Read the statement(s) and the instructions that follow, and then make any notes that will help you plan your response. Begin typing your response in the box at the bottom of the screen.
The following appeared in a newspaper editorial during the holiday shopping season:
"Americans spend far too much of their time buying and consuming non-essential goods. Studies show that, on average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping. As such, it is no secret why America is losing its competitive edge relative to other countries. Instead of spending their time productively, Americans are wasting time through frivolous consumption. In order to counteract this trend, Americans should spend more time focused on personal and communal development--by, for example, pursuing educational advancement or participating in volunteer opportunities."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.
The argument that Americans use too much of their leisure time for shopping and thus must find other more productive activities does not consider the supposed issue exhaustively. The editor criticizes the status quo in America by using supposed facts but fails to conduct an objective comparison with other nations.
First of all, even if the alleged study results are correct and Americans do spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping, the editor does not give any reference number from other nations for comparison. Due to the missing reference, one cannot conclude that Americans spend too much of their time for shopping. It might be even the case that Americans, in fact, spend less time for shopping with respect to other nations which have the mentioned competitive edge. Because of this flaw in the fact analysis, the editor is wrong making such a conclusion based on the given data.
Second, the arguementation that competitive edge is being lost due to the non-productive usage of leisure time bases on assumptions which cannot be proven to be correct. Even if the claim regarding the lost of competitive advantage is true, which is not actually proven in the paragraph, all aspects effecting competitive advantage except the leisure time usage must be the same as the ones of the other countries in order to drive this conclusion. Since there is no chance that all aspects except one are equal to the ones from reference countries, the editor's claim oversimplifies a complex phenomenon and is therefore wrong.
One of the options in order to substantiate the argumentation would be using more data from America and reference countries. A reference regarding the time spent for shopping across many countries would help readers to better understand the problem.
In summary, the editor first fails to evaluate the supposed fact objectively by leaving out any reference to other countries. Also the claim that the competitive edge is being lost due to the non-productive usage of leisure time makes many assumptions none of which is explained or proven in the passage.
Sentence: Second, the arguementation that competitive edge is being lost due to the non-productive usage of leisure time bases on assumptions which cannot be proven to be correct.
Error: arguementation Suggestion: argumentation
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 344 350
No. of Characters: 1717 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.307 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.991 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.722 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 110 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 92 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.462 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.86 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.769 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.4 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.658 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5