The following appeared in a memo from a budget planner for the city of Grandview.
"It is time for the city of Grandview to stop funding the Grandview Symphony Orchestra. It is true that the symphony struggled financially for many years, but last year private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony's concerts-in-the-park series doubled. In addition, the symphony has just announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. For these reasons, we recommend that the city eliminate funding for the Grandview Symphony Orchestra from next year's budget. We predict that the symphony will flourish in the years to come even without funding from the city."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author provides three reasons as to why government funding for the Grandview Symphony Orchestra should be stopped from next year. Running an Orchestra is a complex task involving several parameters of which finance is only a part. In order to estimate how likely it is that the budget planner’s prediction will be true, one would need to address the questions about the nature of private contributions to the Orchestra, the reasons behind the increase in ticket prices and the actual profit made by the Orchestra.
The author posits that private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent. However, the nature of these contributions must be evaluated. These private contributions may be, for instance, awards given to outstanding musicians of the symphony. If the contributions were not purely financial, then one cannot presume that the Orchestra is well-off because of the latter. Moreover, the actual amount of the contributions, if financial, need to be known. Minuscule private contributions even when doubled, may not be enough for the Orchestra to run independent of Government funding. It would be wise to consider decreasing the funding, rather than completely stopping it.
The recommendation highlights the fact that attendance for the symphony’s concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The author does not address whether the overall attendance for all of the Orchestra’s shows combined saw an increase. It could very well be the case that attendance doubled for some shows and halved for other, less popular shows and might even be indicative that the Symphony is witnessing an overall decline in attendance. A temporary increase in attendance may not be indicative that the symphony is on the path to prosperity. The budget planner has not considered other factors such as the possibility of a rival orchestra offering better shows for cheaper prices.
Depending on the city in which the shows are performed, the Orchestra may have to spend a great deal of funds in renting out a theatre. In places like New York City, theatres can charge exorbitantly high rates. This may be one of the reasons the Orchestra has decided to increase its ticket prices. One cannot come to a conclusion that the Orchestra is making huge profits by increasing its ticket prices. Rather, it might be the only way they know to make their concerts viable.
The prediction made in the memo is bold, in that it weighs a small number of factors heavily when making the prediction. One must realize that the success of any organization is driven by a mixture of several factors such as skill, public opinion and economic conditions. Only if the Orchestra is getting an increased profit as a result of the city funding, can it be cut down.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 451 350
No. of Characters: 2243 1500
No. of Different Words: 221 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.608 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.973 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.831 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.609 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.149 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.565 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.509 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 180, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...ress whether the overall attendance for all of the Orchestra's shows combined saw an ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 17, column 60, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
... in the memo is bold, in that it weighs a small number of factors heavily when making the predict...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, well, as to, for instance, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2327.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 450.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 5.17111111111 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6057793516 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.03551000454 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497777777778 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 717.3 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.9651360858 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.173913043 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5652173913 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.91304347826 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 1.0 6.88822355289 15% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.228707960916 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0648113036414 0.0743258471296 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0685258635556 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123665457042 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0679517106638 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.44 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.