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.
The director of student housing at Buckingham College has made a case for the construction of new dormitories in the college. Several reasons for an increased student population in the coming years has been cited which need to be further supported with necessary evidence to give more thrust to this policy.
Firstly, the anticipated increase in future enrollments based on current trends needs to substantiated with further data. Evidence on the regionality of the students would help in determining whether there is an increase in local student population or outstation students. In case the steady increase is due to more local student enrollments than the latter, then an increase in dormitory space might not be needed at all. Evidence is also needed on whether this increase in students will continue in the years to come from an admissions' policy point of view. Even if the applications received are on a rise, the admissions committee of the college might make a decision to limit the number of seats, and resultantly the enrollments each year. If there is any evidence to the contrary, i.e., the seats in fact be increased then the argument will have more credibility.
Secondly, evidence is needed to better understand the connection between the increase in apartment rates and the purchasing power of students. Even though apartment rates have climbed in recent years the average income of households might have seen a commensurate or even higher increase. In that case the argument will be weakened. There is also evidence required on whether college dormitory and apartments outside college are the only two available options for prospective students. Even if apartments have been rendered too dear, there might be other economical, off campus options like paying guest rooms or off campus dormitories. The presence of such options can also undermine the argument of whether the college needs to increase its dormitories.
Thirdly, stronger evidence is required whether attractive dormitories indeed are a substantial influencer in increasing student enrollments. They might be correlated but a strong causation relationship of the former on the latter is required to give the director's appeal more teeth. There can be other factors which play a bigger role in affecting decisions of prospective students like the academic departments, faculty, extra curricular activities, reasonable tuition fees. Even if attractive dormitories play a role in the decision making, but just a minute one, then this factor does not do much to strengthen the argument.
To summarise, the director's concern regarding the increased enrollments and expansion of dormitories cannot be weighed in properly without properly understanding the context in which it has been made. For this it is necessary to gather further evidence for all the statements on which this claim is based as mentioned above. These shall help the college to make a call on whether new dormitories are really something which the college should invest in.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: Evidence on the regionality of the students would help in determining whether there is an increase in local student population or outstation students.
Error: regionality Suggestion: No alternate word
Sentence: Thirdly, stronger evidence is required whether attractive dormitories indeed are a substantial influencer in increasing student enrollments.
Error: influencer Suggestion: influence
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 481 350
No. of Characters: 2497 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.683 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.191 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.875 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 116 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.905 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.994 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.309 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 528, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'admissions'' or 'admission's'?
Suggestion: admissions'; admission's
...l continue in the years to come from an admissions policy point of view. Even if the appli...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 614, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'admissions'' or 'admission's'?
Suggestion: admissions'; admission's
...pplications received are on a rise, the admissions committee of the college might make a d...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, really, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, in fact
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2550.0 2260.96107784 113% => OK
No of words: 480.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3125 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68069463864 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91282783086 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470833333333 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 810.9 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.9860372032 57.8364921388 55% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 121.428571429 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8571428571 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.80952380952 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.153001259947 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0529892377857 0.0743258471296 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0683158162321 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0949912915491 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0591510810281 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.81 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.51 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 115.0 98.500998004 117% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.