Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at Omega have risen by 30 percent. Potential employers, looking at this dramatic rise in grades, believe that grades at Omega are inflated and do not accurately reflect student achievement; as a result, Omega graduates have not been as successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University. To enable its graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should terminate student evaluation of professors.
The article states that omega university implemented a new program whereby students have the ability to evaluate professors. The author believes abolishing this method of rating will result in a more accurate grading scale. The school will then reestablish a trusted reputation. This argument, though it seems sound, has a few missing pieces of evidence before it can be deemed air tight logic.
The author states that grades went up by 30% since this plan was implemented but doesn't give sufficient evidence as to the correlation. Nor does it specify these potential employers that are overlooking the students. If the students are doing better in their courses, wouldn't it be possible that this new procedure was not the cause? The students might have realized their voices matter and became more vocal about their needs for better learning. This too would lead to improvements across the board.
Furthermore, the fact that teachers are evaluated does not neccesarily mean they would feel incentive to cushion grades. It may very well lead to them attempting new tactics and rising to the challenge of becoming more effective teachers. If this were the case, students having higher grades would be a direct reflection of their efforts.
Lastly, there is not sufficient information about the evaluation technique implemented. Are the students to evaluate teachers before or after the term is finished? If the evaluation is turned in before the grades are final, professors have no reason to boost grades as incentive for higher marks.
While the author's assumption here isn't entirely unfounded, they have not sufficiently backed their claim or reccomendation with the information mentioned above. If any of these alternate examples turned out to be the case, the argument would not hold water.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 291 350
No. of Characters: 1477 1500
No. of Different Words: 170 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.13 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.076 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.68 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 110 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 74 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.118 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.837 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.588 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.288 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.541 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.04 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 225, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...esult in a more accurate grading scale. The school will then reestablish a trusted ...
^^^
Line 5, column 82, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...30% since this plan was implemented but doesnt give sufficient evidence as to the corr...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 269, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
...ents are doing better in their courses, wouldnt it be possible that this new procedure ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 280, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'is'?
Suggestion: is
...ing better in their courses, wouldnt it be possible that this new procedure was no...
^^
Line 17, column 11, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...entive for higher marks. While the authors assumption here isnt entirely unfounded...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 35, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
... While the authors assumption here isnt entirely unfounded, they have not suffi...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, if, lastly, look, may, so, then, well, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 55.5748502994 56% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1527.0 2260.96107784 68% => OK
No of words: 288.0 441.139720559 65% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.30208333333 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11953428781 4.56307096286 90% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73176959207 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 171.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.59375 0.468620217663 127% => OK
syllable_count: 469.8 705.55239521 67% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 27.6340394877 57.8364921388 48% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 89.8235294118 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.9411764706 23.324526521 73% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.05882352941 5.70786347227 71% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.254362958881 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0731629760775 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0787444859905 0.0701772020484 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.129502637057 0.128457276422 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0400106191146 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.16 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.82 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 80.0 98.500998004 81% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.