The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College."To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current

Essay topics:

The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.

"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."

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.

While the director of student housing at Buckingham College makes a compelling argument regarding increasing the number of new dormitories, there is still necessary information that is needed in order to evaluate this argument. These are things such as what else could be done with the money, is it realistic to expect the current trends to continue, and what their students' priorities are in choosing a school. These can all strengthen or weaken the argument based on what the information tells us.

To fully evaluate the argument, we must not what the alternatives are to using the money to increase the number of dorms. There could very well be other investments that would be much better fits at the given time. For example there could be a way to invest the money to receive a large return and possibly be able to build better dorms in five to ten years. There might also be another investment that would make the school even more attractive to prospective students, and make them willing to pay more for the off-campus housing. These are all things that would greatly weaken the argument. However there might not be any other good alternatives. This could be the most attractive option for the money, setting the college up for success for the next 50 years. If this is the case then the argument becomes significantly stronger. Understanding what the alternatives to the investment are is crucial to evaluating this argument.

Another piece of information that is critical to properly evaluating this argument is if the current trends are expected to continue. It is always difficult to project out 50 years, so a detailed analysis of whether or not the trends are likely to continue is necessary. Depending on what this analysis reports will heavily dictate the strength of the argument. Since the argument is predicated on the doubling in housing over the next 50 years, if this were not the case it would be quite damaging to the argument. On the other hand if the trends are found to be likely to continue it makes the argument far more appealing. It would show that the new housing would be a necessity for the expected influx in students over the next half century.

Lastly understanding the students' priorities is extremely important to evaluating this argument. Many students care about things such as the academic prestige of a university, the social atmosphere, or even the athletics. If these things are found to be more important to the students that Buckingham College attracts than the dorms, then the argument is extremely flawed. This investment would not make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham, as the argument states. However, if it is found that the dorms are of the utmost importance to the students, then this argument is much stronger. The students would be far more likely to enroll if their top priorities are met at Buckingham.

In summation, to properly evaluate this argument the alternatives, growth rates of students, and the students priorities must be known. All of these pieces of information can either strengthen or weaken the argument based on the evidence presented earlier.

Votes
Average: 5.4 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 595, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: However,
...that would greatly weaken the argument. However there might not be any other good alter...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 765, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...e up for success for the next 50 years. If this is the case then the argument beco...
^^
Line 5, column 209, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...out 50 years, so a detailed analysis of whether or not the trends are likely to continue is ne...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'however', 'if', 'lastly', 'regarding', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'well', 'while', 'for example', 'such as', 'on the other hand']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.201754385965 0.25644967241 79% => OK
Verbs: 0.171929824561 0.15541462614 111% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0859649122807 0.0836205057962 103% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0719298245614 0.0520304965353 138% => OK
Pronouns: 0.019298245614 0.0272364105082 71% => OK
Prepositions: 0.0929824561404 0.125424944231 74% => OK
Participles: 0.0438596491228 0.0416121511921 105% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.75839723344 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0491228070175 0.026700313972 184% => Less infinitives wanted.
Particles: 0.00350877192982 0.001811407834 194% => OK
Determiners: 0.145614035088 0.113004496875 129% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0333333333333 0.0255425247493 131% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0210526315789 0.0127820249294 165% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3148.0 2731.13054187 115% => OK
No of words: 527.0 446.07635468 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.9734345351 6.12365571057 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79129216042 4.57801047555 105% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.356736242884 0.378187486979 94% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.273244781784 0.287650121315 95% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.220113851992 0.208842608468 105% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.130929791271 0.135150697306 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75839723344 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Unique words: 209.0 207.018472906 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.396584440228 0.469332199767 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 45.530361587 52.1807786196 87% => OK
How many sentences: 26.0 20.039408867 130% => OK
Sentence length: 20.2692307692 23.2022227129 87% => OK
Sentence length SD: 37.5437614481 57.7814097925 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.076923077 141.986410481 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2692307692 23.2022227129 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.5 0.724660767414 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 3.58251231527 84% => OK
Readability: 47.5937089476 51.9672348444 92% => OK
Elegance: 1.28666666667 1.8405768891 70% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.397102607509 0.441005458295 90% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.133204205882 0.135418324435 98% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0773202553858 0.0829849096947 93% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.577357591889 0.58762219726 98% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.129580590179 0.147661913831 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.174319986412 0.193483328276 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0762286403049 0.0970749176394 79% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.559925797948 0.42659136922 131% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0867993948934 0.0774707102158 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.313674583508 0.312017818177 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0425594700483 0.0698173142475 61% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.33743842365 144% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.87684729064 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 11.0 6.46551724138 170% => OK
Negative topic words: 10.0 5.36822660099 186% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 23.0 14.657635468 157% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

---------------------
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.
---------------------
Note: This is not the final score. 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.