The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.
"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."
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 city of Calatrava concludes that, because their birth rate is low, that they should dampen the education and youth programs budget to invest more into their adult facilities and programming. However, it is not reasonable to assume that last year’s birth rate will set the trend for the next ten years, or that increasing the adult facilities budget would result in an increased usage of the programs.
The author of this passage assumes two things: that the previous year’s birthrate will be the same as the both rate this year or next, and that there are no migrants with young children. Assuming that the birth rate will follow the same trend as last year is completely preposterous. First, the city must take into account the number of people that will be moving into parenthood age during the next ten years. If a majority of the population is children age 10-20, within ten years they will be at the age of parenthood, which would likely result in a surge in the birth rate. Secondly, who is to say that the only people that attend schools in the city are those that are born there? It is necessary to account for both the birth-rate of the city as well as the migration trends.
Next, the city proposes using the money from schools and recreational areas and investing in areas that more adults can use. However, it can not be assumed that the adults in the city will want to use these new facilities, regardless of the number of adults in the population. Additionally, the proposal uses vague language to describe what facilities exactly the money will be used for and what the current usage of them is. Does the city plan to open more bars and clubs or would it rather invest in office buildings and libraries? The lack of specific language limits the city’s ability to convict the public that this budget change will actually benefit them.
If the city rebutted and proved that the current adolescent population was low, that the emigration rate was larger than the immigration rate, or that the newly funded facilities would actually be of interest to the current adult population, there would be a much stronger argument for wanting to decrease the education and youth recreation budget. But, as it is, the proposal seems far-fetched.
In conclusion, the city of Calatrava is presumptuous in assuming that their birth rate in the next ten years will follow last year’s low trend. Additionally, there is a lack of supporting evidence about the immigration into the city and about the current usage of adult facilities and any research on if they would be used more after being funded. Lastly, the argument uses vague language to describe the way that the new funds would be invested. Overall, the argument is weak and is based on unprovable assumptions.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-08-06 | LaurelRogers | 46 | view |
| 2019-07-16 | raolitesh@gmail.com | 86 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 479 350
No. of Characters: 2243 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.678 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.683 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.43 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.211 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.601 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.54 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 755, Rule ID: BOTH_AS_WELL_AS[1]
Message: Probable usage error. Use 'and' after 'both'.
Suggestion: and
...unt for both the birth-rate of the city as well as the migration trends. Next, the city ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, however, if, lastly, second, secondly, so, well, in conclusion, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2317.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 479.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 4.83716075157 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67825486995 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.5778443238 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440501043841 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 719.1 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.2278342436 57.8364921388 113% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.947368421 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2105263158 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.05263157895 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => 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: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.226490792043 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0792134102527 0.0743258471296 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0721215100822 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.13727915448 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0494596550815 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => 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: 11.09 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.88 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => 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: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.