The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.
"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."
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.
In this recommendation, the author argues that the city of Calatrava could get enough money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults by decreasing budget of education, athletic playing fields, and other recreational facilities. Although this argument may seem convincing at first, the lack of evidence leads me to question the validity of the argument.
First, the author should provide solid evidence on the detail number of birthrate. The author argues that the number of children who would enroll public schools because the last year’s birthrate is the half of 5 years before, so it is reasonable to reduce the funds budgeted for education. However, if the birthrate of 5 years ago is so high that half of it is not the small number, the city should not decrease the fund of education for students. Also, there is a possibility that the decrease of birthrate in last year is an aberration. Because the last year’s economy was adverse, people were hard to decide to get baby. If the condition of economy goes well, the birthrate could increase, so the city should view the birthrate in the long run.
Second, specific pieces of evidence are needed on the target population of athletic playing fields and other recreation facilities. If the target users of athletic playing fields are not just kids but teenagers who need fields to be sport players and teenage sports player, the need of athletic playing fields would not decrease. Also, the budget applying would be continued for 10 years, and 10 years is the amount of time for children to become teenagers and adults, so the number of teens and adults would increase in the future. If teens and adults are the primary users of other recreation facilities, decreases the amount of fund using in there is not the great idea.
Lastly, the author needs to supplement the argument with concrete evidence that there is enough money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults. The author mentions that the birthrate in the city is declining. Because of the decreasing birthrate, the amount of budget used for education, athletic playing fields, and other recreation facilities would already decrease, so even if the city decreases the budget of those things, it can be hard to get enough money to spend on several programs and facilities for adults.
In brief, the author’s argument is not sound on many grounds. To make a stronger argument, the author needs to give more detail information on the detail number of birthrate, target population of athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2112 1500
No. of Different Words: 165 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.878 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.534 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.471 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.689 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.374 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.593 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 260, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'sports'' or 'sport's'?
Suggestion: sports'; sport's
... fields to be sport players and teenage sports player, the need of athletic playing fi...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, lastly, may, second, so, well, in brief
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2180.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 433.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03464203233 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65184550091 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 175.0 204.123752495 86% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.40415704388 0.468620217663 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 661.5 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.8178781152 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.235294118 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4705882353 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.11764705882 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.234570935017 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.094354232154 0.0743258471296 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0957641410521 0.0701772020484 136% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.126705458788 0.128457276422 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.129398539762 0.0628817314937 206% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 54.56 48.3550499002 113% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.