“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.”
The argument claims that some of the city's funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television citing causal relationship between percentage increase of viewership of television and percentage increase of number of people visiting city's museums. Stated this way the argument fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it can be evaluated. It also establishes a causal relationship between two events without providing enough evidence for doing so. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak and has several flaws.
Firstly, the argument assumes that since the corporate funding that supports public television is being threatened, the percentage of residents who watch television programs about visual arts will decrease. However, no supporting evidence has been provided to evaluate the assumption. Reduction in corportate funding would only decrease the viewership of programs about visual arts either if one or more of the programs were to be cancelled or if the quality of those programs decreased drastically to drive the viewers away. Neither of the two conditions have to necessarily be true. The reduction in funding might not even affect the programs about visual arts. For example if most of the reduction in funding was in another area of television where viewership has been steadily declining without affecting other areas, then there would be no affect of reduction of funding on viewership of the programs about visual arts.
Secondly, the argument assumes a causal relationship between the increase or decrease in viewers of a television program and the increase or decrease in people visiting the museum. The argument fails to consider that the two events are not related to one another, but on the contrary are correlated. It is possible that if there is a decrease in viewership of television programs, then the number of people who visit art museums will increase. The enthusiasm of people in visual arts, according to the argument, is because of television programs. On the other hand, it is also possible that residents of the city started watching television programs related to visual arts after they first visited the museum. Surely, in that case, the statement does not hold true.
In conclusion, the argument provided is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons. The argument can be strengthened if the author provides evidence for the purported relationship between the television program viewership and art museum visitors. Furthermore, the argument needs to provide evidence for the assumption that decrease in the funding for television will in fact decrease the viewership of the programs or affect number of people going to the museum in any way.
- The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best w 77
- “Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 82
- “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 55
- 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 73
- 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 73
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 20 15
No. of Words: 444 350
No. of Characters: 2311 1500
No. of Different Words: 174 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.59 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.205 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.805 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 191 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.806 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.511 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.082 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 26, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
The argument claims that some of the citys funds for supporting the arts sho...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, thus, for example, in conclusion, in fact, on the contrary, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2356.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 444.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30630630631 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5903493882 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85512395771 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.40990990991 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 738.9 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.7796481526 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.8 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.25 5.70786347227 145% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => 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: 0.179507250184 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0627170155189 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0642878891565 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.120985751638 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0527368665716 0.0628817314937 84% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.7 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.52 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 92.0 98.500998004 93% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.