The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"Our citizens are well aware of the fact that while the Grandview Symphony Orchestra was struggling to succeed, our city government promised annual funding to help support its programs. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent, and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Such developments indicate that the symphony can now succeed without funding from city government and we can eliminate that expense from next year's budget. Therefore, we recommend that the city of Grandview eliminate its funding for the Grandview Symphony from next year's budget. By doing so, we can prevent a city budget deficit without threatening the success of the symphony."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The budget planner has concluded that the Grandview Symphonic Orchestra does no longer need funding to succeed. To proof this point, the writer presents last year's increase in private contributions and audience as evidence. The author also supports his or her claim with the annoucement of more expensive tickets. At first glance the argument may seem tenable, however, a closer examination reveals that the writer makes major assumptions that should be addressed before deciding whether to remove the funding of the orchestra.
First, the budget planner assumes that an increase in the tickets' price will rise the income of the Symphony. Nevertheless, the author does not speficy by how much the entrance's cost is going to go up, this price change could be very subtle, having almost no significant impact on the money collected.
Furthermore, the memo only mentions data in relation to the previos year. The lack of absolute information makes the argument flawed. For example, the writer claims that private contributions have doubled, but he does not mentioned what the contributions were previously. A 200% increase could mean the donations have increased by only 10 dollars, or it could imply an increase of a 10000 dollars.
Finally, the writer assumes, without citing conclusive evidence, that the attendance to concerts will be high. Nevertheless, he or she does not proof that the audience that went to the park series will go to any other of the orchestra's performance. In fact, the number of concert-goers might go down due to the ticket price increase.
All in all, Grandview's budget planner concludes that removing the symphony's funding will not put its success on peril. The author´s advice is potentially correct, but it is lacking of proper evidence. Thus, city officials should ask for more information regarding private contributions, ticket prices and attendace, before going ahead with the proposal.
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 307 350
No. of Characters: 1575 1500
No. of Different Words: 182 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.186 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.13 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.738 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 90 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 60 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.188 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.531 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.556 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.056 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 223, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'mention'
Suggestion: mention
...ributions have doubled, but he does not mentioned what the contributions were previously....
^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 226, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'orchestras'' or 'orchestra's'?
Suggestion: orchestras'; orchestra's
...park series will go to any other of the orchestras performance. In fact, the number of con...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, may, nevertheless, regarding, so, thus, for example, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 19.6327345309 36% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 55.5748502994 63% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1638.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 307.0 441.139720559 70% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.33550488599 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.18585898806 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85745553755 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 183.0 204.123752495 90% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.596091205212 0.468620217663 127% => OK
syllable_count: 488.7 705.55239521 69% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => 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: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 39.5545015611 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.375 119.503703932 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1875 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.0625 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.114229709102 0.218282227539 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.037822964326 0.0743258471296 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0574196446714 0.0701772020484 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0627223667602 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0471089861816 0.0628817314937 75% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.16 8.32208582834 110% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
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.