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 significa

Essay topics:

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."

The author concludes that by initiating and actively promoting online degree programs, Humana University will be able to increase enrollment and solve the problem of budget deficits. Stated in this way, the argument fails to provide several key factors, on the basis it could be evaluated. To justify the argument, the author reasons that Humana University will experience similar outcome with online programs as Omni University. However, careful scrutiny of evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s conclusion. Hence, the argument can be considered incomplete or unsubstantiated.

First of all, the author concludes that increased enrollment in online degree programs in Omni University have resulted in significant decrease in expenditure for dormitory and classroom space. This is merely an assumption without much solid ground. For example, the increase in enrollment in online degree program does not translate into decrease in enrollment in regular programs. In such case, the number of enrollment of students would not necessarily relate to the decrease in expenditures for dormitory and classroom space. Other factors such as lower supply of dormitory and classroom furniture would have contributed in reduction in the costs. Hence the argument would have been stronger if the author had explicitly stated an analysis between increased number in online students and decrease in Omni’s expenditure.

The author readily assumes that online degree programs in Humana University will experience the same success as the Omni University. This again is a weak and unsupported claim and does not demonstrate a clear correlation between Humana University’s online degree program and the enrollment number. To illustrate further, it is not clear that online program will be able to increase enrollment ratio. If the past three years the enrollment ratio has suffered, it may be because the quality of the school has decreased. In such case, the students will not necessarily enroll in Humana University even if the online degree was offered. If the argument had provided specific evidence that there is an abundant student demand of the online degree programs, the author’s claim would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally, the author cites that increased enrollment in online program will solve the budget deficit program of Humana University. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it does not provide credible support for the author’s conclusion in several critical respects and raises several skeptical questions. For example, will online degree programs’ tuition be similar to the current tuition? Would other cost incur in order to initiate online program which may result in even greater deficit? Is the deficit mainly due to increased maintenance costs? If the budget deficit is mainly due to increased salaries for the professors, the argument will not be warranted. Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with an impression that the argument made by the author is more of a wishful thinking rather than a substantiated evidence.

In conclusion, the author’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the author should provide more clear evidence that Humana University will be successful in bringing more students through online degree programs. Finally, to better assess the argument, it would be necessary to know more information about the financial analysis of Humana University.

Votes
Average: 7 (1 vote)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 653, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... contributed in reduction in the costs. Hence the argument would have been stronger i...
^^^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'finally', 'first', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'so', 'for example', 'in conclusion', 'such as', 'first of all']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.291530944625 0.25644967241 114% => OK
Verbs: 0.133550488599 0.15541462614 86% => OK
Adjectives: 0.115635179153 0.0836205057962 138% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0439739413681 0.0520304965353 85% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0130293159609 0.0272364105082 48% => OK
Prepositions: 0.123778501629 0.125424944231 99% => OK
Participles: 0.0325732899023 0.0416121511921 78% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.94403901266 2.79052419416 106% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0228013029316 0.026700313972 85% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.0928338762215 0.113004496875 82% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0325732899023 0.0255425247493 128% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00325732899023 0.0127820249294 25% => Some subClauses wanted starting by 'Which, Who, What, Whom, Whose.....'

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3541.0 2731.13054187 130% => OK
No of words: 538.0 446.07635468 121% => OK
Chars per words: 6.58178438662 6.12365571057 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.81610080973 4.57801047555 105% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.490706319703 0.378187486979 130% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.364312267658 0.287650121315 127% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.273234200743 0.208842608468 131% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.169144981413 0.135150697306 125% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94403901266 2.79052419416 106% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 207.018472906 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.408921933086 0.469332199767 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
Word variations: 47.2878672751 52.1807786196 91% => OK
How many sentences: 27.0 20.039408867 135% => OK
Sentence length: 19.9259259259 23.2022227129 86% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.0149024407 57.7814097925 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.148148148 141.986410481 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.9259259259 23.2022227129 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.444444444444 0.724660767414 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 3.58251231527 28% => OK
Readability: 56.3571526917 51.9672348444 108% => OK
Elegance: 2.35042735043 1.8405768891 128% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.452983412559 0.441005458295 103% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.13492503612 0.135418324435 100% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.110582984774 0.0829849096947 133% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.544335919977 0.58762219726 93% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.146975882917 0.147661913831 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.191820927978 0.193483328276 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0866403566074 0.0970749176394 89% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.481859882452 0.42659136922 113% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0914620207132 0.0774707102158 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.340611585234 0.312017818177 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0526518111366 0.0698173142475 75% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.33743842365 144% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.87684729064 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 12.0 6.46551724138 186% => OK
Negative topic words: 13.0 5.36822660099 242% => OK
Neutral topic words: 1.0 2.82389162562 35% => OK
Total topic words: 26.0 14.657635468 177% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

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Rates: 70.83 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.25 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.