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."
While it may be true that Buckingham College ought to build a number of new dormitories to meet the needs of its propective students and become more attractive, the author's argument fails to offer compelling evidence to support such a claim. Building new dormitories may be beneficial to the school and incoming students, but the argument presented is plagued with assumptions and speculations, and therefore, not strong enough to convince me.
First, the author asserts that based on current trends, Buckingham's enrollment would double over the next 50 years. It is possible that such a claim is supported by statistics collected in the past several decades, but the author needs to explain how the prediction is made and prove its validility. Forecasting future enrollment would require predictions of the demongraphics in the future, economic conditions and affordability, and Bukingham's competitiveness compared to other schools, which, together with other data, jointly determine how many students would actually enroll in Buckingham. 50 years is definitely a long period of time, so there are many possible ways that the author's claim can be inaccurate. Unless the author can prove the validility of such a claim, the credibility of his argument that builds on this prediction would be in doubt.
In addition, the author claims that future students will find it increasingly hard to afford renting apartments in the town because the average rent has risen in recent years. Again, the author assumes that such a trend would persist, without explaining why. It could be possible that the risen housing price is a bubble like the housing market prior to the 2008 financial crisis, and perhaps the bubble would burst in the future, making housing prices drop back to normal rates. If the author insist on building new dormitories to provide affordable housing, he needs to prove that rent would keep rising.
Finally, the author suggests that attractive new dorms would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham, which needs explaination. It may be true that better dorms would give Buckingham an advantage over other schools, but it is questionable whether dorms place an important role in prospective students' decision. More attractive dorms, without any doubt, can be a tie breaker, but it may be possible that a school's location, reputation, financial aid, etc. are much more important.
In sum, the author's argument is full of assumptions and requires more supporting evidence to justify the need of building new dorms.
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: 15 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 2096 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.137 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.798 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.773 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.733 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.381 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.622 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 166, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...tudents and become more attractive, the authors argument fails to offer compelling evid...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 626, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...ckingham. 50 years is definitely a long period of time, so there are many possible ways that t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 94, Rule ID: AFFORD_VBG[1]
Message: This verb is used with infinitive: 'to rent'.
Suggestion: to rent
...ill find it increasingly hard to afford renting apartments in the town because the aver...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 428, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'schools'' or 'school's'?
Suggestion: schools'; school's
... breaker, but it may be possible that a schools location, reputation, financial aid, et...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 13, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...are much more important. In sum, the authors argument is full of assumptions and req...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, if, may, so, therefore, while, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2151.0 2260.96107784 95% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.27205882353 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86154348775 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.526960784314 0.468620217663 112% => OK
syllable_count: 645.3 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.2318937021 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.4375 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5625 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.218923119701 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0726265988872 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0704344583021 0.0701772020484 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123583026931 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0416777253806 0.0628817314937 66% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => 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: 13.58 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.67 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.