The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper:
“This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters. Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students.” Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
The argument claims that the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students since the group who did not pretest is far more numerous.
The conclusion of the argument is based on the premise that 12000 Waymarsh students who did not protest were not so concerned about their education. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that the students, who have not taken part in the protest were not concerned about their education. However, it fails to mention other factors, which could affect students’ decision concerning the participation in the protest. For example, 200 students that have travelled to the state capital building could have been appointed as other students’ representatives. The author fails to mention the laws that regulate protests. The legal number of people taking part in the protest might have been limited in compliance with these laws.
Second, the argument could have been much clearer if it provided information on any other similar protests aroused by proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. In fact, it is not at all clear if similar actions also were also taken by students of other colleges affected by proposed cuts.
Finally, the argument fails to mention one of the key factors, on basis of which it could be evaluated, namely if any of 1200 students who haven’t taken part in the protest are enrolled in the programs which would be affected should the cuts take place.
Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
flaws:
No. of Words: 275 350
------------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 275 350
No. of Characters: 1371 1500
No. of Different Words: 138 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.072 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.985 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.567 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 95 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 84 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 20 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.154 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.614 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.396 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.707 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 150, 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.
...not so concerned about their education. The conclusion of the argument relies on as...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, second, so, for example, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 2.0 11.1786427146 18% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 55.5748502994 63% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1436.0 2260.96107784 64% => OK
No of words: 274.0 441.139720559 62% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.24087591241 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.0685311056 4.56307096286 89% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77826174885 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 142.0 204.123752495 70% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.518248175182 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 431.1 705.55239521 61% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.4181143685 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.461538462 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0769230769 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.69230769231 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 0.0 8.20758483034 0% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.215677944239 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0742988312454 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0829330573735 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102293045756 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0777651298595 0.0628817314937 124% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 14.3799401198 96% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.11 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 65.0 98.500998004 66% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.