The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College, a private institution, to the college's governing committee.
"We recommend that Grove College preserve its century-old tradition of all-female education rather than admit men into its programs. It is true that a majority of faculty members voted in favor of coeducation, arguing that it would encourage more students to apply to Grove. But 80 percent of the students responding to a survey conducted by the student government wanted the school to remain all female, and over half of the alumnae who answered a separate survey also opposed coeducation. Keeping the college all female will improve morale among students and convince alumnae to keep supporting the college financially."
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.
The author is arguing, based on the surveys, that the Grove College must maintain female only policy, which is against the voting results from professors. While tempting, the College should evaluate the author’s arguments so that the wanted results from the author will happen to be true. Basically there are many unspecified and unwarranted assumptions that the author is concluding only considering the options that the author is giving.
First, the author is concluding his or her remarks only based on limited surveys. The first survey, which was governed by students government, shows us that 80 percent of the students do not want coeducation. However, we do not any warrants whether that survey was properly done with the entire population of the college. While we are not assuming that the student government has done anything to the survey, we do not know the coverage of such survey. There are unspoken warrant from the author that the survey is properly responding the entire population. Moreover, the second survey, is only answered in the half of the population. We do not know whether the other half of the unanswered alumnae will give the same result to the answered half. We should not simply imagine that the two samples will yield the same results. The argument from the author is depending the assumption that those two surveys are probable and accurate; and if the two surveys are not accurate, then the point the author is making is quite irrelevant.
Foremost, we even have to evaluate the votes from the professors. While the result, as the author has argued may ended in positive results, favoring coeducation of the College, we do not know whether the voting was conducted properly. We only have the results from the author that majority of professors has said yes to coeducation, we do not know whether entire professors had voted, or how close was the yes and no answers. The term “majority” alone cannot justify that the entire professors had agreed on the fact that the College should go to coeducation. We need responding rates as the results from the second survey. If there were certain departments that had voted toward this policy, and others were excluded, then we cannot trust the result from the vote. There is unstated assumption from the author that the entire population of professors has voted, and thus the result is conclusive.
Last but not least, even the author’s surveys may hold true, there is no guarantee that maintaining the current policy will yield the author’s expected results. Even if the two surveys and one votes are accurate, we do not know whether the argument will give us the author’s final conclusion. While students are against coeducation and half of the alumnae are not welcoming coeducation, if encouraged students to the College due to coeducation, or some other factors from coeducation may bring positive results. We do not know at this point that the surveys and votes alone will bring the wanted results. We need to see other factors such as prospective men and women students who will enter the College. If no one wants to attend to the College, coeducation is not important factor for the end result that the author wants to happen. Members alone from the College will not guarantee the end result from the author. We need to see other factors beyond the members and alumnae of the College. It is also a unwarranted assumption from the author; members alone can make accurate prediction for the future.
In conclusion, while tempting, we do not know whether the author’s argument will bring the author’s conclusion, as there are unwarranted assumptions from the author.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK. need to argue:
But 80 percent of the students responding to a survey conducted by the student government wanted the school to remain all female, and over half of the alumnae who answered a separate survey also opposed coeducation.
//we may say: students who are not registered yet may not like it.
and half of the alumnae may be not the person who keeps supporting the college financially.
argument 2 -- not OK. we should not argue against faculty members.
argument 3 -- not OK. duplicated to argument 1. need to argue:
Keeping the college all female will improve morale among students and convince alumnae to keep supporting the college financially.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 612 350
No. of Characters: 2965 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.974 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.845 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.469 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 217 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 156 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.103 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.424 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.621 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.375 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.508 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.267 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 122, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...The first survey, which was governed by students government, shows us that 80 percent of...
^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 855, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...e results. The argument from the author is depending the assumption that those two surveys a...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 1019, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... and alumnae of the College. It is also a unwarranted assumption from the author;...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, moreover, second, so, then, thus, while, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3078.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 612.0 441.139720559 139% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.02941176471 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.97379470361 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75523726628 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.362745098039 0.468620217663 77% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 954.9 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 16.0 4.96107784431 323% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 11.0 2.70958083832 406% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 19.7664670659 147% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.1358932351 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.137931034 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1034482759 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.41379310345 5.70786347227 60% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0811882956952 0.218282227539 37% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0290113740441 0.0743258471296 39% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0361417047027 0.0701772020484 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0627940324295 0.128457276422 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0236061683635 0.0628817314937 38% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.89 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.67 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.