The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city's council on the arts.
“In a recent citywide poll, fifteen 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 logically persuasive you find the above argument. In presenting your point of view, analyze the sort of reasoning used and supporting evidence. In addition, state what further evidence, if any, would make the argument more sound and convincing or would make you better able to evaluate its conclusion.
The argument that "reduction in corporate funding that supports public television will have a direct impact on city's art museum attendance" is flawed at many levels. I would like to highlight a few key issues/unstated assumptions that need to be further qualified in order to evaluate this argument accurately -
1. First off, the argument assumes that increase in attendance at city's art museums has a direct correlation with television programs about visual arts. This may only be a coincidence -e.g. incresed attendance at art museums in the last five years may be due to renovated facilities and/or new artwork. If this is indeed the case, we can be assured that attendance at art museums will not get impacted due to reduction in corporate funding support extended to public television.
2. Further, corporate funding cuts may not necessarily impact the art programs on public television. Given that art programs are quite popular among the city's residents, it is quite likely that other programs with lower viewership/popularity may undergo reduction in air-time but funding support required for the production and airing of the more popular visual arts shows may remain intact.
3. Moreover, the argument suggests that given the causal relationship between television art shows and attendance at art museums, some of city's funds supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television. This suggestion may have detrimental impact on city's art museums. After evaluating the assumptions stated above, if it is indeed proved that there is not direct relationship between public television viewing and attendance at art museums, reduction in funds for supporting arts will have a negative impact on upkeep/maintenance of the art museums which may indeed end up impacting attendance.
Even if we assume that public television does help to a certain extent in raising residents' awareness and interest levels about visual arts, it will still not be a prudent decision to redirect the funds to public television unless the direct causal relationship between the two is proved.
In summary, City's officials need to carry out careful evaluation of the various unstated assumptions and qualify them through facts, in order to reach an accurate conclusion on whether or not it makes sense to reallocate some of the funds supporting arts to public television.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 322, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...r to evaluate this argument accurately - 1. First off, the argument assumes that ...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 83, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'residents'' or 'resident's'?
Suggestion: residents'; resident's
...oes help to a certain extent in raising residents awareness and interest levels about vis...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 178, 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
...rder to reach an accurate conclusion on whether or not it makes sense to reallocate some of th...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 222, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...her or not it makes sense to reallocate some of the funds supporting arts to public televis...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'e.g.', 'first', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'so', 'still', 'in summary']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.272727272727 0.25644967241 106% => OK
Verbs: 0.152334152334 0.15541462614 98% => OK
Adjectives: 0.115479115479 0.0836205057962 138% => OK
Adverbs: 0.041769041769 0.0520304965353 80% => OK
Pronouns: 0.019656019656 0.0272364105082 72% => OK
Prepositions: 0.125307125307 0.125424944231 100% => OK
Participles: 0.044226044226 0.0416121511921 106% => OK
Conjunctions: 3.09068162205 2.79052419416 111% => OK
Infinitives: 0.034398034398 0.026700313972 129% => OK
Particles: 0.004914004914 0.001811407834 271% => OK
Determiners: 0.0810810810811 0.113004496875 72% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.034398034398 0.0255425247493 135% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00982800982801 0.0127820249294 77% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2384.0 2731.13054187 87% => OK
No of words: 375.0 446.07635468 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 6.35733333333 6.12365571057 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40055868397 4.57801047555 96% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.418666666667 0.378187486979 111% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.314666666667 0.287650121315 109% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.232 0.208842608468 111% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.154666666667 0.135150697306 114% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.09068162205 2.79052419416 111% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 207.018472906 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.485333333333 0.469332199767 103% => OK
Word variations: 51.4991243322 52.1807786196 99% => OK
How many sentences: 15.0 20.039408867 75% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 23.2022227129 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 102.754637635 57.7814097925 178% => OK
Chars per sentence: 158.933333333 141.986410481 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0 23.2022227129 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.6 0.724660767414 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 3.58251231527 112% => OK
Readability: 56.4666666667 51.9672348444 109% => OK
Elegance: 2.06896551724 1.8405768891 112% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.304983715769 0.441005458295 69% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.111194264113 0.135418324435 82% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.103379847307 0.0829849096947 125% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.551701051724 0.58762219726 94% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.327031576894 0.147661913831 221% => Sentences are changing often in a paragraphs.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.126923082226 0.193483328276 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0880865395339 0.0970749176394 91% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.330818617962 0.42659136922 78% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0303461955638 0.0774707102158 39% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.206101816492 0.312017818177 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0305120578034 0.0698173142475 44% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.33743842365 72% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.87684729064 44% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.82512315271 124% => OK
Positive topic words: 5.0 6.46551724138 77% => OK
Negative topic words: 3.0 5.36822660099 56% => OK
Neutral topic words: 4.0 2.82389162562 142% => OK
Total topic words: 12.0 14.657635468 82% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 76.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.