The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"When the Grandview Symphony was established ten years ago, the city of Grandview agreed to provide the symphony with annual funding until the symphony became self-sustaining. Two years ago, the symphony hired an internationally known conductor, who has been able to attract high-profile guest musicians to perform with the symphony. Since then, private contributions to the symphony have tripled and attendance at the symphony's outdoor summer concert series has reached record highs. Now that the symphony has succeeded in finding an audience, the city can eliminate its funding of the symphony."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The budget planner for the city of Grandview states that they can now eliminate funding for the Grandview Symphony because it is now self-sustaining. The author of this memo asserts that the Symphony is self-sustaining because a new conductor, who attracts high-profile guest musicians to perform, was brought in. The budget planner states that private contributions to the symphony have tripled and attendance at the summer concert series has reached record highs. However, her conclusion relies on assumptions for which have no clear evidence and fails to recognize the effects of removing funding for the Grandview Symphony.
First, the budget planner relies on the assumption that if funding is cut, the conductor will remain at the Grandview Symphony and attendance will continue to increase. If funding is removed, who will pay the conductor? Who will pay for the upkeep of the Grandview Symphony? These questions raise awareness to the problem. If money is no longer available, there is no promise that the conductor, and guest musicians will continue their jobs. If the conductor and guest musicians are gone, then attendance may start to decrease.
Next, the budget planner assumes that people donate because of the new conductor that was brought in. There could be various reasons for the donations of private contributors, but the budget planner fails to mention these. Is it possible, that ten years ago, there may have been a recession in the economy, thus contributors were less likely to donate their money? Maybe the economy took a turn for the better, and private investors were able to spend money on something such as the Symphony. This memo also assumes that contributions and attendance will continue to increase as the years progress. Although it may be likely, no proof or evidence is available to show future projections in profit or attendance.
This argument could be dramatically strengthened if the budget planner does some research and extrapolates data, further proving the increased contributions and attendance will continue. The city of Grandview could take a survey, asking each resident what they like about the symphony, and how likely they are to come back. The summer concert series may only be popular because it is in the summer, and people have more free time. If this is the case, the author needs to back up his/her argument with facts to prove its worth. The budget planner must also conversate with the conductor and make note of the conductor’s future plans. Maybe the conductor is planning on moving, or retiring. Either way, the budget planner needs conclusive evidence to establish the permanence of the conductor.
The budget planner may not be wrong to assert that cutting funding for the Grandview Symphony will not have any effect on attendance and contributions, but to support his/her current conclusion, the budget planner must first submit more concise evidence. Research, surveys and simple conversations can back up the author’s argument and allow the city of Grandview to be persuaded into agreement.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 315, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...t musicians to perform, was brought in. The budget planner states that private cont...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, so, then, thus, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2590.0 2260.96107784 115% => OK
No of words: 495.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23232323232 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71684168287 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82985237834 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.458585858586 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 789.3 705.55239521 112% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Interrogative: 3.0 0.471057884232 637% => Less interrogative sentences wanted.
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.1013839272 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 103.6 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.8 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.36 5.70786347227 41% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
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: 0.303170879787 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0838634847843 0.0743258471296 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0889650561705 0.0701772020484 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.187732981939 0.128457276422 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0934532654387 0.0628817314937 149% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => 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: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => 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 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.