The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.
"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author argues that Calatrava should reduce funding for education, athletic playing fields, and other recreational activities in order to increase funding for city facilities and programs for adults. He has come to this conclusion based on last year’s decrease in the city’s birthrate compared to give years ago. However, before the strength of this argument can be properly evaluated, three pieces of evidence must be assessed.
First of all, the author must provide additional information about the trends in birthrate. Are the decreases experienced last year expected to continue onto next year? Perhaps Calatrava experienced an unexpected earthquake last year. Alternatively, maybe Calatrava experienced a recession and many people lost their jobs, leading many to struggle with finances. If any of the above are true, it is possible that the following year was chaotic and many couples delayed their plans of starting a family until next year. That being said, the author's argument would not hold water.
Even if the above was true, the author should provide evidence supporting the fact that athletic playing fields and recreational facilities only cater to children. It is possible that many adults enjoy playing soccer on outdoor fields on the weekend. Also, perhaps many adults borrow sports equipment from recreational facilities. If either of those scenarios has merit, then the conclusion in the argument is significantly weakened, as the city would be defunding facilities that cater to adults.
Lastly, the author must demonstrate that the decrease in birthrate correlates to decreased enrollment in Calatrava’s public schools. Even if the birthrate at Calatrava decreases, one cannot assume that the number of students enrolling in their public schools will decrease. Perhaps Calatrava has a reputation for its safe neighbourhoods and serves as a quintessential example of an ideal place to raise a family. If this were the case, then it is possible that there will be plenty of families moving to Calatrava in hopes of providing their children with a good upbringing. If the above is true, then the author’s prediction that there will be a decrease in public school enrollment is incorrect. Consequently, accepting his proposal for the ten-year budget may be detrimental to the quality of education for students.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed do to the author’s lack of supporting evidence. If he is able to provide additional information to support his claims, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the strength of the proposed recommendation to reduce funding for education, athletic playing fields, and recreational facilities to increase funding for city facilities and programs for adults.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 21 15
No. of Words: 432 350
No. of Characters: 2280 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.559 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.278 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.881 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 183 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 67 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.561 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.517 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 541, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...y until next year. That being said, the authors argument would not hold water. Even...
^^^^^^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...y facilities and programs for adults.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, consequently, first, however, if, lastly, may, so, then, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2354.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 432.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.44907407407 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55901411391 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.97205996442 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490740740741 0.468620217663 105% => 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: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.4149460599 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.095238095 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.5714285714 23.324526521 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.28571428571 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.275584183236 0.218282227539 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0805889028588 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0869566432958 0.0701772020484 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.145638390003 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0705392985833 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => 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.