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.
A memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College states that there is a need for new dormitories to be built, citing the current number would prove to be insufficient 50 years down the line. Moreover, an increase in the average rent of apartments in the town around Buckingham College would encourage a greater number of students to adopt on campus housing. Finally, the memo states that attractive dormitories would entice the students to choose Buckingham College. The positon of the director and the evidences provided seem to be legible during the first reading, but scrutinizing the memo thoroughly brings about dubious statements that could cast doubt on the director's position.
Firstly, the director of student housing at Buckingham College states that the number of enrollments at the college is growing. Therefore, such a trend justifies the need to increase the number of dormitories at Buckingham College. The timeline being said to be over a span of fifty years. First of all, fifty years is too long a time frame to comment upon. Things change thick and fast over a couple of years. It is possible that in the future, Buckingham College is not well-known anymore for the standard of education it imparts. This would mean that the dormitories that have been built would be rendered useless since the number of rooms outweigh the number of students enrolled. This could mean a wastage of crucial funds that could have been invested at the betterment of other aspects of the college. New dormitories can be built at a later stage as and when deemed necessary.
Secondly, the increase in the average rent of off-campus housing can be a one-off event which could be taking place due to rise in inflation or poor performance of real-estate in the market. Such a situation does not last forever and the housing prices could recede back to the normal and affordable prices. There could also be a likelihood of drastic decrease in apartment rent in the town surrounding Buckingham College that can drive the students to take up off-campus housing as opposed to living in expensive dormitories at Buckingham College. This would mean that adding new dormitories is totally unjustified.
Moreover, a prospective student would pay more heed towards the standard of education at Buckingham College. Education being imparted at Buckingham College would be of primary importance to a student seeking admission here. A grandiloquent dormitory would be secondary in the mind of a student deciding which college to attend. A student would be unfazed by the attractiveness of the dormitory if the standard of education at Buckingham College is poor. This would mean that a low number of students would attend Buckingham College, making the expansion of number of dormitories unwarranted.
In sum, the evidence provided by the director to justify his position is based upon unwarranted evidences that do not have any basis to it. These evidence make the position of the director look weak. Without additonal evidences, it cannot be categorically claimed that an increase in the number of dormitories at Buckingham College is required.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2589 1500
No. of Different Words: 222 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.027 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.813 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 163 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.6 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.965 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.44 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.332 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, if, look, moreover, second, secondly, so, therefore, well, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 87.0 55.5748502994 157% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2642.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13009708738 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86117279049 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.436893203883 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 831.6 705.55239521 118% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.3970687389 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.68 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.28 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.410799818783 0.218282227539 188% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.138807783482 0.0743258471296 187% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.121499690563 0.0701772020484 173% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.260090454502 0.128457276422 202% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0790109395989 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.22 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => 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.