The following appeared in the editorial column of the Fern County Gazette newspaper:"The Fern County Council made the right decision when it unanimously voted to convert the Northside branch of the county library system into a computer-skills training fac

Essay topics:

The following appeared in the editorial column of the Fern County Gazette newspaper:
"The Fern County Council made the right decision when it unanimously voted to convert the Northside branch of the county library system into a computer-skills training facility for public use. The converted facility will fill what is certain, based on national trends, to be a growing need among county residents for training in computer skills. And since our library system boasts more volumes per resident than any other system in the state, the remaining branches will adequately serve the future needs of Fern County residents."

Discuss what evidence you would need to properly evaluate the argument, and explain how that evidence might strengthen or weaken the argument.

The editorial indicates that according to the national trend, the Northside branch of the Fern County Council will be changed in the computer-skill training facility. The author concludes that this decision is right. However, there is no enough evidence to fairly judge the conclusion. Every point of deficiency is listed below.

First of all, the author mentions that there is a growing need of learning computer skills base on a national trend. Nevertheless, there is no specific information which can demonstrate that the national trend is equal to every county’s trend. In other words, the Fern Country might not have the same needs of computer skills training as other counties or a whole nation. Therefore, the author should provide a detailed survey of the needs of the Fern County. Probably, the Fern County residents are young and familiar with computers, and then they do not need computer courses. Then, the alternation would be a superfluous action which would spend money without any practical effect.

Secondly, the writer cites that the library system possesses more spaces for every resident than all other libraries in the state. Nonetheless, the writer does not demonstrate the exact amount of space for residents before and after the alteration. It is possible that the space is large when include the Northside branch, but shrinks to a small space for per resident after altering the Northside branch for the computer training section. Thus, the writer should offer the specific information about the design of the whole area, which can present how much percentage and how large of the library would be changed in the alteration.

Finally, the author does not provide any information about other institutions which might also afford computer-skills training courses. Since it is a national trend, other institutions might already serve the computer courses, such schools for students and community colleges for adults. Furthermore, other personal institutions might already open computer courses as a lucrative business. Hence, the library might not gain many users in the computer training section.

To sum up, to bolster the argument, the author should bring more information about the needs of Fern County, precise space in alteration, and existed computer courses to gain a thorough examination. Otherwise, the argument is lacking sufficient information and then would be plausible.

Votes
Average: 6 (2 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

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argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- duplicated to argument 1. better to say: suppose the remaining branches will adequately serve the future needs of Fern County residents, but at least it is not convenient for Northside residents going for libraries.
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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: 20 15
No. of Words: 379 350
No. of Characters: 1980 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.412 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.224 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.654 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 148 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 114 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.95 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.372 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.318 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.546 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5