The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a journal on environmental issues.
"Over the past year, the Crust Copper Company (CCC) has purchased over 10,000 square miles of land in the tropical nation of West Fredonia. Mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution and, since West Fredonia is the home of several endangered animal species, in environmental disaster. But such disasters can be prevented if consumers simply refuse to purchase products that are made with CCC's copper unless the company abandons its mining plans."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument claims that consumers should refuse to buy products made with CCC’s copper since the company's mining activity will inevitably result in pollution and pose a threat to the lives of several endangered animal species. The claim seems to be plausible at first glance, but on closer scrutiny, it reveals several logical flaws which are based on precarious assumptions.
To begin with, the argument indicates that the mining work will definitely lead to pollution. However, the argument does not mention any detailed information about the company, such as whether it has some plans to prevent the toxic gases from emitting. Without such information, it is imprudent to make the hasty conclusion that the mining activity will certainly have an impact on the environment. On the contrary, the company may have a comprehensive environmental system to reduce the pollution to the lowest level before emitting to the air or rivers. Therefore, a detailed investigation regarding the company’s environmental measures should be made to bolster the assumption.
Secondly, the argument assumes that the land purchased by CCC is the habitant of the endangered species. However, it is entirely possible that the endangered animals live in areas that are far from the mining locations. If this is the case, even if the mining work causes pollution, the habitant where endangered species live in may not be affected by it due to long distance from the polluted spot. Therefore, unless the argument proves the endangered species live exactly in the land purchased by the company, I will be convinced by the assumption.
Finally, the argument encourages the public to boycott the copper products made by CCC unless they stop mining. However, such an boycotting activity may not achieve desired results, as people could buy other company’s copper products which are also made at the cost of environmental destruction. Moreover, the products sold in local markets may only make up a small proportion of the total sales of the CCC. Therefore, the recommendation which is to refuse to buy copper products made by the CCC makes no difference of the company’s revenues. Without proving that the local market consumes most of the products sold by the company, the recommendation made by the author is unjustified.
In sum, the argument is replete with unreasonable assumptions, for example, the mining work will definitely affect the environment, the land purchased by the company is the habitant of endangered species, etc. To buttress the argument, the author needs to prevent more concrete evidences that the mining working is threatening the lives of the endangered animals and the boycotting activity will stop the company from mining copper.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 127, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
... unless they stop mining. However, such an boycotting activity may not achieve des...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, for example, such as, on the contrary, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2332.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 438.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 5.32420091324 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.57476223824 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.99838366833 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.463470319635 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 735.3 705.55239521 104% => 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
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.19397412 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 129.555555556 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3333333333 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.38888888889 5.70786347227 147% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.174624397322 0.218282227539 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0630509839751 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0448025187362 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.105405527985 0.128457276422 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.022710125353 0.0628817314937 36% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.61 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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: 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.