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 author of the memorandum concludes that by following the methods opted by Omni university such as online programs, Humana university will be able to increase its total enrollment and solve its budget related issues. Stated this way, the arguments fails to mentions several key factors on the basis of which the author's conclusion can be evaluated. Hence, I think the author should address the following assumptions and questions to make the argument more convincing to readers.
First of all, the author readily claims that the reason for the Humana Universitie's failure to grow is the type of program that it provides to students. This merely is an assumption without much solid ground. To illustrate, there could be myriad of other reasons for the failure to grow, for example the university may not have received enough funding in the previous 3 years due to which the good faculty of humana university may have left for other universities. Low funds could have taken a toll on the maintainance of the classes, labrotaries or the overall buildings due to which students could be preferring other universities. Hence, to make the argument more impressionable to the reader, the author should answer questions such as, what other factors may be responsible for the failure of growth in total enrollments?, with supporting evidence.
Further, the argument assumes that students are preferring online programs as compared to offline programs because enrollments in omni university has increased by 50%. This again is a weak claim and does not demonstrate any clear correlation between the students preferring online program and the increase in total enrollment in humana university. For example, Omni university could be offering the online program for much less cost than the offline program. If this is the case, lower prices of courses may not solve the budget problems of humana university. In other case, online enrollments in omni university before last year could be very less and a 50% increase would not amount to much in actual numbers. The argument should explicitly state any changes to programs that omni university made to make the argument more convincing to the reader.
In conclusion, the argument is unpersuasive as it stands and shows that the author's conclusion is based more on wishful thinking rather than on substantive evidence. To bolster the argument, the author should provider more evidence, perhaps by a survey for reasons why students are choosing omni university. A deeper analysis of any changes that Humana Unviersity went through in the last three years can help in finding the root cause of failure to grow in total enrollments of students.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 435 350
No. of Characters: 2206 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.567 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.071 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.719 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.724 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.537 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 261, Rule ID: TO_NON_BASE[1]
Message: The verb after "to" should be in the base form: 'mention'.
Suggestion: mention
...Stated this way, the arguments fails to mentions several key factors on the basis of whi...
^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 316, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...l key factors on the basis of which the authors conclusion can be evaluated. Hence, I t...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...e argument more convincing to readers. First of all, the author readily claims ...
^^^^
Line 2, column 604, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...l buildings due to which students could be preferring other universities. Hence, to make the ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...nrollments?, with supporting evidence. Further, the argument assumes that stude...
^^^
Line 3, column 48, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...her, the argument assumes that students are preferring online programs as compared to offline ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 688, Rule ID: TO_TOO[2]
Message: Did you mean 'too'?
Suggestion: too
...ess and a 50% increase would not amount to much in actual numbers. The argument sh...
^^
Line 4, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...rgument more convincing to the reader. In conclusion, the argument is unpersuas...
^^
Line 4, column 79, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...suasive as it stands and shows that the authors conclusion is based more on wishful thi...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 491, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... grow in total enrollments of students.
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, hence, if, may, so, for example, i think, in conclusion, of course, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2251.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 435.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17471264368 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56690854021 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78418613416 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 201.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.462068965517 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 708.3 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.389728609 57.8364921388 80% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.411764706 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.5882352941 23.324526521 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.64705882353 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 10.0 5.25449101796 190% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
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: 0.281131019152 0.218282227539 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100942967065 0.0743258471296 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0927133945328 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.177605095866 0.128457276422 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.101255404557 0.0628817314937 161% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.47 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.