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.
In his memo, the director of student housing proposes to build several new dormitories on the grounds, that given the current enrollment trends, the population of Buckingham's College students will be twice within 50 years, far exceeding the capabilities of the existing dormitories. The constant increase in average rents, according to the director, is another factor, that might prevent students from finding an affordable accommodation in the town. Also, the director believes, that the new dormitories will make Buckingham College more popular among prospective students, thus, increasing the enrollment rate. Despite the apparently persuasive nature of director’s memo, I find it totally unconvincing and logically flawed.
First of all, the director expects that the enrollment rate will double in the next 50 years, given the current increasing trends. However, while performing this interpolation, he does not consider other factors that can affect the future enrollment. Most probably, this increasing trend in students' enrollment rate is attributable to an upward demographic trend. However, nothing is guaranteed that it will not become reverse in the future. Or, maybe current Buckingham College is popular among the students due to some groundbreaking discovery, or its newly adopted academic program or some other recent achievements. In other words, this popularity is temporary, and is not guaranteed that the similar achievements will be done in the future to preserve the gained fame. Moreover, the director cites the enrollment rate for current trends only, omitting the historical trends, which might be decreasing. In overall, to make the conclusion that the enrollment rate will constantly grow in the future, the director needs to provide the detailed circumstances, contributing to this grows as well as historical data on the enrollment rates for past years.
Secondly, the director states that the average rent also rises, but he omits to provide the factors contributing to this increment. It might happent that, several new luxurious compounds are build in the city which rental prices far exceed the ordinary ones. If averaged over the city, these prices will contribute a lot, thus resulting in the overall increase in the rental price. In fact, the price for ordinary accommodation, the students usually rent, might have even decreased. Thus, lacking information of the distribution of rental prices in different sectors of the city properties, it is hard to convince me that the students might not be able to afford to rent an apartment in the future.
Ultimately, the director believes that the new dormitories will attract prospective students. This statement is quite dubious. Despite the fact that living conditions are also contribute to the students' choice, they are not the factor of top importance. I am more than convinced, that
students first looking at the programs, the facilities the Buckingham College provides, the employment rate of alumni or many other factors, related to studies and academic success. It is illogical to assume that the new dormitories might change mind of the students if they find the offered courses not aligned with their goals. Thus, building new dormitories might not affect the enrollment.
In the final analysis the memo is unconvincing in its current state and contains several logical flaws. To persuade me that building the dormitories is a task of paramount importance, the director must cite the historical trends of the enrollment rate, provide me with the information about property types available in the town and their prices as well as other factors like recent achievements or discoveries, done in Buckingham College, that might affect the current popularity of the college.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 586 350
No. of Characters: 3097 1500
No. of Different Words: 255 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.92 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.285 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.852 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 234 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 195 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 136 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 88 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.44 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.95 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.68 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.313 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.492 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.083 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 411, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[3]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'affordable accommodation'.
Suggestion: affordable accommodation
...hat might prevent students from finding an affordable accommodation in the town. Also, the director believe...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 187, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nt that, several new luxurious compounds are build in the city which rental price...
^^^^
Line 5, column 404, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... in the rental price. In fact, the price for ordinary accommodation, the students...
^^
Line 7, column 177, Rule ID: BEEN_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Consider using a past participle here: 'contributed'.
Suggestion: contributed
...he fact that living conditions are also contribute to the students choice, they are not th...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, apparently, but, first, however, if, look, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, thus, well, while, in fact, as well as, first of all, 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: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3195.0 2260.96107784 141% => OK
No of words: 586.0 441.139720559 133% => OK
Chars per words: 5.45221843003 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.92010537223 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95141785195 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 276.0 204.123752495 135% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470989761092 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 990.0 705.55239521 140% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 16.0 4.96107784431 323% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 73.5548122151 57.8364921388 127% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.8 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.44 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.16 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.22008428217 0.218282227539 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0594114666088 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0617310263948 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123151503111 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0779634244896 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.0 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.63 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.95 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 155.0 98.500998004 157% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.