Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archa

Essay topics:

Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.

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 author argues that the discovery of a woven basket in Lithos can prove these kind of baskets were not only characteristic of Palean people. However, this conclusion is based on a number of unwarranted assumptions, which distort the view of the situation. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing and has several flaws.

First of all, the author readily assumes that for the woven baskets to arrive the other side of the river it is necessary to transport them by boat. This is merely an assumption made without much solid ground. For example, the woven baskets might have fallen accidentally in the river and transported by the river currents until arriving the other side of the river. Hence, the argument would be much more convincing if it presented some of evidence that the transportation across the river due to river currents was impossible due to some specific reason.

The author also implies that the fact they have not found Palean boats means they did not have them, which is a weak and unsupported assumption. In fact, if Palean people had built boats many years ago, it is not expectable to find these boats today. In prehistoric times, the boats, if existent, were probably wooden made, degrading within a relatively short period of time. Moreover, even if they are still extant, they may have been transported in the river currents to some further place. In addition, archeologists may not have developed the enough efforts to find traces of boats. If argument had provided evidence that Palean people were unable to construct boats, then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader.

Finally, the author implicitly claims in the prehistoric times there was a deep and broad river dividing Palea and Lithos. However, careful scrutiny of the evidence reveals that it provides little support for this reasoning. Was there any river during the times of Palea and Lithos? Was the river narrower than nowadays? Maybe in the prehistoric times it was possible to walk or swim to reach Lithos from Palea. Unless the author can show that the characteristics of the river have not changed since the prehistoric times, the reader is left with the impression that the claims made by the author are more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument makes a number of unstated assumptions that seriously undermine its validity. Unless these assumptions are addressed, the argument falls apart and archeologists could very well make a major mistake saying the Palean baskets are not uniquely Palean.

Votes
Average: 6.6 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 76, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this kind' or 'these kinds'?
Suggestion: this kind; these kinds
...y of a woven basket in Lithos can prove these kind of baskets were not only characteristic...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 361, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...de, degrading within a relatively short period of time. Moreover, even if they are still extan...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'finally', 'first', 'hence', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'therefore', 'well', 'for example', 'in addition', 'in conclusion', 'in fact', 'kind of', 'first of all']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.229787234043 0.25644967241 90% => OK
Verbs: 0.157446808511 0.15541462614 101% => OK
Adjectives: 0.1 0.0836205057962 120% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0765957446809 0.0520304965353 147% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0276595744681 0.0272364105082 102% => OK
Prepositions: 0.121276595745 0.125424944231 97% => OK
Participles: 0.0404255319149 0.0416121511921 97% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.67216998088 2.79052419416 96% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0234042553191 0.026700313972 88% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.127659574468 0.113004496875 113% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0170212765957 0.0255425247493 67% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0063829787234 0.0127820249294 50% => Some subClauses wanted starting by 'Which, Who, What, Whom, Whose.....'

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2577.0 2731.13054187 94% => OK
No of words: 426.0 446.07635468 95% => OK
Chars per words: 6.04929577465 6.12365571057 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.57801047555 99% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.356807511737 0.378187486979 94% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.239436619718 0.287650121315 83% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.178403755869 0.208842608468 85% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.115023474178 0.135150697306 85% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67216998088 2.79052419416 96% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 207.018472906 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.504694835681 0.469332199767 108% => OK
Word variations: 56.5798001179 52.1807786196 108% => OK
How many sentences: 21.0 20.039408867 105% => OK
Sentence length: 20.2857142857 23.2022227129 87% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.2487027261 57.7814097925 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.714285714 141.986410481 86% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.2857142857 23.2022227129 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.904761904762 0.724660767414 125% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 3.58251231527 56% => OK
Readability: 44.2293762575 51.9672348444 85% => OK
Elegance: 1.49593495935 1.8405768891 81% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.467986084244 0.441005458295 106% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0922666050246 0.135418324435 68% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0607129154013 0.0829849096947 73% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.56589490211 0.58762219726 96% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.159140802872 0.147661913831 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.178105528065 0.193483328276 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0816455452325 0.0970749176394 84% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.343842226505 0.42659136922 81% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0505775625373 0.0774707102158 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.300205736941 0.312017818177 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0631909722138 0.0698173142475 91% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.33743842365 60% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.87684729064 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.82512315271 145% => OK
Positive topic words: 4.0 6.46551724138 62% => OK
Negative topic words: 8.0 5.36822660099 149% => OK
Neutral topic words: 5.0 2.82389162562 177% => OK
Total topic words: 17.0 14.657635468 116% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

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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: 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.