The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College."To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current

Essay topics:

The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College.

"To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, will double over the next 50 years, thus making existing dormitory space inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

There are several questions that need to be answered before a sound decision can be made on whether or not to increase the number of new dormitories at Buckingham College.

The author states that the enrollment at Buckingham College is growing, but fails to state why. Knowing why the enrollment at Buckingham College is growing is critical to having confidence in extrapolating the current growth trend into the future. For example, attendance at Buckingham could be growing because the college temporarily decreased tuition. If the college intends to raise tuition in the coming years and into the future, it would be illogical to view the short-term boost in attendance as an indication of long-term growth of the studentry. Alternatively, the increase in attendance could be due to recent changes in the objectives of the administration, wherein there is a new long-term goal to launch a concerted effort of increasing the size of the student body over the next 50 years by five fold. In either case, more information needs to be provided to qualify the recent gains in attendance as valid indicators of future student body growth.

Furthermore, the argument also makes the vague assertion that “the average rent for an apartment in our town has risen in recent years.” Even if we assume that the average rent will only continue to increase in the future, combined with the next line of reasoning: “consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing” the reader is left wanting the answer to many more questions. How much has the rent increased? Has the rent increased by 1%, 5%, 50%? Why has the rent increased? Is Buckingham College a commuter school, or do many of the students live on campus? For the students that live on campus, is the increase in rent a strong deterrent to attending the college? How many prospective students even know about the cost of rent in the town where Buckingham College resides, and does this affect their decision to attend the college? Because no information is provided about any of the factors linking increased housing costs to student enrollment at Buckingham, no conclusions can be drawn.

The last line of “logic” that the statement drafts “attractive new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll” truly deserves a survey in order to be taken seriously. From the information provided, it would appear the that the author is assuming that nice dormitories equals more student enrollment. If Buckingham College prospective students do not care about their dormitories, but rather, care more about the quality of the school cafeteria, perhaps Buckingham College should allocate their funds to food instead. Again, it could also be that many students commute to Buckingham, and therefore do not care about the dorms. In any case, a survey could answer these questions, and would provide better evidence.

The author would do better by answering any of the several questions his or her statement begs before any such a financial decision is made.

Votes
Average: 6.8 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 93, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
... before a sound decision can be made on whether or not to increase the number of new dormitori...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 811, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'fold' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'folds'.
Suggestion: folds
...ent body over the next 50 years by five fold. In either case, more information needs...
^^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'consequently', 'furthermore', 'if', 'so', 'therefore', 'for example', 'in any case']

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

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.253496503497 0.25644967241 99% => OK
Verbs: 0.159090909091 0.15541462614 102% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0821678321678 0.0836205057962 98% => OK
Adverbs: 0.034965034965 0.0520304965353 67% => OK
Pronouns: 0.020979020979 0.0272364105082 77% => OK
Prepositions: 0.120629370629 0.125424944231 96% => OK
Participles: 0.0472027972028 0.0416121511921 113% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.01635806893 2.79052419416 108% => OK
Infinitives: 0.034965034965 0.026700313972 131% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.117132867133 0.113004496875 104% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0244755244755 0.0255425247493 96% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0157342657343 0.0127820249294 123% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3098.0 2731.13054187 113% => OK
No of words: 500.0 446.07635468 112% => OK
Chars per words: 6.196 6.12365571057 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72870804502 4.57801047555 103% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.388 0.378187486979 103% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.31 0.287650121315 108% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.222 0.208842608468 106% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.156 0.135150697306 115% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01635806893 2.79052419416 108% => OK
Unique words: 236.0 207.018472906 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.472 0.469332199767 101% => OK
Word variations: 54.4901451986 52.1807786196 104% => OK
How many sentences: 21.0 20.039408867 105% => OK
Sentence length: 23.8095238095 23.2022227129 103% => OK
Sentence length SD: 88.3825430891 57.7814097925 153% => OK
Chars per sentence: 147.523809524 141.986410481 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8095238095 23.2022227129 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.428571428571 0.724660767414 59% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 3.58251231527 56% => OK
Readability: 54.8095238095 51.9672348444 105% => OK
Elegance: 1.9593495935 1.8405768891 106% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.559381041206 0.441005458295 127% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.225794121324 0.135418324435 167% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.150653119257 0.0829849096947 182% => Ideas in sentences are similar.
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.600015237458 0.58762219726 102% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.189961969702 0.147661913831 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.226980490806 0.193483328276 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0937536053814 0.0970749176394 97% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.406089501677 0.42659136922 95% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.153182972349 0.0774707102158 198% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.339431424884 0.312017818177 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.123168370509 0.0698173142475 176% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.33743842365 156% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.82512315271 41% => OK
Positive topic words: 9.0 6.46551724138 139% => OK
Negative topic words: 6.0 5.36822660099 112% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 17.0 14.657635468 116% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.