"The following appeared as part of a petition sent to residents of Youngtown by an environmental protection group:
"The Smith Corporation shouldn't be permitted to develop the land that is now part of the Youngtown Wildlife Preserve. This sanctuary is essential to the survival of the 300 bird species that live in our area. Although only a small percentage of the land will be sold to Smith,the proposed development will have disastrous consequences for our area. The company plans to build a small hotel on the land. Although they have promised to ensure the preservation of the sanctuary,there is no way that their plans will do anything but harm the sanctuary. There are no circumstances under which this sale will benefit our community, which relies on tourists who visit primarily to see our magnificent bird population."" -
Write a response in which you examine the started and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The environmental protection group petition states that with the construction of a small hotel by the Smith Corporation on part of the Youngstown Wildlife Preserve, 300 native bird species will be negatively affected which will in turn, disadvantage the community through reduction of tourism. The argument of the environmental protection group is flawed because their argument is based on questionable and unclear evidence. There is a serious lack of definitions and empirical evidence to back their argument.
First, the petition states that the construction of the hotel will have, "disastrous consequences for our area". While there have been many incidences in the past in which construction of a man-made structure has proven to be detrimental to wildlife, these exact effects to the environment and to the bird species is never explicitly stated. Before the environmental group can assume that construction will risk the survival of the bird species, they must first demonstrate evidence and background knowledge of the bird species and what type of environment would be most ideal for their survival. In conjunction with this information, they must be able to answer the following questions: How will the construction of the hotel affect the bird species environment? Does it affect their habitat? Does it affect their food source? Then, if the answers to these questions are proven to be negative to the bird species, only then can the environmental protection group state the "disastrous consequences for our area".
Second, in the petition, the group states that Smith Corporation have promised to ensure the preservation of the sanctuary, and then they immediately refute this sentence. In this particular sentence, the environmental group assumes that the Smith Corporation is out to do harm without any sound evidence. What would be needed to make a clear distinction of the intentions of the corporation is to obtain a statement from the corporation itself on its stance on the Youngtown Wildlife Preserve. In particular, the environmental group should explore whether the corporation is contractually obligated to preserve the sanctuary upon their construction. If not, the environmental group can use the legal system to ensure that sanctuary is preserved.
Third, the environmental group states that the community depends on the tourism that bird species brings in. The petition never presents any empirical evidence that tourism is the priority in the economy of Youngtown. In order to create such an assumption, the economy of the town must go under analysis. Youngtown could have other natural resources in which their economy can rely. It cannot be readily assumed that bird species carry the economy.
Because of the environmental group's argument were based on either unsound evidence or no evidence at all, this petition will not be taken into serious account when deliberating on the Smith Corporation construction projet.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, first, if, second, so, then, third, while, in particular
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 45.0 16.3942115768 274% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2511.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 461.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.44685466377 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.63367139033 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.15367732372 2.78398813304 113% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.462039045553 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 773.1 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.6640138804 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.571428571 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9523809524 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.14285714286 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.252437322192 0.218282227539 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0728780426742 0.0743258471296 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.053911937701 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138865637181 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0360449458869 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.33 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.5 12.3882235529 101% => 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: 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.