Several charitable organizations in Pleasantville provide opportunities for teenagers to engage in community service. These organizations have a great need for volunteers, but in recent years, the number of teenage volunteers has significantly declined.
The Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of volunteers. Teachers, parents, and other community members agree that it is important for young people to learn the value of community service. Requiring high school students to engage in community service would provide much-needed assistance to worthy local charities and would also help young people understand the importance of giving back to their community. For this reason, the Pleasantville School Board should institute a program requiring students of Pleasantville High School to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation.
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 the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the argument, the author is of the opinion that Pleasantville School Board should institute a program that require its students to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation. The author believes that such obligation would assist the local charities and also help youngsters understand the value of charity work. At first glance, this argument appears convincing. However, a close examination indicates that the author has made a number of unsubstantiated assumptions and hence the argument is logically unconvincing.
Firstly, the author assumes that Pleasantville School Board would take measures to increase number of charity volunteers. Although community members value charity work, it is possible that Pleasantville School Board has other priorities. It may focus on other crucial aspects like improving quality of education, improving teacher-student ratio, providing scholarship and financial aid to the needy, developing infrastructure etc.
Secondly, the author states that high school students engaging in charity work would be of assistance. This may not be necessarily true. It may happen that some students are doing charity work unwillingly and unenthusiastically. Such students may adversely affect the entire purpose of charity work.
Lastly, the author believes that charity work should be made compulsory for students graduating from Pleasantville School. Although this may increase the number of charity volunteers, the quality of charity work would be compromised. Forcing students to engage in charity work may have inimical effects.
To conclude, this argument is based on a number of unsusbstantiated assumptions and hency lacks cogency. To strengthen it, the author should provide alternate, feasible suggestions that highlight the importance of charity work.
Sentence: In the argument, the author is of the opinion that Pleasantville School Board should institute a program that require its students to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation.
Description: The word institute is not usually used as a verb, base: uninflected present, imperative or infinitive
Suggestion: Refer to institute
flaws:
No. of Words: 264 350
No. of Different Words: 140 200
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.5 21.0
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 1 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 264 350
No. of Characters: 1506 1500
No. of Different Words: 140 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.031 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.705 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.107 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 126 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.255 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.391 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.605 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.099 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5