The following appeared in a letter to the editor of Parson City's local newspaper.
"In our region of Trillura, the majority of money spent on the schools that most students attend — the city-run public schools — comes from taxes that each city government collects. The region's cities differ, however, in the budgetary priority they give to public education. For example, both as a proportion of its overall tax revenues and in absolute terms, Parson City has recently spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public schools — even though both cities have about the same number of residents. Clearly, Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do."
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.
In this letter, the author argues that Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a better education in public schools than Blue City residents according to the larger amount of spending on public schools in Parson City. However, more evidence is needed to further evaluate the argument.
First, the argument only considered the proportion of its overall tax revenues, but it failed to supply specific evidence about the exact number of costs. If the overall tax of Blue City is higher than Parson City, then it is hard to distinguish which city spent more money on the public schools.
Second, the argument only mentioned that Parson City spent more for its public schools, but we still need more evidence to evaluate this statement, such as the number of public schools and the number of private schools. For example, if Parson City has almost twice as many public schools than Blue City, then it is justified that Parson city also spent more on public schools; otherwise, it will strengthen the argument. If Blue City has more private schools than public schools, then it is likely that they spend less on public schools and they receive funds from businesses or private corporations. Thus, it is unreasonable to conclude that Parson City places a higher value on providing a better education than Blue City in public schools.
Third, it is questionable to evaluate the statement without mentioning the development level between these two cities. More evidence should be offered about the condition of these two cities. If Blue City lies on a low-level development, then it can earn less tax revenues than Parson City. For instance, Blue City needs to assign more proportion of tax revenues to support its residents to improve their living or to support their small businesses. In this case, Blue City spent less for its public schools can be understandable.
Lastly, the argument mentioned that the majority of money spent on the schools came from taxes, but we don’t know if there are other ways to sponsor schools. If Blue City has more charity organizations and accepts a large amount of money for its public schools, the statement would be weakened.
To sum up, if these specific evidences mentioned above are provided, it would be more effective in evaluating the argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 385 350
No. of Characters: 1867 1500
No. of Different Words: 154 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.43 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.849 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.467 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 60 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.062 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.333 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.812 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.431 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.662 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.182 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 157, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... public schools than Blue City residents according to the larger amount of spendi...
^^
Line 5, column 342, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...y, then it is justified that Parson city also spent more on public schools; othe...
^^
Line 5, column 362, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ied that Parson city also spent more on public schools; otherwise, it will stren...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, lastly, second, so, still, then, third, thus, for example, for instance, such as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 32.0 28.8173652695 111% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1931.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 384.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.02864583333 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.4267276788 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.56106916142 2.78398813304 92% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.408854166667 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 594.9 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.3980888052 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.6875 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.0 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.625 5.70786347227 134% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => 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: 0.294523335405 0.218282227539 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.122460194197 0.0743258471296 165% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0939505349752 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.172019000357 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0869478783565 0.0628817314937 138% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.58 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 98.500998004 68% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.