"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 argument states that the birthrate is declining in the city of Calatrava. Based on this evidence, the writer claims that the needed budget for specifying on children educational and entertainment facilities will decrease due to decline of school children in the following years. Hence, we can allocate more fund for athletic fields and other recreational facilities. This proposal may seem logical at first glance. However, the writer’s conclusion is based on assumption that is not provided with supportive evidence.
First of all, the writer claims that last year birthrate was only one-half in comparison with five years ago. This trend might not be reliable trend for concluding that we would have tremendous decrease in the number of school children. It is likely that during the past five years, a baby boom had happened. So, if this is the case, there would not be a noticeable decline in the number of children who are supposed to enroll in schools in the upcoming years. This derides the writer premise stating that we can safely reduce the fund needed for the children education during next decade and specify it for budgets needed for adults activities.
Another piece of evidence that could weaken the writer’s conclusion would be the the assumption stating that we can reduce funding for athletic and other recreational reinforcement for children. Teenager are not noticeably engaged with athletic playing fields. This is an entertainment that majority of adults usually tends to experience. For example, American football is a game that has nothing to do with children and only youngster are fully pursue it. Therefore, there would not be considerable budget for teenager in this type of activities.
To conclude, the argument is based on some evidence that would weaken his conclusion due to lack of supportive information. The writer should provide us with the exact trend of birthrate during the past five years as well as clarifying the correlation between children activities and athletic playing fields which is usually used for adults.
Comments
The author in the argument
The author in the argument assumes that the adult population of the city expectation to increase as the birthrate in our country us declining and concludes that committee will have sufficient money to fund city programs and facilities used by adults. The author’s assumption mainly based on the reduction in birthrate that causes the number of students enrolling for public schools will decrease dramatically and committee can safely reduce funds for next decade for education . The argument possess many unanswered questions and hence, is not corroborating. The argument has several serious flaws in it.
Firstly, the author in the argument assumes, “Because of this, therefore, after this” fallacy without provinding cogent evidence. The author wrongly assumes that as the birthrate in the city is declining, the number of students enrolling in the school will also decrease. It may be possibility that, the city was not developed five years ago and there was lack of education awareness and students were hesitant to enroll there names in the public schools. And today, there is vast awareness about education, ultimately students enrolled in large quantity than before which causes more demand of funds to public education system than before. If this case is possible, the conclusion of the argument reach to fiasco.
Secondly, the author in the argument assumes hat correlation proves causality. Although this analogy sometimes true but not always. The author assumes that student population decreases in public schools , consequently, participation in different school activities will also decline. Can it always possible? It may be the case that students in later age are more active than before and hence there participation also greater than that few years ago which led to high money demand for school activities.
Finally, there is not cogent and convincing evidence provided by the author in the argument that as the funds require for public student decreases, the same amount will available for adults activities. Moreover, it may be case than adults population would constant and have decreased due to increased death ratio due to certain causes like pollution in city , diseases, etc. If this possibility is comes to be true, what happen, the author prediction goes to failure and consequently, conclusion and assumption,too.
In summary, the author in the argument is full of flaws and lack of statistical data and population statistics of the students enrolled to public school five years later and before. In addition , the author assumes wrongly that correlation proves causality and used fallacy “ because of this, after this, therefore”. The author in the arguemtn could make this conclusion well sounding and compelling by furnishing relevant propaganda about awareness of education in school later and before five years ago , activity of students in participation in school activities, adults fund relation to that of public students, etc.
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argument 1 -- not OK. maybe people from other states move to this city.
argument 2 -- not OK. maybe athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities are shared by adults and children both.
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flaws:
Need to argue against the conclusion. For this topic it is:
'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.'
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 333 350
No. of Characters: 1698 1500
No. of Different Words: 161 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.272 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.099 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.677 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 132 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.161 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.493 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5