true, there is another problem. Based on the fact that the number of people who attend the concert doubled last year and the symphony will increase the ticket price and the personal contribution increased last year, the author presumes that the income of next year's net price will be black. However, the amount of income cannot afford the a year-budget of the symphony. For example, considering that inflation, needed budget for the symphony could be also increased. If the increasing rate of budget of the symphony is higher than total income which come from selling ticket, personal contribution and the concert, the financial state of the symphony will be red next year.
If she cannot rule out this problem, this argument is not cogent.
To summarize, this argument is still dubious as it stands. To make this argument more persuasive, she has to explain why she thinks increased personal contribution is meaningful for the overall budget of symphony and this increase will continue in the future. For evaluating better, we have to be given additional data which show expected rate of next year's budget of the symphony to overall income
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 519 350
No. of Characters: 2620 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.773 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.048 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.702 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 206 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.565 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.053 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.369 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.563 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.199 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 25, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In this memo, the budget planner for the city of Grandview claims...
^^
Line 1, column 213, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ficit. To support her argument, she says that the private contribution to the sym...
^^
Line 9, column 506, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Symphonies
...heir money to institution like schools. symphonies and NGO when their property can afford ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 381, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'a' is left.
Suggestion: the; a
...ver, the amount of income cannot afford the a year-budget of the symphony. For exampl...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, as to, for example, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2699.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 518.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21042471042 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77070365392 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80822678117 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.413127413127 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 825.3 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.9128212111 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.458333333 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5833333333 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.66666666667 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.116586565671 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0432283734674 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0752232927008 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0719246915375 0.128457276422 56% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0729236989454 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.85 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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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.