According to an independent poll of 200 charitable organizations, overall donations of money to nonprofit groups increased last year, but educational institutions did not fare as well as other organizations. Donations to international aid groups increased the most (30 percent), followed by donations to environmental groups (23 percent), whereas donations to educational institutions actually decreased slightly (3 percent). Meanwhile, all of the major economic indicators suggest that consumer spending is higher than average this year, showing that potential donors have ample disposable income. Therefore, the clearest explanation for the decline in donations to educational institutions is that people actually value education less than they did in the past.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
In the above memo, the author argues that people value education less than they did previously. The author supports his argument based on the report of economic indicators, which states that despite having ample amounts of disposable money potential donors tend to donate more to the other nonprofitable institutes. Furthermore, the author argues that though the amounts of donations to international aid groups and environmental groups increased significantly, donations to educational institutes decreased to rectify his argument. However, before evaluating the author’s argument three unstated assumptions need to be answered.
Firstly, the author argues that donations to educational institutes did not increase significantly based on the report of 200 charitable organizations. But the author does not provide how many educational institutes of 200 charitable institutions actually responded to the poll. There is a possibility that only 5 educational institutes responded to the poll then, concluding on the basis of very small sample size is fictitious to a certain extent. If the above scenario is true then the author’s argument holds no water. If the author is able to provide more necessitate evidence perhaps in the form of a statistical data chart of each type of charitable institute then one can evaluate the author’s argument properly.
Secondly, the author uses percentages to justify his argument that donations to environmental and international aid groups have increased. A percentage is a tricky situation, without the absolute number given one can not conclude anything from only a percentage. The author argues that donation to international aid has increased by 30 percent whereas donations to educational institutes decreased by 3 percent. Suppose previously donations to international aid were 10000 per annum and yearly donations to the educational institute were 5000000 dollars. Then donations to the educational institutes were deceased 150000 dollars whereas donations to international aid increased by only 3000 dollars. Then one can not argue that international aid’s getting more amount of donations than educational institutes. The author must include the number of donations of each individual organization to strengthen his argument.
Thirdly, the author states that though potential investors have ample disposable amounts to donate, they are most likely less interested in donating to educational institutes without any justifiable evidence. There is a possibility that in a recent economic recession the government increased tax revenue on donations significantly, then any potential investor may not want to donate to any charitable institute. Maybe educational institutes are dependent on government-based donations and the government spends a significant amount of money on educational institutes. If any one of the above scenarios is true then, the author's argument is built unreliably. If the author can provide more admissible evidence perhaps in the form of a statistical data chart regarding all the sources of donations of each institute then, it will be possible to evaluate the author’s recommendation.
In the conclusion, the author’s argument that stands now is seriously flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author can elucidate the three assumptions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study ) then, it will be possible to evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation that people value education less than they did previously.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 13 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 534 350
No. of Characters: 2985 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.807 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.59 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.178 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 241 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 194 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 162 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 118 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.217 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.934 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.39 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.39 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.152 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 451, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...size is fictitious to a certain extent. If the above scenario is true then the aut...
^^
Line 2, column 524, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...n the author’s argument holds no water. If the author is able to provide more nece...
^^
Line 4, column 622, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...f the above scenarios is true then, the authors argument is built unreliably. If the au...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 264, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... the form of a systematic research study then, it will be possible to evaluate th...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, whereas
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3043.0 2260.96107784 135% => OK
No of words: 534.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.69850187266 5.12650576532 111% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80712388197 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.26814009267 2.78398813304 117% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.419475655431 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 990.0 705.55239521 140% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.9 1.59920159681 119% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.5267527259 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.304347826 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2173913043 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.39130434783 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.302096130977 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.11010863917 0.0743258471296 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0939561862774 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.179644525996 0.128457276422 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0965681845094 0.0628817314937 154% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.0 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 22.75 48.3550499002 47% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.08 12.5979740519 128% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.3 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 98.500998004 121% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 17.0 11.9071856287 143% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.