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

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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 argument is based on the memo posted by the director of student housing at Buckingham College. The proposal is to build a number of new dormitories, as the enrollment in the college is increasing and is predicted to get doubled over the next fifty years. Well,this cannot be considered as a reason to build new dormitories as the number keeps changing every year and fifty years too long a period to take into consideration. There are many factors which influence the popularity of the college like the academic performance, the management, infrastructure, good tutors, availability of facilities and many more. Hence its very hard to predict the increase in number of students based on the current popularity of the college.

In order to get this memo into action and get the proposal sanctioned, certain details are missing. It would have strengthened the argument if the details like the number of students in the college, number of students who are staying in the dormitories, the number of rooms available and the number currently occupied and the number of students enrolling to the college and to the dormitories every year. No doubt the enrollment in the college is growing, but at the same time, the number of students opting for dormitories might be declining or is the same. In that case there would be a least possibility of the college authorities agreeing to build new dormitories as this would affect their funding. Hence the above details would help in making the proposal more reasonable.

Secondly, the director is concerned that, since the average rent for an apartment in the town is increasing, the students may not be able to afford off-campus housing. But he also states that they would be making the dormitories more attractive which would require funding from the college authorities. This will directly affect the students as they would have to pay more for the dormitories. Hence, many students may opt out of the dormitories.Nevertheless, they can share an apartment with their friends and the average cost gets divided among them which is quite reasonable.

The argument mentions about the number of prospective students to enroll in Buckingham as directly proportional to the increase in the number of dormitories. Well this cannot be a reason to build new dormitories as not all students who enroll to the college necessarily opt for dormitories. Moreover, students enroll to a college based on its academic success and not its attractive dormitories.

Hence, this argument fails to provide the aforementioned details and the proposal may not be accepted by the college authorities.

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Average: 8 (2 votes)
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Comments

argument 1 -- not exactly. suggested: 'there is a considerable possibility of deviation and errors in predictions that is made for such a long term.'

argument 2 -- where did you get this from the statement: 'But he also states that they would be making the dormitories more attractive'?

argument 3 -- OK

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 432 350
No. of Characters: 2147 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.559 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.97 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.825 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.413 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.372 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.569 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5

argument 1 -- not exactly. suggested: 'there is a considerable possibility of deviation and errors in predictions that is made for such a long term.'

argument 2 -- where did you get this from the statement: 'But he also states that they would be making the dormitories more attractive'?

argument 3 -- OK

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 432 350
No. of Characters: 2147 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.559 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.97 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.825 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.413 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.372 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.569 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5