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 concerns of the director of student housing revolve around some facts like the college's recent enrollment trend and the recent increase in average rent in off-campus sites. So, he calls for new dormitories to be made. However, this urge for immediate action is actually based on a few assumptions that are not justified clearly. As a result, the conclusion the director put forward is weak in nature.
At first, Buckingham's enrollment trend needs to be examined closely. The fact that he assumed the enrollment will double in the next 50 years depends on this trend. The director took the current trajectory and extrapolated it for 50 years. This extrapolation might be unwarranted as there could be many external factors for this trend. And, these factors can diminish in a very short amount of time. For example, the increase in population in the surrounding areas of the college can amount for this trend. However, this increase can be directly related to the immigration policy which is susceptible to change in a very short amount of time.
Also, the director cites off-campus housing costs as a reason for their suggestion. This is also based on the current situation. There might be many reasons as to why the housing costs are rising. But, there is no direct evidence that this cost will sustain for a very long time. This increase in rent can be a result of other transient phenomena. For example, many cities face the increase in prices and commodities as a consequence of some booming businesses but as these businesses vanish the prices also decreases. So, the assumption that off-campus housing rent will increase according to the current trend is also not justified.
There is one underlying assumption that new dormitories will attract more students. Many factors determine whether a college is attractive to a particular student. Housing facilities may be an important factor. However, no direct correlation between these two things is established. Hence, using a significant portion of the college's budget to build new dormitories can backfire too since the budget could be distributed proportionally to all the sectors such as academic building, laboratories etc.
Another assumption is that all students need housing opportunities on-campus. The significant portion of the college's student body can come from surrounding cities in which case the housing problem will not at all be concerning factor.
Overall, the director's concerns are altruistic, but also presumptuous. Many studies should be done and other external factors should be pondered before deciding whether new dormitories should be built for students. The urge from the director of student housing is simply based on too many assumptions. Consequently, any decision made as a result of the director's convictions will be unjustified.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 453 350
No. of Characters: 2323 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.613 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.128 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.874 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 175 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.621 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.472 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.586 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.262 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.476 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.055 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 110, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'colleges'' or 'college's'?
Suggestion: colleges'; college's
...-campus. The significant portion of the colleges student body can come from surrounding ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 215, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...ase the housing problem will not at all be concerning factor. Overall, the directors conce...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, consequently, first, hence, however, if, may, so, as to, for example, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2382.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 453.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2582781457 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61343653406 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9259550923 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.456953642384 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 737.1 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 22.8473053892 66% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.3362419546 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 82.1379310345 119.503703932 69% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.6206896552 23.324526521 67% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.8275862069 5.70786347227 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.226092616185 0.218282227539 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0661172519876 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0623832686451 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137986345899 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0495176770021 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.25 48.3550499002 116% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.93 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.0 11.1389221557 72% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.