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.
The committee planning a ten year budget for the city of Calatrava concludes that the declining birth rate in their city will allow them provide sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults as they are expecting adult population to increase. At first glance the reasoning may seem correct however the argument is based on certain unwarranted assumptions and lacks in proper correlation between the declining birth rate and having sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs. Thus, in order to better evaluate the argument and analyse its logical soundness, additional evidence is required that are foundational to the line of reasoning.
Firstly, the speaker claims that the birth rate in their city is declining and to support this claim he/she has mentioned that last year’s birth rate was only one-half that of 5 years ago. This piece of information is not sufficient to prove that the birth rate is declining and will continue to decline in the coming years without any substantial evidence. One may consider the birth rate decrease of “one-half” as 1.5 percent of five years ago and if that is the case then the decline is negligible. Last years decline could have been a result of improper medication adopted by some patients or any specific viral infection. One cannot predict the future decline in birth rate, since the last years birth rate is not representative of the years before that and the decade to come. To prove this claim the speaker must provide statistical evidence of birth rates of earlier years and background for the decline to predict the future.
Furthermore, the speaker assumes a decline in birth rate will cause number of students enrolled in the public schools to dramatically decrease allowing them to safely reduce the budgeted funds for education and other athletic and recreational facilities while failing to provide any evidence and consider other factors that might impede this assumption. If the economic condition of the city residents who cannot afford private schools and their birth rate remains the same or increases in the coming years then students enrolling in the public schools will be unaffected or might even increase. In that case reducing the educational funds will hinder the education of economically weaker children. Similarly, the decrease in birth rate does not provide enough ground for the decrease in the proportion of students using athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities.
Finally, the adult population of the city is expected to increase according to the committee but this might actually be reversed if any unfortunate condition causes economic shift in the city and adults migrating to other city. In that case raising the funds for the facilities and programs primarily used by adults might be of no good to the city.
The structure and logical reasoning of the argument appears thorough at first glance however further analysis reveal obvious gaps and unwarranted assumptions that render the argument specious. In order to improve upon the logical shortcomings and bolster the argument, further evidence of “birth rate decline, demographics, proportion of economically weaker section of the city and their birth rate” would be beneficial. In absence of this information, the argument as it stands fails to provide a cohesive theory to support its claim.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 18 15
No. of Words: 546 350
No. of Characters: 2802 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.834 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.132 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.669 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 209 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 171 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 119 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.28 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.605 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, similarly, so, then, thus, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 25.0 11.1786427146 224% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2879.0 2260.96107784 127% => OK
No of words: 545.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28256880734 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83169070408 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82325285271 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440366972477 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 912.6 705.55239521 129% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 62.782300722 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 159.944444444 119.503703932 134% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.2777777778 23.324526521 130% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.72222222222 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.205088062313 0.218282227539 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0744651382286 0.0743258471296 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0723223094676 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1091583219 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0711363164096 0.0628817314937 113% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.6 14.3799401198 129% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 32.57 48.3550499002 67% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.2 12.197005988 133% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.94 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 131.0 98.500998004 133% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.