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.
This editorial argues that the Fern County Council's decision to convert a library branch to a computer-skills training facility was the "right" one. However, its author fails to provide sufficient information to permit a proper evaluation of the argument's reasoning. Each point of deficiency is discussed separately below.
One of the argument's deficiencies involves the claim, based on a national trend, that there is "certain" to be a growing need in Fern County for computer-skills training. The author provides no specific evidence that the county conforms to the cited trend. Lacking such evidence, it is entirely possible that the Fern County residents are, by and large, already highly proficient in using computers. Of course, it is also possible that a large and growing segment of the local population consists of senior citizens and/or young children — two groups who typically need computer-skills training — or unemployed workers needing to learn computer skills in order to find jobs. In any event, more information about the county's current and anticipated demographics is needed in order to determine the extent to which Fern County residents actually need and would use the Northside computer-training facility.
Another of the argument's deficiencies is that it provides no information about alternative means of providing computer-skills training to county residents. Perhaps certain local businesses or schools already provide computer-training facilities and services to the general public — in which case it would be useful to know whether those alternatives are affordable for most county residents and whether they suffice to meet anticipated demand. Or perhaps county residents are for the most part willing to teach themselves computer skills at home using books, DVDs and online tutorials — in which case it would be helpful to know the extent to which affordable broadband Internet access is available to Fern County households. If it turns out that county residents can easily obtain computer-skills training through means such as these, converting the Northside branch might not have been a sensible idea.
Yet another of the editorial's shortcomings has to do with the number of books in the Fern County library system. The mere fact that the system boasts a great number of books per capita does not necessarily mean that the supply is adequate or that it will be adequate in the future. A full assessment of whether the remaining branches provide adequate shelf space and/or printed materials would require detailed information about the library system's inventory vis-à-vis the current and anticipated needs and interests of Fern County residents. If more, or more types, of printed books and periodicals are needed, then it would appear in retrospect that converting the Northside branch to a computer training center was a bad idea.
In a nutshell, then, a proper evaluation of the editorial requires more information about current as well as anticipated demand for computer-skills training in Fern County and about the adequacy of the library system's stacks to meet the interests and preferences of the county's residents.
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: 493 350
No. of Characters: 2624 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.712 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.323 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.026 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 77 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.083 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.412 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.371 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.581 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 266, Rule ID: GENERAL_XX[1]
Message: Use simply 'public'.
Suggestion: public
...training facilities and services to the general public — in which case it would be useful to k...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, however, if, so, then, well, as to, of course, such as, as well as, by and large
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 22.0 11.1786427146 197% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2702.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 495.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.45858585859 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71684168287 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.13051407204 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 237.0 204.123752495 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.478787878788 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 829.8 705.55239521 118% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 71.9737553091 57.8364921388 124% => OK
Chars per sentence: 158.941176471 119.503703932 133% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.1176470588 23.324526521 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.64705882353 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.346595969259 0.218282227539 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.129084367318 0.0743258471296 174% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0897763825792 0.0701772020484 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.222934008138 0.128457276422 174% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0133086759201 0.0628817314937 21% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 33.58 48.3550499002 69% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.8 12.197005988 130% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.98 12.5979740519 119% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.93 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.