The following is part of a memorandum from the president of Humana University.
"Last year the number of students who enrolled in online degree programs offered by nearby Omni University increased by 50 percent. During the same year, Omni showed a significant decrease from prior years in expenditures for dormitory and classroom space, most likely because online instruction takes place via the Internet. In contrast, over the past three years, enrollment at Humana University has failed to grow and the cost of maintaining buildings has increased. Thus, to increase enrollment and solve the problem of budget deficits at Humana University, we should initiate and actively promote online degree programs like those at Omni."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the argument, the author states that online degree programs must be promoted at Humana University to increase enrollment and thus solve budget deficits. The author gives an example of nearby Omni University to support his claim. Even though the author's argument seems to hold good at a bare glance, upon careful consideration, his argument seems flawed and ripe with unexplained holes.
The author states that in Omni University, online degree programs enrollment increased by 50 percent over the last year leading to decrease in expenditures for dormitories and class space. In short, author assumes that online programs cut down the university's expenses without giving proper explanation or stats to support his claim. This is a classic case of "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" i.e. the author confuses correlation with causation. There might be a number of other reasons for the decrease in expenditures for dormitory and classroom spaces. It might be that the newly joined students preferred not to stay in the dormitories, choosing outdoor housing facilities. It might also be that the new offline students are more sophisticated than their seniors, keeping the premises clean and thus requiring less maintenance.
On an another note, the author assumes that supporting online programs would lead to an increase in enrollment at Humana University. The decline over the past few years might have nothing to do with the unavailability of online classes. The decline could have been caused by good professors leaving the college or bad maintenace of the college facilities or lack of good courses. The prosperity of the nearby Omni University might also have pushed to students to neglect Humana University to a greater extent.
Finally, one of the most flagrant assumptions of the author is that online degree programs will solve budget deficit problems. Once again, the author fails to provide any statistics to support his claim. While online programs might reduce the cost of dormitories and classrooms, it might also increase the universities spending to a greater extent on other features such as setting up and maintaining websites, corresponding infrastructure to provide online classes seamlessly to the students. This might have the ill effect of even worsening budget problems of the University.
To sum it up, the author's argument does not provide proper analysis of the issue, but jumps to ill formed assumptions without proper statistics or reasons to support his claim. The author's claim might have been strengthened if he had provided survey results in which prospective students would have chosen Humana University if online programs were supported by the university. It would have also helped if the author had provided a deeper analysis of how the cost of setting up online programs would have been much lesser than the maintenance of classrooms and other requirements for offline classes.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 8 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 463 350
No. of Characters: 2410 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.639 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.205 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.76 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 194 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.15 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.472 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.45 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 246, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ty to support his claim Even though the authors argument seems to hold good at a bare g...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 57, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'programs'' or 'program's'?
Suggestion: programs'; program's
...s that in Omni University online degree programs enrollment increased by 50 percent over...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 4, Rule ID: AN_ANOTHER[1]
Message: One of these determiners is redundant in this context. Choose only one: 'a note' or 'another note'.
Suggestion: a note; another note
...d thus requiring less maintenance On an another note the author assumes that supporting onli...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Finally,
...umana University to a greater extent Finally one of the most flagrant assumptions of...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 18, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...s of the University To sum it up the authors argument does not provide proper analys...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, if, so, then, thus, while, in short, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2428.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 463.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24406047516 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63868890866 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75519465617 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453563714903 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 773.1 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 1.0 8.76447105788 11% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 1.0 19.7664670659 5% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 463.0 22.8473053892 2026% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 0.0 57.8364921388 0% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 2428.0 119.503703932 2032% => Less chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 463.0 23.324526521 1985% => Less words per sentence wanted.
Discourse Markers: 64.0 5.70786347227 1121% => Less transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 0.0 6.88822355289 0% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.245778081641 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.245778081641 0.0743258471296 331% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0 0.0701772020484 0% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.156561296091 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0485646873048 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 234.8 14.3799401198 1633% => Automated_readability_index is high.
flesch_reading_ease: -406.93 48.3550499002 -842% => Flesch_reading_ease is low.
smog_index: 0.0 7.1628742515 0% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 185.0 12.197005988 1517% => Flesch kincaid grade is high.
coleman_liau_index: 14.59 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 30.11 8.32208582834 362% => Dale chall readability score is high.
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 59.0 12.3882235529 476% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 187.2 11.1389221557 1681% => Gunning_fog is high.
text_standard: 59.0 11.9071856287 495% => The average readability is very high. Good job!
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.