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 memo recommends that Grandview stops public funding for the city symphony orchestra for next year. The reasoning behind the recommendation is that the symphony should be able to prosper on its own without governmental help. This reason is based on increased private donation, concert attendance, and increasing ticket prices.To examine whether a moratorium of funding is a wise decision, there are several questions to be answered regarding the logic and evidences that lead to such conclusion.
The projected prosperity of the symphony is based partly on the data on increased attendance and private contributions. However, instead of concrete numbers, we are given percentage and doubles. To ascertain whether last year was indeed a good year for the symphony, we must ask what the base numbers are. An increase of 200% means a little if the base number of attendance was 10. Similarly, doubling the contribution of 1 dollar does not offer the much needed financial help to the orchestra. Even if turn out to be indeed huge increase in private contribution and attendance, would this trend continue into the future? Such question is hard to answer based on one data point alone. We'd need to see the trend over years to ascertain whether the symphony is flourishing. And for what we know, the symphony has been struggling for long and a presumably better financial situation only came in place last year. The logical conclusion to be made from there is that the symphony will more likely to be needy in the future.
Another evidence for the predicted prosperity is that the symphony announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Again, we are not given concrete numbers to do any meaningful comparison. How much in dollar amount has the ticket price increased? What was the price before? What are the projected revenue for concerts next year? To have enough revenue to live on their own, the symphony needs not only to increase ticket prices but also ensure a considerable amount of audience. In the contemporary society, more and more people choose more popular pass time, for example commercial movies, than to listen to old-fashioned symphony. In that case, an increase in ticket prices could in fact serve to deter potential audiences.
Given the above consideration, the likely case is that the symphony was in relatively good shape last year because of chance events. However, we did not even know whether the increased private contributions and attendance cover the basic expenditures of the symphony. Did the city provide any funding for the symphony last year? If so, it is more likely than not that the symphony will need further financial assistance in the future as the projected prosperity is based on evidences very questionable.
In conclusion, the city council must not haste to discontinue funding for thee grandview symphony orchestra. To evaluate whether such discontinuation is indeed called for, we must study the trends in the symphony's financial situation by examining changes in private donations and concert revenues in exact dollar amounts. One snapshot from last year's performance is not enough to offset the fact the the symphony was not in good shape financially for the past years. And for the time being, if the goal is to keep the symphony alive, the wiser action is to fund it until there is genuine signs that it could do without government funding.
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: 564 350
No. of Characters: 2784 1500
No. of Different Words: 252 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.873 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.936 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.707 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 200 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 152 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.448 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.894 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.414 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.449 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 330, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: To
...ttendance, and increasing ticket prices.To examine whether a moratorium of funding...
^^
Line 5, column 503, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...financial help to the orchestra. Even if turn out to be indeed huge increase in p...
^^
Line 5, column 687, Rule ID: WED_WE_D[1]
Message: Did you mean 'we'd'?
Suggestion: We'd
...o answer based on one data point alone. Wed need to see the trend over years to asc...
^^^
Line 17, column 346, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
... dollar amounts. One snapshot from last years performance is not enough to offset the...
^^^^^
Line 17, column 397, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...rmance is not enough to offset the fact the the symphony was not in good shape financia...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 397, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...rmance is not enough to offset the fact the the symphony was not in good shape financia...
^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 572, Rule ID: THERE_S_MANY[4]
Message: Did you mean 'there are genuine signs'?
Suggestion: there are genuine signs
...e, the wiser action is to fund it until there is genuine signs that it could do without government fun...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, regarding, similarly, so, for example, in conclusion, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2855.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 562.0 441.139720559 127% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08007117438 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.86893614481 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78347158444 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 260.0 204.123752495 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.462633451957 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 903.6 705.55239521 128% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.9264857901 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.4482758621 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3793103448 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.93103448276 5.70786347227 51% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 17.0 8.20758483034 207% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.172700746841 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0550592296003 0.0743258471296 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0692996930522 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117919226367 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0537632706297 0.0628817314937 85% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => 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: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => 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: 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.