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.
In the above statement, the author argues that Humana University needs to provide more online degree modules, in order to bring about an increase in total number of student enrollment and resolve institutional budget constraint. While supporting the argument, however, the author makes numerous assumptions that cannot be taken for granted, thus the argument remains largely inconvincing without further evidence to verify unjustified assumptions.
First and foremost, the author bases his or her argument on the pre-supposition that Humana University would have more students to enroll in, by promoting online university courses, as did it work for Omni University last year. However, the author may have neglected the possibilities that it was an ephemeral or an exceptional phenomenon, as the period of data collection was rather brief. For example, in the previous year, Omni University may have gained fame and eminence in their research projects, which could have been the reason why increased number of students had applied for the school. Threfore, for the memorandum to be cogent, the author should have presented the general trend of the influence of providing online university courses, on a basis of long-term data or further observation.
Secondly, closed to this is the author’s claim that the online courses in Omni University has abated the expenditures of students for school dormitory as well as classroom space, as students do not need to be present in a school while taking an online class. However, it is equivocal that the online course is the sole factor determining how many students choose to stay in the dorm. It could have been because of a high price of renting a room in a dorm or poor quality of facilities or amenities that make students reluctant to reside in there. Thus, the author, in support of his or her argument, should have presented evidence pertaining that the online class is the most contributing element for deciding the rates of dormitory renting.
Lastly, although the implementation of online degree program has engendered a rise in new students to Omni University, it does not guarantee that the same measure will bring off the same degree of success for the case of Humana University. This is mainly due to the likelihood that two university have different environments and conditions, and hence the result can be highly discrepant. For instance, Omni University can be renowned for business or literature majors, which are relatively easily taught on-line, and students can also get high quality of lectures from it, whereas Humana University may be well-known for science major. As science is more likely to be learned efficiently by taking part in pratical sessions like doing experiment in a lab, taking online degree would not be highly attractive to prospective students, and would not let more student to enroll in. In light of this, the author is required to have investigated about the differences between the two universities beforehand, as the claim can be weaken or strengthen by it.
To sum up, the author’s assetion is not very well buttressed in the current form. Further evidence considering long-term trend of benefit of online university courses and causal relationship between online lectures and dormitory renting rates, not to mention differences between Onmi University and Humana University, is essential in determining the validity of the author’s conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 549 350
No. of Characters: 2828 1500
No. of Different Words: 259 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.841 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.151 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.845 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 230 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 165 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 80 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 32.294 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.645 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.358 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.582 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 541, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ts, which could have been the reason why increased number of students had applied...
^^
Line 9, column 88, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...ry well buttressed in the current form. Further evidence considering long-term trend of...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, hence, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, whereas, while, for example, for instance, as well as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2914.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 549.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30783242259 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84053189512 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95918443814 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 267.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.486338797814 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 941.4 705.55239521 133% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 32.0 22.8473053892 140% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 53.3553731854 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 171.411764706 119.503703932 143% => OK
Words per sentence: 32.2941176471 23.324526521 138% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.11764705882 5.70786347227 160% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.233721742313 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0790409015632 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0738666896049 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12951162746 0.128457276422 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.044556647028 0.0628817314937 71% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.7 14.3799401198 137% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 30.54 48.3550499002 63% => OK
smog_index: 13.0 7.1628742515 181% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 17.0 12.197005988 139% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.11 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.37 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 144.0 98.500998004 146% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.5 12.3882235529 157% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.8 11.1389221557 133% => OK
text_standard: 20.0 11.9071856287 168% => 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.