The following appeared in a memorandum written by the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council.
"Two years ago, consultants predicted that West Egg's landfill, which is used for garbage disposal, would be completely filled within five years. During the past two years, however, the town's residents have been recycling twice as much material as they did in previous years. Next month the amount of recycled material — which includes paper, plastic, and metal — should further increase, since charges for pickup of other household garbage will double. Furthermore, over 90 percent of the respondents to a recent survey said that they would do more recycling in the future. Because of our town's strong commitment to recycling, the available space in our landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted."
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.
The chairperson of the West Egg Town Council asserts that the town’s garbage disposal will not get filled for a period longer than five years as the residents are strongly committed to recycling of waste. To bolster his claim he puts forward the results of a survey that had highly encouraging statistics. He further informs that it has been predicted that the inhabitants of the town will recycle more as the pickup charges are being increased. The conclusion though looks appealing at first look fails to provide evidence for many assumptions. Hence making those assumptions undependable and unreliable.
Firstly, the argument readily accepts the fact that recycling of waste by the residents will be greatly helpful in extending time. Until which the town can use the garbage disposal landfill. However, it is quite possible that residential waste makes up a very small portion of the entire waste generated by the town. It is highly possible that a humungous amount of waste is generated by the industries in that town. It has not been informed that it is an industrial town or a residential area, making the entire claim too weak to be relied upon. The factories and industries byproducts, constructional waste and hospital waste might be contributing a major portion. It is of utmost importance to identify the major source of these waste. Had the argument provided with details that residents are only the source of waste the argument would have been easier to evaluate.
Moreover, the argument asserts that in a recent survey over 90 percent of the respondents forswear that they will undertake more recycle methods in the future. However, it has not been mentioned has to whether the survey was conducted by an authenticated committed. It also fails to inform whether the residents of the West Egg Town were a part of the survey. It is needed here that the numbers and percentage of the people are presented. It is also essential to know the range of the survey to be assured that the entire town was covered. To illustrate, if a thousand people are living in a town and the survey focused only on ten to twenty people; promises of these small percentages can not account for a large population of thousand people. It will be highly beneficial if the argument throws light on the authenticity of the survey and the number of people surveyed in comparison to the total population of the town.
Finally, the argument believes that increasing the garbage pick up charges will result in people recycling their wastes more. Here again, the argument fails to substantiate itself. The argument does not inform us as to whether the difference between the price which was charged before and the new price is high enough for people to change their habits. To elaborate my point, supposedly the town is full of opulent people, and paying a high price would not be a matter to them. The knowledge about the financial condition of demographics of the town is required to provide a surety that the new pick up charge is high enough.
To sum up, the chairperson decision is based on many assumptions that are got strong enough to upload the prediction that the landfills will last longer than their expected due date. To strengthen his argument the author needs to provide a clear picture of the financial status of the people and also the type of town that West Egg is whether it is a commercial or a residential area. Without answers to these questions, one is left to wonder whether the decision will be beneficial.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 601 350
No. of Characters: 2866 1500
No. of Different Words: 259 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.951 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.769 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.642 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 212 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 148 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.464 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.073 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.478 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.119 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 404, Rule ID: COMP_THAN[1]
Message: Comparison requires 'than', not 'then' nor 'as'.
Suggestion: than
...habitants of the town will recycle more as the pickup charges are being increased....
^^
Line 1, column 547, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
... provide evidence for many assumptions. Hence making those assumptions undependable a...
^^^^^
Line 2, column 132, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Until” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...l be greatly helpful in extending time. Until which the town can use the garbage disp...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 440, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...percentage of the people are presented. It is also essential to know the range of ...
^^
Line 4, column 213, Rule ID: WHETHER[6]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "as to"?
Suggestion: whether
...itself. The argument does not inform us as to whether the difference between the price which ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, look, moreover, so, then, as to, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 37.0 19.6327345309 188% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 55.5748502994 140% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2918.0 2260.96107784 129% => OK
No of words: 601.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.85524126456 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95129289623 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70206162773 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 266.0 204.123752495 130% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442595673877 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 914.4 705.55239521 130% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.14290149 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.214285714 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4642857143 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.5 5.70786347227 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.173488133289 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0474935444274 0.0743258471296 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0674287038313 0.0701772020484 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10451554875 0.128457276422 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.054922817083 0.0628817314937 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.2 14.3799401198 85% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.2 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 98.500998004 136% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.