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.
In this memo the director of student housing at Buckingham College argues that in order to attract more students to the college, he suggested constructing new dormitories. To support this suggestion, he points out the current trends of growing enrollment and its projection that it will double over the next 50 years; and the fact that the average rent for an apartment in their town has risen in recent years. Although his assertion sounds plausible at first glance, careful consideration reveals that it is based on groundless assumptions derived from poor information.
First of all, it is possible that the director is mistaken about the cause and effect relating to the needs of new housing at Buckingham College. Perhaps the increased average rent for an apartment can be a temporal problem. If more apartments are constructed in the following 50 years, the average rent off-campus would be a lot cheaper as a result of an increased supply. Simply counting recent years to make long-term predictions fails to account for other possible outcomes. Unless further evidence is provided to support the director's assertion, costly investment into more dormitories carries high risk and is rather unwarranted. In order to enhance this argument, the director should further investigate if the students still prefer to stay on campus housing even when the off-campus housing is available with reasonable prices.
Furthermore, the director states that attractive new dormitories would increase the current growing number of students enrolling at Buckingham. This notion is problematic because it assumes a constant rise in enrollment while ignoring reasons behind prospective students growth. Perhaps it is good education system supported by excellent professors that is responsible for the current enrollment trend. In this case, assuring growth through the maintenance of proper education deserves more focus before considering expensive construction projects. Overlooking important factors that may influence investment outcomes is a critical mistake that needs to be addressed. Therefore, the director should first conduct a more
elaborate study that guarantees consistent enrollment growth instead of hastily spending Buckinham's financial resources on new dormitories that may be vacant.
Finally, the lack of sufficient information in regards to town size and the cost of rent among different neighborhoods further weaken the argument. Averaging rent of an entire town that is considered quite large could be a generalized point of view as various districts may offer affordable housing to out-compete new on-campus apartments. The director fails to provide specific comparable data and therefore his or her case rests on a generalized view based on poor assumptions.
In sum, the director's conclusion has several holes in its reasoning. To strengthen it, he or she should provide sufficient evidence that will rule out all the above doubts and questions. Further research relating to student preference, rental markets, and investment risks should be conducted before attempting to claim such needs at Buckingham college.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- duplicated to argument 1.
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flaws:
the arguments are not well organized.
Let's analyze the structure of the statement and argue accordingly:
condition 1:
Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate.
condition 2:
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.
condition 3:
Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham.
then here goes the argument:
argument 1:
Suppose the current trends are correct, and the enrollment will double over the next 50 years, but the students in the future may mainly come from local families. and they don't need to live in dormitories.
argument 2:
a lot of reasons may affect the off campus rental, price is just one of them.
argument 3:
your argument 2
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2611 1500
No. of Different Words: 255 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.485 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.934 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 218 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 180 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 128 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 93 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.93 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.289 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.082 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 530, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...her evidence is provided to support the directors assertion, costly investment into more ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 262, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...ile ignoring reasons behind prospective students growth. Perhaps it is good education sy...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 719, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...the director should first conduct a more elaborate study that guarantees consiste...
^^^
Line 5, column 45, Rule ID: IN_REGARD_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'regarding' or 'with regard to'.
Suggestion: regarding; with regard to
...lly, the lack of sufficient information in regards to town size and the cost of rent among di...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 13, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...based on poor assumptions. In sum, the directors conclusion has several holes in its rea...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, furthermore, if, look, may, so, still, then, therefore, while, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2655.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 476.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.57773109244 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67091256922 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98858770762 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.554621848739 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 801.9 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.0881681359 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.428571429 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6666666667 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.95238095238 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.271094909057 0.218282227539 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0789388918868 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0987929654126 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.133134067084 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0685322571482 0.0628817314937 109% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 14.3799401198 113% => 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: 15.38 12.5979740519 122% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.64 8.32208582834 116% => OK
difficult_words: 148.0 98.500998004 150% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.