The average loans per resident across all six councils is 5.27, while Cessnock's figure is 2.65, so Cessnock's libraries are underperforming and need improvement.
| Teacher feedback (summary) | My diagnosis | My change (decision + location) |
|---|---|---|
| “One benchmark number alone is not a justification” | I didn’t say who I was comparing with, or why. | Rewrite sentence 2: state the peer group first (exclude Kiama, below the band’s 60,000-resident floor; keep Willoughby’s extreme value but use the median), then give the median 3.86, then position Cessnock at 2.65. |
| “do extremes and scale change the benchmark?” | The 5.27 average is pulled up by Willoughby’s 10.70, and Kiama’s 23,173 residents make it a different scale of council. | Benchmark changes from the 5.27 average to the 3.86 median of the five comparable councils. The reason for the exclusion goes into the sentence. |
| “recompute the median” | My old figure, 5.27, was an average across councils that aren’t comparable. | New benchmark 3.86. Cessnock’s 2.65 sits 31% below it: still low, but the number and the reason have both changed. |
The average loans per resident across all six councils is 5.27, while Cessnock's figure is 2.65, so Cessnock's libraries are underperforming and need improvement.
Kiama (population 23,173) sits below the 60,000-resident floor of this regional-city band and is excluded from comparison. Across the five comparable councils the median reach is 3.86 loans per resident; Cessnock, at 2.65, falls 31% below that benchmark.
| Criterion | Band verb (9–10 / top) | Reusable comment |
|---|---|---|
| MC1 · Data architecture | distinguishes… measurement vs use | “Your criteria mix what the data measures with how the council uses it — separate the two and the justification gets sharper.” |
| MC2 · Analysis | critically analyses… justified peer cohort | “Name the group and the reason together. A benchmark without a justification invites the reader to pick a different one.” |
| MC3 · Recommendations | synthesises… cost-neutral | “This recommendation adds cost. Test it against the cost-neutral constraint, or reframe it as a sequencing step.” |
| MC4 · Register | audience-targeted register | “Replace the filename with the practical name (membership registration records) — the Director does not read file names.” |
Comment bank
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