The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice for a
client.
"Most homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold,
have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last heating season that
region experienced 90 days with below-normal temperatures, and climate
forecasters predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years.
Furthermore, many new homes are being built in the region in response to recent
population growth. Because of these trends, we predict an increased demand for
heating oil and recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose
major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil."
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.
For a client to decide whether Consolidated Industries is a reasonable investment target, there are some assumptions need to be validated.
As the letter stated, most people live in the northeastern United States used heating oil as their main resource to help them overcome the harsh weather especially during the winter. Here it implicitly implies that the tradition will continue in the future, but what it did not take into account is the new emerged alternations which could replace this long existed convention, for instance, heater powered by electricity. With the improvement of technology, a typical electronic heater which could have cost a fortune in the past is becoming much more powerful and affordable. Furthermore, because of global warming, people recently gaining more awareness of the environmental issues, thus instead of using oil which produces air pollution, they may prefer choosing other eco-friendly resources.
Another assumption was that the climate forecasters who predict the region will experience three more months abnormal temperature for several years. However, what it did not provide is the identity of those forecasters. Are they authoritative representatives in this field or are they just juniors who recently graduated from college? And is it effective to make such prediction based only on the last heating season? Where did those data come from? How did they collect it? We need more detail in order to make a quality decision.
Additionally, it asserted that the heating oil is going to be highly demanding since more houses are being built in this area to accommodate recent population growth. What it did not state is the reason why the population is experiencing such a growth. As it previously claimed, residents traditionally used heating oil to keep themselves warm in the winter, but what if the growing population was resulted from people who move from outside of the region due to some unexpected factors, such as, to escape from their homeland which was lately destroyed by a deadly storm? If so, how can one assume the population will remain increasing in the future? Even it will, one cannot confirm that using of heating oil will continue being a trend since these people are not the original residents.
Finally, there are few more things in terms of the heating oil industry we need to verify, that is, how many competitors are in this industry? And how much market share does Consolidated Industries hold? If there are many and Consolidated Industries does not hold the majority share, it would be risky to invest in such a corporation. Moreover, we need to consider whether there is an incoming competitor who has newly invented a high technology which could benefit their productivity or products.
From all that stated, those assumptions need to be further verified in order to make an accurate decision.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK. we accept the weather pattern: 90 days with below-normal temperatures, but it tell did tell how many days for above-normal temperatures.
argument 3 -- OK, or people buy the house for investment purposes only.
argument 4 -- OK
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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: 22 15
No. of Words: 466 350
No. of Characters: 2350 1500
No. of Different Words: 253 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.646 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.043 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.788 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.182 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.705 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.364 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.277 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.098 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, furthermore, however, if, may, moreover, so, thus, for instance, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2418.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 466.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18884120172 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64618479453 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86934828348 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 257.0 204.123752495 126% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.551502145923 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 770.4 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 1.0 8.76447105788 11% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.7584104548 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.909090909 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1818181818 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.90909090909 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.179736913397 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0461186117505 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0464505950287 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0810613483723 0.128457276422 63% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0386582513695 0.0628817314937 61% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 98.500998004 129% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 Out of 6
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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.