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 proposes to build new dormitories as he/she predicts that the current dormitory space would not suffice based on the current increasing enrollemnt trend, the average off-campus housing cost has increased making it prohibitive to the students, and new dormitories would attract potential students to enroll at Buckingham. Although the argument looks persuasive at first glance, upon further deliberation, on would require further evidence to accede with the director.
First, the dirctor says that the present dormitory space would not be sufficient considering the present rate of growth of enrollments at Buckingham. To see if this reason is credible or not, one should ascertain if the current trend would acutally continue for considerable amount of time. If we find out that the current trend wouldn't change for a considereable amount of time, then there is every reason to implement the director's proposal. However, if there is strong evidence that the current trend would not survive of a considerable amount of time, then there is absolutely no point in implementing the director's proposal.
Second, the director argues that since the average rent for an appartment has increased in the town, it would be a burden for students to stay in off-campus housing and thus, would prefer on-campus dormitories. One would specifically needs to know why has the average housing cost in the town increased? Is it due to increase in premium housing cost which students generally do not prefer? Or is it due to increase in cost of the apartments which students generally prefer? The evidence to these questions would help us evaluate the director's proposal.
Finally, the director, to support his piont, says that new dormitories would attract prospective students. However, one can argue that students generally do not cosider the physical condition of the dormitories to enroll for a college. The variety and quality of courses offered by the college, peer group, job opportunities after graduation, etc are considered more important. In fact, it would not be wrong to claim that the quality of housing is generally given the least importance if a college is realy good at academia and the job opportunities.
Hence, as we can see, we would need evidence to believe that the current enrollment trend would increase for quite some time, the increase in average housing cost is due to the increase in housing cost of apartments that students prefer and the students actual give priority to quality of housing over other parameter in order for the director's proposal to be justified.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 420 350
No. of Characters: 2132 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.527 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.076 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.795 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 136 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.288 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.382 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.614 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.217 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 330, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
.... If we find out that the current trend wouldnt change for a considereable amount of ti...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 425, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
... there is every reason to implement the directors proposal. However, if there is strong e...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 611, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...absolutely no point in implementing the directors proposal. Second, the director argue...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 235, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'would' requires the base form of the verb: 'need'
Suggestion: need
...pus dormitories. One would specifically needs to know why has the average housing cos...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 534, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...se questions would help us evaluate the directors proposal. Finally, the director, to ...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 336, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...g over other parameter in order for the directors proposal to be justified.
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, hence, however, if, look, second, so, then, thus, in fact, of course
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2184.0 2260.96107784 97% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.22488038278 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84842144485 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 204.123752495 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.461722488038 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 678.6 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 81.1363628406 57.8364921388 140% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.5 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.125 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.25 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.251727787431 0.218282227539 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0861273143395 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0678614298266 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.154475990867 0.128457276422 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0548075509641 0.0628817314937 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.2 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.33 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.