The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial.
“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
This argument claims that there is well defined correlation between use of computer in academics and student dropout rate. The arguments base its conclusion on two different phenomena, for which the argument fails to provide any support. This argument is unconvincing for various reasons and the reasons cited to establish the conclusion are ambiguous and not well defined. There are several flaws in the authors line of reasoning.
First, the author ignored the fact that initially interactive computer instructions were implemented only three in academic subjects. This fact clearly calls the conclusion into question, as one cannot predict or rely on partial evidence without knowing the complete scenario. In this argument, author fails to mention the total number academic subjects, student to subject ratio and student’s engagement with modified subjects. Without knowing any of the mentioned metric, it is not viable to conclude whether or not computer instructions are good enough to be implemented throughout the curriculum.
Second, the author uses support of the declining drop our rate after the implementation of computer instruction in three subjects. This support is clearly unconvincing as there could be multiple other factors due to which dropout rates have declined. This type of cause and effect relationship is unfounded if it is not based on defined evidence
Third, the argument mentions another phenomenon, with the help of which the argument concludes implementation of computer instructions as viable. This phenomenon is last year’s student’s achievement in college. The argument, without any evidence, correlates computer instruction with improved performance of students in past year, but fails to provide any backup claim to strengthen this correlation.
In conclusion, the argument is weak and depends on various assumption, for which there is not clear evidence provided in the argument. The author tries to establish a causal relationship but fails to convince the readers on basis of that causality. This argument could have been strengthened if the author would have mentioned total number of subjects and students engagement with each of the subject or evidence of those students who have not dropped out and are using computer instructions
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 349 350
No. of Characters: 1894 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.322 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.427 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.858 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.529 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.455 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.588 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.327 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.036 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 509, 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
...ed metric, it is not viable to conclude whether or not computer instructions are good enough t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 307, Rule ID: IF_WOULD_HAVE_VBN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'had mentioned'?
Suggestion: had mentioned
...ld have been strengthened if the author would have mentioned total number of subjects and students e...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, second, so, then, third, well, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1953.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 349.0 441.139720559 79% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.59598853868 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32221490584 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00823575412 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 173.0 204.123752495 85% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.495702005731 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 597.6 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.7255948527 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.0625 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8125 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.75 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.173911688522 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.069634220853 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.06872817661 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.109079846597 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0377614740129 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.2 12.5979740519 121% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.07 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 98.500998004 98% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.