The following appeared in a letter from the faculty committee to the president of Seatown University:
A study conducted at nearby Oceania University showed that faculty retention is higher when professors are offered free tuition at the university for their own college-aged children. Therefore, Seatown should institute a free-tuition policy for its professors for the purpose of enhancing morale among the faculty and luring new professors.
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.
Seatown University conclusively states that it wants to enhance morale among its professors and lure new professors. It likely has many options to do so, but they are considering offering free tuition to their professors' college-aged children. Seatown believes that such an action will achieve its goals, especially given recent research. While further evidence is needed to prove this, any type of evidence can either strengthen or weaken the argument; it is entirely dependent on what the evidence states.
A close look at Oceania University's study is necessary. As of now, nothing is known about the study, except that it was conducted at this nearby university. Was there a large sample size? What were the colleges' demographics? Was it a school with adjunct faculty or tenured professors? Most importantly, was the school similar in type to Seatown? If the schools in the sample size are similar to Seatown, then Seatown is likely to see the positive outcomes of such an action. The argument would, therefore, be strengthened. On the other hand, if they are not similar, the argument would be weakened.
It is additionally necessary to have on-hand analogies of colleges that have witnessed the results Seatown wants. Qualitative data is always supportive. If Seatown knows of nearby colleges, or even across the country, that carried out the same methods to enhance morale among the faculty and lure new professors, then the evidence may or may not prove the likelihood of success. Colleges that implemented the actions but didn't see success would disprove the argument; colleges that that did see success would prove the argument. To repeat the thesis, it is entirely dependent on what the qualitative results indicate about morale enhancement and luring new professors.
Finally, it is important to know whether new professors care about free tuition for their children. It is not uncommon among professors to not have children and have no intention of having children. Therefore, this benefit would be immaterial to them. On the other hand, there are plenty of new professors, with young children, that would choose this school only because of the free tuition benefit. Once Seatown knows their professors' interests, they can make a better decision. Once again, this piece of evidence can either strengthen or weaken the argument. Knowing there are professors that care about the tuition benefit would strengthen the argument: It is clear it lures such a coterie. On the other hand, knowing there are mostly professors that do not care would weaken the argument because it is clear that it has no impact on their choice.
It is easy to evaluate the argument as being weakened by several pieces of information--or vice-versa--and a binary stance can, therefore, be taken. However, how each piece of evidence will affect the argument depends on what is said. That is what is most important for evaluating the argument, and that is what will assist Seatown in implementing their proposed actions.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 491 350
No. of Characters: 2449 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.707 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.988 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.614 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 145 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.931 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.068 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.483 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.277 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.45 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 422, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
...lleges that implemented the actions but didnt see success would disprove the argument...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, however, if, look, may, so, then, therefore, while, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2527.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 488.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17827868852 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70007681154 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77380534097 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.454918032787 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 794.7 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 13.0 4.96107784431 262% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.8058249882 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 87.1379310345 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.8275862069 23.324526521 72% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.86206896552 5.70786347227 50% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.148901331575 0.218282227539 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0435133752058 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0571309308865 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0840355678822 0.128457276422 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0526052609324 0.0628817314937 84% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.4 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.