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 memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College proposes to make new dormitories as admissions into the college are increasing and within next 50 years total number of students will double. In order to support his proposal the director argues that as rent of apartments are increasing making new dormitories is the only option. The argument at first seems convincing, nevertheless, on further analysis, the argument is found to be rife with holes and assumptions, and thus, not strong enough to bring about the desired changes as intended by the argument.
First of all, the author of the argument states that at the current rate of admissions the number of students within next 50 years will double. However, this assumption is flawed because the author should give the historical trend of admission rate into the college. It might be possible that in the past decade admission rate was falling but in these last two years only the admission of students has increased. Even if it is true that admit rate of college has increased it might not be the trend forever. In near future recession might hit the economy and admission rates might fall from the current heights. Thus, in the current state the argument of the author is flawed as well as incomplete, so it does not hold water, and in order to improve his argument the author should also mention the historical trends of admit rates as well as projected admission rates of students into the college.
Additionally, the author argues that the apartment rents in Buckingham are increasing, but more information about the rents in Buckingham is needed. The data that rents are increasing may not comply with the rents of apartments near college. However, it might also be true that after increasing rents living in apartments might be similarly or even less costly as compared to living in college dormitories. Considering that an apartment will provide more private space a student may choose to live in apartment even though it is more costly. Thus, more information about the rents of apartments is needed. Also, the author has only taken into consideration apartment in Buckingham and not some other living services like paying guests, room sharing, etc which are way cheaper than apartments. So, the author should give more information regarding other options as well in order to make his argument more convincing.
Finally, the author claims that new attractive dormitories would make prospective students likely to enroll at Buckingham College. The author has made a casual relationship between good dormitories and student enrolment. Do students only think of dormitories while taking admission into a college? Absolutely not. Dormitories is the last reason and least important reason to choose a particular college.There are various other and more important reasons to choose Buckingham College, for instance it might have the best Engineering school in the county or the football club is best of class or it might be less costly to study there or even close to a student’s home. So, instead of making various baseless claims, to support his proposal the author of the memo should give solid claims backed by data to make the argument sound.
Thus, in conclusion, the argument as it stands is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the above-mentioned three questions and provide more evidence, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 582 350
No. of Characters: 2899 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.912 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.981 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.68 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 215 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.441 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.792 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 416, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[2]
Message: “Even if” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...he admission of students has increased. Even if it is true that admit rate of college h...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 404, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: There
...t reason to choose a particular college.There are various other and more important re...
^^^^^
Line 8, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ed by data to make the argument sound. Thus, in conclusion, the argument as it ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, nevertheless, regarding, similarly, so, then, thus, well, while, for instance, in conclusion, as well as, first of all, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 84.0 55.5748502994 151% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2974.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 581.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.11876075731 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90957651803 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78746826921 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.4165232358 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 922.5 705.55239521 131% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 70.3578156442 57.8364921388 122% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.304347826 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.2608695652 23.324526521 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.60869565217 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.219845517837 0.218282227539 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0702588699338 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0936760592174 0.0701772020484 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.130684811154 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0981323894734 0.0628817314937 156% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.84 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.