The following appeared as part of the Dean’s newsletter:
"The University of Wabash is considering a community service requirement for all undergraduate and graduate students. We believe that the objective of any university is to produce well-rounded and charitable members of society. The proposed graduation requirement would be to complete at least 8 hours of unpaid community service per month for a total of 9 months. The Dean’s office will maintain a list of approved local charities on its website with contact information. This is a fantastic opportunity for students to give back to the community and gain real-world working experience. Most importantly, local charities in need will receive the help that they need to continue their efforts."
The argument claims that the local charities in need will be greatly benefited from the mandatory community service activities. Although the author mentions about the prospect of local charities to be part of the program through the Dean’s office website, we are not provided with any concrete connection between the students choosing charities and those charities being the most in need. Moreover, the argument lacks evidence and reasoning on whether these activities will make the students well-rounded. Thus, the validity of the argument lies on several unstated assumptions that are scrutinized in the following paragraphs.
The author assumes that being well-rounded depends on the student’s engagement in community service. But we are not provided with any evidence or historical data to assess its validity. Moreover, we are deprived of the data of students who are engaging in community service prior to making it mandatory. For example, there could be a significant number of students already performing charitable activities. In that case, the proposed mandatory service will only impact a handful of students. Furthermore, the absence of evidence regarding the engagement of community service and the correlation to being a well-rounded student, leaves room for questioning the validity of the argument. In order to justify this correlation, the author needs to provide sufficient information regarding the prospect of community service being a dominant factor in molding the student as well-rounded.
The assumption that the 8 hours per month for 9 months is not backed up by any study or logical reasoning. It seems the University authorities generated these random numbers out of thin air. We do not know whether this duration of community service will actually benefit the student. Since we are not provided with any information illustrating that a certain duration of charitable activity is enough to make a student well-rounded, this assumption is unjustified, thus leaving the argument unfounded. In order to establish the validity of this duration, the author needs to provide evidence or cite a research study which claims the duration is sufficient to bring forth the intended results.
Furthermore, the argument rests on the assumption that the local charities are in need and thus they will be greatly benefited from this program. But we are deprived of any information of these local charities. For example, what percentage of these charities are in need? Will the students be able to mitigate their problems? Most importantly, we do not know whether the students have the necessary skilset that could solve the problems of these charities. These questions need to be addressed in order to solidify the claim that the charities will be benefited from the students’ engagement.
Additionally, the proposed program claims to maintain a website for the local charities which would be approved by the authority. The argument rests on the assumption that the charities are willing to sign up on the website for this program. There is the possibility that the charities are already having more than enough volunteers from other universities or similar institutions in the area. In that case, the charities are not in need of more manpower. Thus they might not want to sign up. In order to justify the argument, the author should cite enough data.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 534 350
No. of Characters: 2780 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.807 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.206 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.834 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 212 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 188 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 140 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 83 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.071 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.851 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.464 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.301 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.133 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 456, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...ities are not in need of more manpower. Thus they might not want to sign up. In orde...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, furthermore, if, moreover, regarding, so, thus, well, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2841.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 534.0 441.139720559 121% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3202247191 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.80712388197 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94558811788 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410112359551 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 897.3 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.7349335288 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.464285714 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0714285714 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.85714285714 5.70786347227 50% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 18.0 8.20758483034 219% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.179910782989 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0572808040441 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.043471492447 0.0701772020484 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.112483083873 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0575444362535 0.0628817314937 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.58 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.04 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.