"In the past few years, Fern Valley University has suffered from a decline in both enrollments and admissions applications. The reason can be discovered from our students, who most often cite poor teaching and inadequate library resources as their chief sources of dissatisfaction with Fern Valley. Therefore, in order to increase the number of students attending our university, and hence to regain our position as the most prestigious university in the greater Fern Valley metropolitan area, it is necessary to initiate a fund-raising campaign among the alumni that will enable us to expand the range of subjects we teach and to increase the size of our library facilities."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
It is stated that the Fern Valley University is suffering a decline in both enrollments and admission applications. Two of the main reasons that are dissatisfying the students are that there are not enough library resources and also teaching is poor. So, to improve the enrollment and admission application numbers, the financial planning office recommended the administration of Fern Valley University to initiate a fund-raising campaign among the alumni to expand their range of subjects and also increase the size of library facilities. The argument stated is flawed as it is based on unwarranted assumptions. The following are the reasons why, the financial planning office should be giving a better recommendation as the current state of it is flawed.
Firstly, the credibility of the reasons given which are making the students dissatisfied needs to be checked. Are these problems really existent or they are based on assumptions is the question to answer, because if the problem is stated wrong, then the solution for it can never be found. If the stated reasons are indeed correct, then fund-raising from alumni cannot help because most of the students who already left the university wouldn't care about it as they are not part of it anymore. If good results from the fund-raising campaigns are expected, then the campaign must probably raise funds from the students who are currently studying in the university and also from the investors who are currently invested in the university. This is because, the students and the investors are the most relevant people to care about the problem, as it is the problem faced by them and not the alumni who already left the university.
Secondly, it is stated that the funds from the campaign can help improve in the range of subjects in the university. But the main problem is not that there are not many subjects to choose from, for the students but there are poor teaching facilities. If they indeed increase the range of the subjects, as the current teaching faculty is already deemed as poor, they will not be able to handle further more subjects to teach the students. Instead of this, it is better for the teachers to get better training in their current teaching subjects, so that they can do a better job at it and regain the faith of the students.
Lastly, it was asserted that the enrollment and admission applications numbers might increase, if the library facility sizes are increased. This will definitely help the students to have a spacious library and for more useful books to fit in, but this will not guarantee that the students are learning properly. If the students are trained in such a way that they can learn in better ways and improve their scores even with little support from the teachers. This will not only help them not to depend completely on their teachers but also, they can learn to better utilize their study resources which might help them in the long run.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is flawed, due to reliance on unwarranted assumptions. If the recommendation by the financial planning office to the Fern Valley University is to be followed by the university, it is better for it to request for more evidence based on which these assumptions were made. This evidence will in turn help the university in evaluating the recommendation properly and aim for a better solution to the problems faced by the students and the university.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 581 350
No. of Characters: 2807 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.91 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.831 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.703 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 156 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.138 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.337 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.337 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 436, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: wouldn't
...tudents who already left the university wouldnt care about it as they are not part of i...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, really, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 42.0 19.6327345309 214% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2859.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 580.0 441.139720559 131% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92931034483 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.90746259869 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77639692855 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 217.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.374137931034 0.468620217663 80% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 891.9 705.55239521 126% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.3186685319 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.142857143 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.619047619 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.19047619048 5.70786347227 73% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.290655156284 0.218282227539 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0951264159993 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0676632150736 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.162107786867 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0640007479018 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.61 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.7 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => 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.