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."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The president of Humana University wants to implement more online degrees, due to the success of Omni University. However, the memorandum fails to provide evidence and answer questions that are crucial to swaying the board in favor of his or her recommendation. As it stands now this is not a cogent argument, which is rife with holes and questions that must be answered to make it hold water.
To begin with, the president states that Omni University was able to increase their enrollment by 50%. However, the author does not provide quantified evidence which can give an accurate number of the actual student count. The question that must be answered is 50% of what number? This can be a misleading claim, because 50% of 10 students will only see an increase of 5 students, in contrast with 50% of 1000 student is 500 students as you can see this is a crucial question that must me answered.
Furthermore, the president makes an unwarranted assumption that enrollment has failed to grow in the last three years, but online will solved this issue. Perhaps there is another root problem that needs to be examined. Is their tuition price competitive enough to retain students? Perhaps professor ratings are low? These question must be answered and data extrapolated to make the argument more concrete.
Finally, an important question that must be addressed is what kind of program will be online? For example, maybe Omni university only offers degree programs that can be easily managed through virtual leaning, but is not offering degrees that not viable online. For example, science majors which required live labs like chemistry or microbiology. This in turn will not bring new students that are pursuing the latter degrees. Making it a redundant recommendation.
All in all, the president of Humana University has made some claims to which there are questions to be answered. As it stands now, the argument is flawed and not persuasive enough to sway to the University board to implement his or her recommendation of online classes.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 340 350
No. of Characters: 1654 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.294 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.865 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.661 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 94 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.741 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.421 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.29 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.513 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 411, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'student' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'students'.
Suggestion: students
... students, in contrast with 50% of 1000 student is 500 students as you can see this is ...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 136, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'solve'
Suggestion: solve
...n the last three years, but online will solved this issue. Perhaps there is another ro...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 464, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
.... Making it a redundant recommendation. All in all, the president of Humana Univ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, furthermore, however, if, may, so, for example, in contrast, kind of, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1710.0 2260.96107784 76% => OK
No of words: 340.0 441.139720559 77% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.02941176471 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.29407602571 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74709031346 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.520588235294 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 523.8 705.55239521 74% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.4910559414 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 90.0 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.8947368421 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.10526315789 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.215730394113 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0659939745098 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0742309360557 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123501567946 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0379437371912 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.29 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 70.83 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.25 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.