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.
According to the director of student housing at Buckingham College, new dormitories should be built to cater for the increasing housing needs of students. In order to evaluate this argument properly, three evidences are needed.
First and foremost, the above argument is based on the fact that average rent for off-campus apartments have risen over the recent years. In order for this argument to hold water, evidence must be provided that the average rent increase is not just a temporary phenomenon, and that it will persist over time. Perhaps, there has been a recent surge in the emergence of industrial landmarks which has inevitably led to the increase in property value in the neighborhood. Another possible cause is the effect of the forces of demand and supply; if there is a paucity of available properties compared to a large influx of people to the neighborhood, prices are bound to go up. Due to the possibility of the above examples, there is need for specific evidence confirming the absence of such factors with respect to the average price increase of property in the neighborhood. If such evidence can not be found, then the director's argument is significantly flawed.
Secondly, there is a need for evidence that the campus dormitories are cheaper than their off-campus counterparts. In the event that the campus dormitories are cheaper at the moment, further evidence is needed that these dormitories will remain relatively cheaper over time. It is possible that the campus dormitories are in a bad shape at the moment and, as a result, do not command high prices. If significant renovations are made to put the dormitories in better shape, then it follows that there might be a significant increase in the prices compared to the off-campus dormitories. If evidence that the campus dormitories will remain relatively cheaper can not be found, then the director's argument does not hold water.
Further, the director makes an assumption that "attractive" means the same thing for all prospective students. In a bid to evaluate this argument, evidence that the meaning "attractive" is the same for all prospective students must be provided. Perhaps "attractive" carries a subjective meaning, and some students might find repulsive what other students find attractive. This could be due to varying cultures and backgrounds of the students. If the above is true, in which case evidence can not be found to the contrary, then the argument is faulty.
Conclusively, the above evidences need to be provided in order to validate the argument that new dormitories should be built at Buckingham college to cater for the increasing housing needs of students.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 435 350
No. of Characters: 2183 1500
No. of Different Words: 176 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.567 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.018 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.816 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.048 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.474 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 915, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...uch evidence can not be found, then the directors argument is significantly flawed. Se...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 685, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'directors'' or 'director's'?
Suggestion: directors'; director's
...vely cheaper can not be found, then the directors argument does not hold water. Furthe...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 183, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...this argument, evidence that the meaning 'attractive' is the same for a...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, if, second, secondly, so, then, as a result, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2276.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 435.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23218390805 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56690854021 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.19164254127 2.78398813304 115% => OK
Unique words: 186.0 204.123752495 91% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.427586206897 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 720.9 705.55239521 102% => 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: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.6332913588 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.789473684 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8947368421 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.52631578947 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.164312233925 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0569758363707 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0951219838618 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.142911808879 0.128457276422 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.116041716513 0.0628817314937 185% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 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: 13.35 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.21 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.