The following is part of a memorandum from the president of Humana University.
"Last year the number of students who enrolled in online degree programs offered by nearby Omni University increased by 50 percent. During the same year, Omni showed a significant decrease from prior years in expenditures for dormitory and classroom space, most likely because instruction in the online programs takes place via the Internet. In contrast, over the past three years, enrollment at Humana University has failed to grow, and the cost of maintaining buildings has increased along with our budget deficit. To address these problems, Humana University will begin immediately to create and actively promote online degree programs like those at Omni. We predict that instituting these online degree programs will help Humana both increase its total enrollment and solve its budget problems."
The author claims that following the idea of increasing the number of online degree programs will result in an increase of enrollment and solve its budget problems. Stated this way, the argument reveals several instances of poor reasoning and jumping to conclusions. To justify the claim, the author cites Omni University and how implementing the same plan in that university has led to favorable results. However, careful scrutiny of evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author’s conclusion. Hence, the argument can be considered incomplete and unsubstantiated at best.
First, the author readily assumes that online degree programs are as effective as the in-class degree programs. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground. For example, conducting a survey to get feedback from students on which kind of classes, classroom or online, they find productive. Results might show that students prefer in-class courses to online for the accessibility to the professors after class for clarification of doubts. Some students may prefer actually going to the university for a variety of reasons like the lively ambience of the college or the feasibility of using the university’s library. If results of survey prove that students enjoy in-class degree programs better, the prediction made by the president does not stand effective anymore. In fact, it could result in decline in enrollment.
On closer observation, one can notice how the author readily attributes the decrease in enrollment to in-class programs. This reflects poor judgement as the author failed to consider several other factors that could be potential reasons for the fall in enrollment. For instance, the courses offered at the university might be outdated and simply not be of interest to the students anymore. Or, the professors teaching at the university might not be of adequate qualifications compared to other universities. To evaluate whether that’s the case, the author should conduct a Q&A session where students can openly discuss their issues with the college. Instead of taking a leap to the conclusion, the president can carefully analyze the student body issues and evaluate a relevant and effective prediction accordingly.
Finally, the author mentions that a lot of the expenditures go in to the dormitories for enrolled students and from this premise, he concludes that on-line programs will help in reducing in-class enrollment and further reduce the costs in accommodations. However, in doing so, the author failed to consider the possibility of low hygiene in the hostels resulting in decline of enrollment by students. If a part of the budget could be spent in the maintenance of the dorms, students might simply prefer Humana University over the others just for the sake of good hygiene. The president instead of looking for factors that resulted in fall of numbers, should look for ways to keep the current students attracted to Humana University.
To conclude, the president’s argument is unpersuasive as it stands. To bolster it further, the president must take into account all the relevant factors, perhaps the student’s interests in the kind of courses they want to take up or the downsides of online degree programs. Finally, it is critical to consider all the relevant factors that play a role in better evaluation of the prediction. Without addressing the above-mentioned factors, the author’s recommendation remains unsupported and futile.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-20 | __annabelle__ | 59 | view |
| 2019-12-19 | tg763622253 | 68 | view |
| 2019-12-06 | ni7san | 66 | view |
| 2019-11-30 | sudesh tiwari | 42 | view |
| 2019-11-29 | Zhangdai | 42 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 549 350
No. of Characters: 2879 1500
No. of Different Words: 265 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.841 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.244 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.87 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 248 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 192 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 71 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.115 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.592 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.577 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.278 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.471 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, actually, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, look, may, so, for example, for instance, in fact, kind of, of course
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 19.6327345309 51% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 87.0 55.5748502994 157% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2980.0 2260.96107784 132% => OK
No of words: 548.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 5.43795620438 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83832613839 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.056065434 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 267.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.487226277372 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 927.0 705.55239521 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.7387348134 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.615384615 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0769230769 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11538461538 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.184663447721 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0486001119504 0.0743258471296 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0474134268629 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105165028042 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0374587877662 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => 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: 14.27 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.09 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 153.0 98.500998004 155% => 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
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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.