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 the memo, the director of student housing proposes that Buckingham College should add a number of new dormitories due to the anticipated enrollment that will be twofold in the next 50 years. In addition to that, the director also states that the students hardly afford off-campus housing due to the rise of average rental of the apartments in the town. He further adds that Buckingham College would attract prospective students to enroll with the attractive new dormitories. The recommendation seems persuasive at the first glance, but specific evidences need to be presented in order to evaluate the soundness of this recommendation.
First, the director needs to present the evidence of the number of students that are currently living on-campus. The director assumes that with the current growth trends of the enrollment rate in Buckingham College, more dormitories are needed to fulfill the influx of students in future. However, the director does not provide any data regarding the number of on-campus living students. It is important to know whether or not the dormitories have all been fully occupied. Perhaps there are still plenty of dormitories in Buckingham College left unoccupied and it is profligate to add new dormitories without an actual demand. The director also needs to provide evidence of the previous enrollment rate of every course. The projection of twofold the number of students in the next 50 years is quixotic because the anticipation term is too long. A more appropriate projection will be the next 5 years. The director should take into account that each course has different enrollment rate. Perhaps the course that is currently popular would not be popular in future, and lead to a declination of the future enrollment rate. Thus, a the enrollment rate of every course should be meticulously evaluated to better predict the future enrollment rate of the college.
On the other hand, the director also states that the average rent in the town has risen in recent years and cause the students unable to afford off-campus living. However, without the data of local and international students, this argument does not provide any useful insights for the recommendation. Perhaps most of the students in Buckingham College are local students, they live with their family instead of renting a dorm outside. Thus, the increase of the apartment rental in the town does not affect majority of the students in the college. Apart from that, the rise of average apartment rental in the town may not be a useful insight as it may include apartments that may be far away from campus and therefore not available to Buckingham students. It would be more useful to look at the average rental of the off-campus housing that Buckingham students usually choose to live in and see if the rental will become increasingly expensive in the future. In addition, the director should also consider the rental of dormitories and off-housing campus in future. If the rental of dormitories far exceeds the off-housing campus, it is futile to build new dormitories as student will eventually choose to live outside the campus.
Finally, the director must provide evidence regarding the reasons students enroll in Buckingham College. The assumption of prospective students will choose to enroll in Buckingham due to attractive new dormitories is ungrounded. There are various reasons for students to enroll in Buckingham such as the quality of education, the learning environment and the reputation of college. If the survey proves that students will not enroll in Buckingham even if attractive and new dormitories are built, the argument will be substantially weakened. On the other hand, evidence regarding the college has sufficient budget to support the establishment of new dormitories must also be presented. It is important to know whether building new dormitories will burden the college’s budget and subsequently compromise the quality of education or increase the tuition fees impose on students. If this case happen, it will probably decrease the enrollment rate in future.
In brief, more evidences are needed to evaluate the soundness of the argument before adopting the argument made by the director. Without the evidences regarding the data of the number of students living on-campus, current and future apartment rental and prospective students’ attitude for enrolling in Buckingham, the recommendation shall not be made as it is imprudent to take action without conducting meticulous research.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK. need to argue this:
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.
we may say: maybe students are mainly from local families.
argument 2 -- not exactly. need to argue:
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.
we may say: price is one of the reasons students live off-campus housing or school dormitories. but not the only one.
argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
No. of Words: 722 350
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 32 15
No. of Words: 722 350
No. of Characters: 3729 1500
No. of Different Words: 245 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.184 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.165 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.858 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 308 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 230 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 166 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 105 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.562 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.462 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.656 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.478 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 279, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...eeded to fulfill the influx of students in future. However, the director does not provide...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 413, 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
...iving students. It is important to know whether or not the dormitories have all been fully occ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1054, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
... currently popular would not be popular in future, and lead to a declination of the futur...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1128, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'a' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: a; the
...on of the future enrollment rate. Thus, a the enrollment rate of every course should ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 1055, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...l of dormitories and off-housing campus in future. If the rental of dormitories far excee...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 951, Rule ID: IN_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean: 'in the future'?
Suggestion: in the future
...l probably decrease the enrollment rate in future. In brief, more evidences are need...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 962, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...decrease the enrollment rate in future. In brief, more evidences are needed to e...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, look, may, regarding, so, still, therefore, thus, apart from, in addition, in brief, such as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 118.0 55.5748502994 212% => Less preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 36.0 16.3942115768 220% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3812.0 2260.96107784 169% => OK
No of words: 722.0 441.139720559 164% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.27977839335 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.18363363724 4.56307096286 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9440966574 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.361495844875 0.468620217663 77% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1205.1 705.55239521 171% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 20.0 8.76447105788 228% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 32.0 19.7664670659 162% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.8751249998 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.125 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.5625 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.71875 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.32245226187 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0985175642316 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0679336983716 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.210633083421 0.128457276422 164% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.06202427812 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => 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: 13.64 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 142.0 98.500998004 144% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => 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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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.