The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city’s council on the arts:
“In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts
than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our
city’s art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television,
where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that
attendance at our city’s art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s funds for supporting the arts
should be reallocated to public television.”
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.
The argument states that the city council should reallocate some of the city’s arts funds to public television to prevent expected decline in museum attendance. Since corporate funding in public television is facing severe cuts, the city council believes it will negatively affect the attendance in city’s arts museums. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated. Furthermore, the conclusion relies heavily on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is ill-reasoned, unconvincing, and has several flaws.
Firstly, the argument implicitly assumes that the increase in number of people visiting art museums is because of a similar increase in number of residents who watch television programs on visual arts. This assumption is a stretch and is not substantiated in any way. For instance, what if the population that visits art museums does not overlap with the one watching television programs? It could be the case that more people are visiting museums because of establishment of new museums in the city or decrease in ticket prices. The argument would be much clearer if it explicitly establishes the causation between television programs on visual arts and their effect on attendance in museums.
Secondly, the argument states that cuts in corporate funding in public television will lead to reduction in the volume of visual arts programs. Again, this is a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not provide any solid evidence to arrive at the claim. For example, the cuts in funding could be only in programs that are not related to arts such as sports, news, or movies. Then, in that case even if there is a decrease in funding, the arts programs will not suffer and remain immune. Without considering various aspects of funding, the claim is not at all convincing.
Finally, the conclusion states that city council should reallocate some funding from arts to public television. However, it fails to take into account the negative implications of reduction in funds that support existing art museum in the city. What if the reallocation to public television can not compensate for targeted decrease in arts-related funding? In that case, the city council’s plan would not work. Without this, one gets the impression that the conclusion is more of a wishful thinking instead of evidence-based outcome.
In summary, the argument is flawed and therefore not convincing. Without covering all possible factors and providing evidence for underlying assumptions, the argument is rather weak and open to debate. If the argument incorporates above mentioned aspects, the recommendation could become well-reasoned and logical.
- The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city s council on the arts In a recent citywide poll 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago
- The emperor Claudius of Rome ruled an empire spanning three continents between 41 and 54 CE His reign was of massive importance to the history of ancient European civilization In fact the emperor was among the most innovative fair and wise in all Roman hi 83
- The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city s council on the arts In a recent citywide poll 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago Dur 79
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 437 350
No. of Characters: 2255 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.572 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.16 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.813 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 184 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 143 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.763 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.565 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.311 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.065 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 61, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...that the city council should reallocate some of the city’s arts funds to public television ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, for example, for instance, in summary, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2315.0 2260.96107784 102% => OK
No of words: 437.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29748283753 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57214883401 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90739627452 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.469107551487 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 722.7 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => 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: 34.6591286458 57.8364921388 60% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 100.652173913 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.17391304348 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.189287511699 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0594256995411 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0544202163336 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107693692008 0.128457276422 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0592957889911 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.46 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.59 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.