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."
In the memo presented by the author, it is stated that the local authorities should abolish their financial aid to Grandview Symphony Orchestra. This conclusion is made by the budget planner based on the evidence that the organization has had a significant percent increase in private donations as well as attendance rates, and at the same time is about to increase their ticket’s pricing. However, before this decision can be properly evaluated, we must analyze three aspects.
Firstly, is the 200% increase in private donations enough to sustain Grandview Symphony Orchestra? In other words, does this change contribute to its financial stability? It may be the case that the bulk of their income comes from ticket sales and public funds and private contributions represent a small fraction of its yearly income stream. For example, if two years ago GSO’s private financial aid was one thousand dollars then last year’s private income would be three thousand dollars. However, is this quantity substantial for Grandview Symphony Orchestra’s budget? If it moves large sums of money, for example around the hundreds of thousands, then this variation in private funding has little to no impact in their total revenue. If this case is true, then the argument of the budget planner comes seriously weakened.
Secondly, are concerts in the park free of charge or do you have to pay a fee to enter? In other words, is the attendance rate of the concerts given in the park a good indicator for present or future income of Grandview Symphony Orchestra? Perhaps attendees just go to these concerts because they don’t cost them a penny and are uninterested in every other Grandview Symphony Orchestra’s activity. It may even be the case that these shows are not the main reason people go to that specific park. For example, there may be a food festival there that had strong advertisement this year, thus increasing its attendance. If either of these cases is true, then the author’s conclusion does not hold water.
Lastly, is the increase in ticket prices a consequence of high demand for their tickets? Grandview Symphony Orchestra could possibly increase their prices in order to sustain their finances. It may be the case that they are struggling to balance their revenue with their expenditures, and spend more than they earn on absolutely necessary things they cannot cut. Therefore, they are forced to spike their prices in order to maintain their service’s quality, given that the other way to accomplish this objective would be to incur in debt that they might not have the power to pay in the near future. If this situation is true, then the author’s conclusion is weakened.
In conclusion the argument, as it stands right now, is seriously flawed due to its unwarranted assumptions. Therefore, only if the author is able to answer these questions and provide evidence to support them are we apt to evaluate the viability of cutting GSO’s public aid.
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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: 492 350
No. of Characters: 2409 1500
No. of Different Words: 239 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.71 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.896 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.587 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 131 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.391 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.904 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.87 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.276 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.474 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.074 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 119, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'could'.
Suggestion: could
...r tickets? Grandview Symphony Orchestra could possibly increase their prices in order to susta...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 319, Rule ID: ABSOLUTELY_ESSENTIAL[1]
Message: Use simply 'necessary'.
Suggestion: necessary
...tures, and spend more than they earn on absolutely necessary things they cannot cut. Therefore, they...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, for example, in conclusion, as well as, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 54.0 28.8173652695 187% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2523.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 491.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13849287169 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70728369723 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85183294844 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 245.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.498981670061 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 776.7 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 0.0 8.76447105788 0% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.7338473935 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.695652174 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.347826087 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.60869565217 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
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: 0.239299193369 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0789334402021 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0796632557151 0.0701772020484 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.129374517625 0.128457276422 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0836372271759 0.0628817314937 133% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.41 8.32208582834 101% => 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: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.