Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic regions. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of the year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the purported decline in deer populations is the result of the deer's being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea.
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
In the above extract, it is described that the arctic deer which live on the islands in Canada’s arctic region travels from island to island in search of food by walking over the sea which is covered with ice. Now, it is observed that the deer population has declined significantly in recent years and that this decline is coinciding with global warming. So, a conclusion is drawn claiming that the population has declined because of disappearing of the paths traversed by deer. The argument may appear to be plausible, but, it is based only on assumptions and hence, evidences are required to prove what is asserted.
Firstly, the fact that there can be several other factors causing the declination in deer population is completely ignored. It is possible that there is some kind of epidemic spread in the area which is causing the death of deer in large numbers and hence, leading to decline in their population. If this is the case, then the argument will become baseless and so, it is required to investigate this aspect as well.
Secondly, the report is based on the observation of the local hunters. It is possible that the hunters have tried looking for deer in warmer regions and the deer have moved to further north. The subjective experiences of the hunters cannot be taken as a reliable source for such assessment. It is also possible that the number of deer of one region may actually have declined while the other regions still have consistent and satisfactory population. Hence, a more rigorous, a more accurate survey is required on the matter before coming to any conclusions.
The argument continues to stumble however even if deer populations are proven to decreasing. It claims that global warming trends making sea ice to melt are the direct cause when the argument is not supported. There only exists a correlation between the two events as the argument states that the events coincide at the same moment. While it is plausible, there could be many causes and those other causes could be much more important than the global warming trends. One plausible explanation could be an upsurge of predators such as grey wolves and bears that efficiently hunt arctic deer and cull their numbers. From a fundamental understanding of the difference between correlation and causation and numerous examples, it is shown that the argument's claim is not adequately explained at all and can much better be explained by other theories.
In conclusion it can only be said that the argument is only based on a certain assumption and severely lacks evidence. Several explanations can be given that are satisfactory and more likely to occur. So, a more thorough and elaborated research is required to support the initial premise of the argument and a linkage between the two events needs to be proven and elucidated as well.
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'also', 'but', 'first', 'firstly', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'look', 'may', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'well', 'while', 'in conclusion', 'kind of', 'such as']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.202290076336 0.25644967241 79% => OK
Verbs: 0.196564885496 0.15541462614 126% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0935114503817 0.0836205057962 112% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0667938931298 0.0520304965353 128% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0248091603053 0.0272364105082 91% => OK
Prepositions: 0.120229007634 0.125424944231 96% => OK
Participles: 0.0763358778626 0.0416121511921 183% => Less participles wanted.
Conjunctions: 2.77331774125 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0248091603053 0.026700313972 93% => OK
Particles: 0.00190839694656 0.001811407834 105% => OK
Determiners: 0.106870229008 0.113004496875 95% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0209923664122 0.0255425247493 82% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0114503816794 0.0127820249294 90% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2844.0 2731.13054187 104% => OK
No of words: 478.0 446.07635468 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.94979079498 6.12365571057 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67581127817 4.57801047555 102% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.361924686192 0.378187486979 96% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.265690376569 0.287650121315 92% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.192468619247 0.208842608468 92% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.119246861925 0.135150697306 88% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77331774125 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Unique words: 224.0 207.018472906 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.468619246862 0.469332199767 100% => OK
Word variations: 53.2440700699 52.1807786196 102% => OK
How many sentences: 21.0 20.039408867 105% => OK
Sentence length: 22.7619047619 23.2022227129 98% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.0997622151 57.7814097925 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 135.428571429 141.986410481 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7619047619 23.2022227129 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.952380952381 0.724660767414 131% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.58251231527 0% => OK
Readability: 49.3309424188 51.9672348444 95% => OK
Elegance: 1.38410596026 1.8405768891 75% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.410051983415 0.441005458295 93% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.117637508351 0.135418324435 87% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0620372729696 0.0829849096947 75% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.571840428111 0.58762219726 97% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.118763836081 0.147661913831 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.175138830934 0.193483328276 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0917086025156 0.0970749176394 94% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.509125603059 0.42659136922 119% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0564698670213 0.0774707102158 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.295169127505 0.312017818177 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0692389600656 0.0698173142475 99% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.33743842365 96% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.87684729064 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.82512315271 83% => OK
Positive topic words: 6.0 6.46551724138 93% => OK
Negative topic words: 9.0 5.36822660099 168% => OK
Neutral topic words: 2.0 2.82389162562 71% => OK
Total topic words: 17.0 14.657635468 116% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.