The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.
"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."
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.
The director of the student housing at Buckingham College recommends that they build a number of new dormitories to meet the increasing enrollments in the college. He suggests that more students will opt for in-house dormitories rather than off campus housing due to increase in average rents in the town. Moreover, the new dormitories will also succor in attracting prospective students. However, before the argument can be properly evaluated, one need further pieces of evidence.
Firslty, what is the percentage of the students that are choosing in-house dormitories? In other words, do most students in the college opt for on campus dormitories? The director mentioned about the increasing trend in the enrollments but did not give any information about the trend of the number of students staying in on-campus dormitories. There is a possibility that though the enrollments for the college are increasing, the number of students opting to stay in the on-campus housing has been almost constant or paradoxically decreasing. If either of the scenarios has any merit, then implementing the director's recommendation would lead to desetude of the new dormitories.
Secondly, what is the cost of on-campus dormitories as compared to average rent in the locality? The director asserted that since the average rent in the town has risen in the recent years, the students would find it difficult to afford off-campus housing. However, what the director failed to mention is the cost of the on-campus housing. It is possible that though there has been a rise in the average rent in the town, they are still below the cost of the on-campus dormitories. If this turns out to be the case, then the director's prediction that the students would choose on-campus dormitories as opposed to off-campus housing would fall flat on its face.
Finally, what do the students look for in a college to enroll in that college? The director does not take into account the various factors that a student would consider ot enroll himself in a college. Instead, he prematurely assumes that new dormitories would entice propective students to enroll in the college. However, this may not be true. Perhaps, there are a various factors like national ranking of the college, qualificatiton of professors, oppurtunities after graduation etc that students consider prior to the accommodation facilities. If this is the case with the students, then the director's naive plan to attarct students would fail.
Therefore, the argument, as it stands is unpersuasive as the director does not provide any information pertaining to the above posed questions. One will be in a better position to evaluate the argument if the director can provide information addressing the above questions, perhaps in a detailed manner so that there is no room for ambiguity.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.5 out of 6
Category: Excellent Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2318 1500
No. of Different Words: 197 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.095 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.895 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.682 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.295 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.636 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.36 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 610, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...os has any merit, then implementing the directors recommendation would lead to desetude o...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 526, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...this turns out to be the case, then the directors prediction that the students would choo...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 283, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a detailed manner" with adverb for "detailed"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...addressing the above questions, perhaps in a detailed manner so that there is no room for ambiguity....
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, however, if, look, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 2.0 11.1786427146 18% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2377.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.22417582418 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98144161151 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446153846154 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 738.0 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.1725115891 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.045454545 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6818181818 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.18181818182 5.70786347227 91% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.298838787007 0.218282227539 137% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.098871252239 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.104334435517 0.0701772020484 149% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.173477708317 0.128457276422 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.111561302136 0.0628817314937 177% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.03 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.