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 sign

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."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

In this argument, the author concludes that Humana University should promote online degree programs to increase enrollment and solve the problem of budget deficits. To bolster the argument, the author points out the successful example of Omni University. However, it is still replete with a myriad of assumptions which could not suffice to back the argument.

Firstly, the author assumes that the most likely reason of the decreasing of the expenditures for dormitory and classroom space in Omni University is that online instruction takes place via the internet. But this assumption is not warranted. There are many other possible reasons. For example, there are more students who rent house by their own in prior years because the house price of the surrounding of the university has dropped, and thus the payment of dormitory space of the university will decrease. Thus, without more information about the real reason of the decreasing expenditure, it is difficult to measure the merit of the assumption.

Secondly, the recommendation that to increase enrollment and solve the problem of budget deficits at Humana University, we should initiate and actively promote online degree programs is not substantiated because the prerequisite of the recommendation is the assumption that the Omni University is comparable to the Humana University. But it is possible that the Omni University is totally different from the Humana University and the latter cannot enroll any student online and thus cannot promote online degree programs at all. Therefore, to back the recommendation, the author should provide additional information about whether the two universities are identical to each other or not.

In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincing because it relies on several unstated assumptions. And if the argument had included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more logically acceptable.

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Average: 5 (3 votes)
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Comments

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, thus, for example

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 36.0 55.5748502994 65% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1622.0 2260.96107784 72% => OK
No of words: 296.0 441.139720559 67% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.47972972973 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.14784890444 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00935963863 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 151.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.510135135135 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 531.0 705.55239521 75% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK

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: 78.3832943197 57.8364921388 136% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.769230769 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7692307692 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.0 5.70786347227 123% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.249718414663 0.218282227539 114% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0737155334323 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0878145965477 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.131153155048 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0956751621092 0.0628817314937 152% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => 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: 14.8 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => 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.

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 20 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 296 350
No. of Characters: 1581 1500
No. of Different Words: 147 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.148 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.341 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.911 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.769 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.879 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.692 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.357 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.59 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.105 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5