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.
The president of Humana University claimed that they should begin promoting online degree programs to increase enrollment and solving financial issues. In evidence they have provided results online programs of Omni University that has solved
the enrollment and budget issues with their university. While the author's contention can be true; his or her argument of initiating online degree program at Humana University as Omni as it stands now, rests on three unfounded assumptions that weakens argument's persuasiveness.
Firstly, the author assumes that number of students enrolled in online program and offline program of both university is analogous and comparable. It may be possible that Omni university has a lower number of students in online program and their showed percentage (50%) is actually reflecting a very trivial number of students compared to the number of offline based programs. It may be another case that Humana University has a higher number of students than Omni university. That's why the number of enrolling in previous years are decreasing but overall it has higher percentage of students enrolled in their offline program. Therefore, the author should assess the number of students rather than the percentage for comparing these college activities to strengthen his or her argument.
Secondly, the author assumes that trend that is going on both Omni university and Humana University from the last few years are going to continue in the upcoming years. There can be other factors for increased online enrollment on last year in Omni University. What if the students who are enrolled are from another countries which are currently having some visa issues, for that reason they can not join the offline program , that's why they are enrolling online degree programs. Besides, it can be another case that, online degree programs are kind of temporary for last year for some issues on that area and then it will be start from the next year in offline. Therefore, the author can not just imitate online program of Omni University in Humana University without knowing the real scenario.
Thirdly, the author assuming that online programs can solve the problem of enrollment and budget issues. It may be a case that students are even discouraged and not willing to enroll in a university which are more based on online platform. That will eventually hamper the financial cost more drastically. Because the lower number of enrollment will provide less cost for maintaining the total institution. Moreover, it may be another case that online platform needs more expenditures like graphics tablet for every teacher and subscription cost etc. Therefore, without assessing the total cost for both approach, the author's argument does not hold water.
So to conclude, the author's arguments are rising a lot of questions and eventually without assessing all these previous unstated assumptions properly, the author should not go for further implementation of his argument.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 473 350
No. of Characters: 2472 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.664 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.226 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.65 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 207 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 107 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.528 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.38 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.603 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.184 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 67, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...issues with their university. While the authors contention can be true; his or her argu...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 476, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: That's
...umber of students than Omni university. Thats why the number of enrolling in previous...
^^^^^
Line 6, column 425, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...on they can not join the offline program , thats why they are enrolling online deg...
^^
Line 6, column 428, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
...they can not join the offline program , thats why they are enrolling online degree pr...
^^^^^
Line 8, column 618, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...g the total cost for both approach, the authors argument does not hold water. So to ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, besides, but, first, firstly, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, while, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2522.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 473.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.33192389006 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7248042187 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 199.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.420718816068 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 799.2 705.55239521 113% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.055699973 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.1 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.65 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.4 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.376817079429 0.218282227539 173% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.139465385296 0.0743258471296 188% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0906437910688 0.0701772020484 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.200376059837 0.128457276422 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.129157825299 0.0628817314937 205% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.93 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
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.