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 instruction in the online programs 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 along with our budget deficit. To address these problems, Humana University will begin immediately to create and actively promote online degree programs like those at Omni. We predict that instituting these online degree programs will help Humana both increase its total enrollment and solve its budget problems."
The argument put forward by the president of Humana University and the following recommendation links the establishment of online degree programs with increasing enrollment and cutting expenditures, based on the experience of the nearby Omni University. The recommendation may actually be effective, but some questions are to be answered to make the argument reasonable as a whole.
First, one must look for the actual causes of the recent increase in the number of students enrolling in online programs in Omni University. It may to turn out that the university has made several reforms in the curriculum that made the offered programs more attractive to students. Maybe, the university hired highly popular professors, increasing thereby its enrollment rates. Unless the question is properly addressed, one could not establish a causal link proposed by the president of Humana University.
Second, one would also have to prove that the lower expenditures on dormitory and classroom spaces are the result of the high enrollment in online programs. If the number of students attending the Omni University campus has actually increased, that would rebuke the president's argument. In such a case, an alternative explanation of the lower expenditures may be that the university hired a new, cheaper maintenance company or combined several groups in the same class, reducing thereby the number of classes to keep order in. Such explanations must be ruled out to make the argument reasonable.
There are many avenues for increasing enrollment while simultaneously reducing expenditures. The experience of Omni University may be relevant in such case, but only insofar as the causal link between the online courses on the one hand and high enrollment and low expenditures on the other, is indeed accurate. Otherwise, the president's recommendation is unwarranted, and may in fact harm the university, if hastily applied.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 298 350
No. of Characters: 1586 1500
No. of Different Words: 149 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.155 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.322 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.071 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.923 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.531 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.382 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.574 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 267, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...tually increased, that would rebuke the presidents argument. In such a case, an alternativ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 327, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...her, is indeed accurate. Otherwise, the presidents recommendation is unwarranted, and may...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 337, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...deed accurate. Otherwise, the presidents recommendation is unwarranted, and may i...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, look, may, second, so, while, in fact
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: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 7.0 28.8173652695 24% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1625.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 298.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.45302013423 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.15483772266 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.14430962729 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 153.0 204.123752495 75% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.513422818792 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 536.4 705.55239521 76% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.7012326376 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 125.0 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9230769231 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.30769230769 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.274267420668 0.218282227539 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.10033216016 0.0743258471296 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0875984068216 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.179169605051 0.128457276422 139% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0446863535285 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 32.22 48.3550499002 67% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.63 12.5979740519 116% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.02 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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More content wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.