In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes litt

The author is putting forward an argument to increase the budget allocated by Mason City towards the recreational activities along the Mason river. The primary reasoning of the author is that Mason City residents like water sports and they have a river flowing through their city. Although it's not currently used for recreational purpose, if the authorities invest in cleaning up the river and eradicating it's foul smell they should also invest in the recreational facilities because the residents are going to throng the place. But the evidence the author puts forward to support his claims are dubious at best.

The premise of author's argument lies in the fact that Mason City residents like water sports. Although it is stated in the essay that they indeed like water sports it's only mentioned they like it 'among' other things. This inclination is very vague because it's unclear what else do they like. It could be that they like gambling much more than water sports or maybe watching television or browsing the internet. A survey considering relative ordering of various recreational activities would be much more prudent than saying merely stating citizens like water sports. Also, are the residents actually going to spend time on the riverfront once it's developed, we do not know as there's not a speck of evidence on this aspect.

Also it is stated in the passage that the riverfront is rarely used even though people like water activities. The author assumes that this is because of the foul smell from the river. Although this may seem connected, a sound argument will would require a proper cause and effect analysis. For example only a part of the river could be smelling bad while the other part would still be okay and the residents are not using the riverfront because they are too busy with their occupations. It is one thing to like something and other to actually do it. So, again, if we know what percentage of residents actually desire to use it we will be at a much better position.

The author also assumes that the demand for water sports justifies further development of the riverside. It could well be that some part of the riverside had already been developed for recreational activities with all facilities and it's simply not used. Even if we accept the author's premise that people are reluctant to participate in recreational activities now due to foul smell and would indeed participate once it's cleaned up. It could very well be that the existing facilities would be more than enough to meet the demand considering that now it's rarely used as stated in the passage.

In conclusion, throughout the argument it's unclear whether the residents actually would like to spend time going through fun activities along the riverside and whether they are actually ready to invest their own money, indirectly through the taxes, into developing the riverside. It looks like the author is connecting the dots when in fact none seem to exist. This is a classic case of drawing strong conclusions from weak evidence and could result in huge unnecessary expenditure to the exchequer. So I disagree with the author to spend more on developing riverfront until further evidence is presented about how many people would actually be using them.

Votes
Average: 2.9 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 95, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Although” 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.
...Mason City residents like water sports. Although it is stated in the essay that they ind...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 676, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: there's
...t once its developed, we do not know as theres not a speck of evidence on this aspect....
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... a speck of evidence on this aspect. Also it is stated in the passage that the ri...
^^^^
Line 5, column 334, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
... example only a part of the river could be smelling bad while the other part would still be...
^^^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, if, look, may, so, still, well, while, for example, in conclusion, in fact

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 53.0 28.8173652695 184% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2716.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 548.0 441.139720559 124% => OK
Chars per words: 4.95620437956 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.83832613839 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.57977828645 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 233.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.425182481752 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 861.3 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.9235549202 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.166666667 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8333333333 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.95833333333 5.70786347227 69% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.189051854191 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0635304162899 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0796924059671 0.0701772020484 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119103858689 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0800722840519 0.0628817314937 127% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.61 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?

---------------------

Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.

argument 1 -- not OK

argument 2 -- not OK

argument 3 -- not exactly. need to argue:

Use of the river for water sports is, therefore, sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities.
----------------

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 548 350
No. of Characters: 2679 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.838 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.889 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.535 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.833 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.808 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.625 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.505 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5