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.
The letter argues that Parson City residents value a good education in public schools more than Blue City residents do since the Parson City spent more money in public schools than Blue City did while the numbers of their residents are the same. To make the argument more convincing, some evidence needs to be established.
The letter mentions that Parson City has spent more money in public school than Blue City has and that the majority of the money comes from the taxes they collect. However, what is the exact meaning of “majority”? Does it mean 51% or 99%? If the money from the taxes only accounts for about 50% of the source of it, then it may not be of such paramount importance in evaluating the city’s focus on education. Maybe almost half of the money is coming from other sources, such as the revenue of city-run enterprises and the fund the federal government gives them. The letter should list all the money sources.
Furthermore, is the number of residents representative of the number of taxes? Maybe the tax levied on each resident by Parson City is heavier than that by Blue City, and Blue City spent a larger portion of money on education than Parson City did. If this is the case, using the amount of money is instead of the proportion of it to evaluate their budgetary priority is not reasonable.
Also, the city-run public schools may be quite different in these two cities. Maybe in Parson City, the number of students enrolled in public school is five times more than that in Blue City. Then, the average money spent on each student from the government in Blue City is more than that of Parson City. On the other hand, is the money from the government the only financial source for these schools? It is highly probable that the majority of the fund for these schools come from a lot of donations of individual residents instead of the government. Then, maybe the fact that Parson City spent more money on education indicates a lack of interest in residents in education.
Besides, can money spent on education represent a focus on education? A lot of resources can’t be measured by money, such as the effort of the teachers. Using money to evaluate the city’s focus is problematic.
In conclusion, the letter should answer the above questions to make his argument more convincing.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 404 350
No. of Characters: 1857 1500
No. of Different Words: 161 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.483 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.597 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.379 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 118 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 79 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.238 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.556 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.351 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 350, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...f the money, then it may not be of such an paramount importance in evaluating the ...
^^
Line 5, column 398, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...r budgetary priority is not reasonable. Also, the city-run public schools may be...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 487, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...und for these schools come from a lot of donations of individual residents instea...
^^
Line 9, column 213, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...aluate the city’s focus is problematic. In conclusion, the letter should answer ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, furthermore, however, if, may, so, then, while, in addition, in conclusion, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1946.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 406.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.79310344828 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48881294772 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50237577909 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.413793103448 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 610.2 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.5665111572 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 92.6666666667 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3333333333 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.61904761905 5.70786347227 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.430520015788 0.218282227539 197% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.138581567324 0.0743258471296 186% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.123206862954 0.0701772020484 176% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.231999391234 0.128457276422 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.128243659661 0.0628817314937 204% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 60.65 48.3550499002 125% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.5 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.53 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.