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 author concludes here that to serve the housing need of Buckingham's college students new dormitories are needed. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. To support this conclusion, the author reasons that due to the growing enrollment of students and unaffordable off-campus housing, more students will seek to stay on campus dormitories which will inadequate in the future.
First of all, the argument readily assumes that the admissions are going to be doubled in the coming 50 years. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground. As one cannot predict the ongoing trend to be the same in the future as well. The word trend stands for itself - trend changes with time and we are talking about not one or two years in fact 50 years. Also, you cannot build something planning 50 years ahead. What if the admissions instead of increasing decreases. Hence, the claim made would be more convincing if proper planning is done not on a judgemental basis.
Secondly, the author readily claims that the average rent for the apartment in town has risen in recent years which in turn will force the student to stay in campus dormitories as they won't be able to afford off-campus housing. This again weakens the author's conclusion. Because the author hasn't mentioned the difference in the amount charged by the dormitories and the town housing. Because if the difference is less one can choose either option according to their comfort. As one can live in town without any rules as compared to the on-campus rules. Also, the town is not a small location may be the nearby housing is costly and the far ones are cheaper to stay in as compared to dormitories.
Finally, the author mentions that building new attractive dormitories will attract more students for new enrollment which totally refutes itself. As one would prefer better teaching faculties and other program-related options instead of attractive dormitories while enrolling in the college.
In conclusion, the author's proposal is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author must come up with valid reasons for the proposal to be taken into consideration.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 372 350
No. of Characters: 1815 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.392 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.879 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.641 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 133 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 59 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.6 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.411 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.296 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.524 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 252, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...-campus housing. This again weakens the authors conclusion. Because the author hasnt me...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 291, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: hasn't
... authors conclusion. Because the author hasnt mentioned the difference in the amount ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...g in the college. In conclusion, the authors proposal is unpersuasive as it stands. ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, well, while, in conclusion, in fact, talking about, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1860.0 2260.96107784 82% => OK
No of words: 370.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.02702702703 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38581623665 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70396757225 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.52972972973 0.468620217663 113% => OK
syllable_count: 562.5 705.55239521 80% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 48.6562174855 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.0 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.2 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.14720730495 0.218282227539 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0439243273801 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0988373334822 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0867181335453 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0959365560799 0.0628817314937 153% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 14.3799401198 80% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.89 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.