The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper:
“This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters. Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students."
The argument that this past winter only 200 students of Waymarsh State College travelled to the state capitol building to protest against the cuts in funding for various state college programs, and therefore the state legislature need not pay heed to their proposal raises some important concerns that must be addressed in order to substantiate the argument. In the statement that follows, the author states a fact that the remaining 12,000 students of the college either remained in college or went home for winter breaks, this does form a strong argument and it certainly does not support the main argument.
Most conspicuously, the author addresses the fact that 200 students went to state capitol building to protest as a very small number. It is quite possible that these 200 students are the part of various student committees’ that look into the various affairs and activities related to student programs.
Second, the author states the fact that 12,000 students either remained on campus or went home for their winter breaks. Therefore, they are not interested in the protest. This assumption by the author is quite dubious because it is quite possible that the Wayamrsh State College has a all year round education pattern and majority students might have had their exams going on with a few exceptions who might have their winter breaks.
Third, the author of this article ignores other factors such as the number of students who are new to the study program. It is quite possible that a large majority of the 12,000 students have enrolled into the college very recently and have absolutely no idea about the cuts in funding’s of the college program. Further, the author of the article underestimates the power of student protest based on mere initial figures. There can be a possibility that this protest was just a beginning and the aftermath is yet to come.
In conclusion, the author fails to address several key points in his article. If the author would have considered the points mentioned above the argument would have been far more through and convincing.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 346 350
No. of Characters: 1702 1500
No. of Different Words: 167 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.313 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.919 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.445 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 28 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.615 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.539 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.538 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.375 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.636 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.065 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5