The following appeared in a memorandum from a dean at Omega University.
"Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged
students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega
professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade
averages at Omega have risen by thirty percent. Potential employers apparently believe the
grades at Omega are inflated; this would explain why Omega graduates have not been as
successful at getting jobs as have graduates from nearby Alpha University. To enable its
graduates to secure better jobs, Omega University should now terminate student evaluation of
professors."
This argument is presented by the dean at Omega University, who is really concerned about the less number of placements of students from their university. According to him, their university follows a procedure in which students grade their teachers and the dean implies that this is the reason for the modicum amount of placements from their university. To bolster their reason, the dean has also provided some facts and evidences. However, this argument is based on a lot of unattended assumptions, vague terminologies and lack of proper evidences.
Firstly, the author mentions the 15 year old procedure of students grading their professors and implies that because of this, the teachers have started giving higher grades to students which have resulted in increase in the average grades of students. On stating this fact, the author clearly assumes that students’ performance have been the same before and after the implementation of this procedure. It is entirely possible that after the implementation of this procedure, the students’ performance had actually improved.
Secondly, the author has provided insufficient evidence to support their claim. It is mentioned that it has been 15 years since this procedure was started, and the students’ placement has been effected because of that. In saying this, the dean just assumes that in the last 15 years, university placements have been low. Logically, if a university knows that because of a certain procedure, the placements’ success rate decreased, then why would they continue the procedure for straight 15 years? It is not mentioned that from the last 15 years, the placements from the university have been less successful.
The dean also mentions that less students are getting jobs. It is also entirely possible that the actually less people are interested in doing jobs after their graduation. Maybe many of them want to further studies or want to do some different kind of work. Also, it is possible that the job opportunities provided to the students of Omega University is less and that is why only some students are able to get their jobs.
To support their claim, the dean mentioned a nearby university’s students being more successful in getting jobs. However, it is possible that the number of students in the nearby university are more, or, they are getting better job opportunities, or, they are more interested in getting jobs. If any of these reasons are true, then it would be improper to compare the job placement success of these universities. Thus, the students of nearby university being more ‘successful’ in getting a job is somehow a vague fact.
To make this argument more credible and convincing, the dean must do further research. It would be good to study the conditions of the university placement of the past 15 years since this student evaluation procedure have been implemented. Also, the dean should gather more details about the placements and students of the nearby university, from a verifiable source, to have a just comparison between the two universities.
Overall, the argument lacks convincing evidences and is based on a plethora of assumptions. The author of the argument must do further study and research to make this argument more compelling and convincing.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 25 15
No. of Words: 529 350
No. of Characters: 2664 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.796 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.036 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.755 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 186 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 160 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.16 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.109 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.606 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.131 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 29, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun students is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...ccessful. The dean also mentions that less students are getting jobs. It is also e...
^^^^
Line 7, column 108, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...lso entirely possible that the actually less people are interested in doing jobs aft...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, firstly, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, thus, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 52.0 28.8173652695 180% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2782.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 529.0 441.139720559 120% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25897920605 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.79583152331 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.05295522238 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.391304347826 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 858.6 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.9636213249 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.28 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.16 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.96 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.166727651674 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0565589380754 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0549188371335 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.088231838574 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0661059569788 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.39 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.