The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial:
"Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year's graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
This argument claims that the school board should spend more funds on computers and all the schools in the district should adopt interactive computer to instruct students on the curriculum. The evidence cited to support this conclusion is that the school dropout rate has declined since Nova High School adopted interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects two years ago and there're some impressive achievements reported in last year's graduates. I don't agree with this argument, however, reasons are as following:
First of all, the author readily assumes that the usage of interactive computer instruction is the main cause of declining dropout rate. Although adopting interactive computer could have some positive impacts on the student's academic performance, it's not necessary the only factor that result in the change of dropout rate. There are some other factors that should be taken into consideration. For example, Nova High School may have hired teachers with good experience and knowledge so that the students can learn more from the class. Another reason could be the increase hours in class forcing students to study more on daily basis.
Moreover, the argument stated that last year's graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college and it readily considers that this is resulted from the interactive computer instruction. However, the author fails to establish the correlation between graduates' performance and the adoption of interactive computer instruction and it’s not clear whether those graduates’ good performance is related to those specific subjects. The achievement mentioned may be related to some sport activities or other subjects which do not involve the interactive computer instruction. Also, it could be possible that the school has run some training programs to help the students better prepare themselves for the college.
In sum, it would be prudent for the school to adopt the interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum with the evidence provided. To make proper conclusion, the author would have to rule out the other factors that might result in the declined dropout rate and the better performance of last year's graduates.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- somehow duplicated to argument 1 or can put them together. need to argue:
In future budgets
1. the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers,
2. and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.
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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: 14 15
No. of Words: 342 350
No. of Characters: 1844 1500
No. of Different Words: 165 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.3 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.392 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.725 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.429 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.798 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.373 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.561 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 391, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there are
...ree academic subjects two years ago and therere some impressive achievements reported i...
^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 464, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...nts reported in last years graduates. I dont agree with this argument, however, reas...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, for example, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1891.0 2260.96107784 84% => OK
No of words: 340.0 441.139720559 77% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.56176470588 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29407602571 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82997273392 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.494117647059 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 579.6 705.55239521 82% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => 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: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.8825151954 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 145.461538462 119.503703932 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.1538461538 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.38461538462 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.330905788462 0.218282227539 152% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.117476864264 0.0743258471296 158% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0961726600381 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.215398637951 0.128457276422 168% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0611845967193 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.8 14.3799401198 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.26 12.5979740519 121% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.78 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 83.0 98.500998004 84% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.