The following appeared in a magazine article about planning for retirement.
"Clearview should be a top choice for anyone seeking a place to retire, because it has spectacular natural beauty and a consistent climate. Another advantage is that housing costs in Clearview have fallen significantly during the past year, and taxes remain lower than those in neighboring towns. Moreover, Clearview's mayor promises many new programs to improve schools, streets, and public services. And best of all, retirees in Clearview can also expect excellent health care as they grow older, since the number of physicians in the area is far greater than the national average."
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.
Clearview has made the point that retirees should choose their municipality for retirement. However, their argument is laden with fallacies. The argument mentions its consistent climate, housing costs, and number of physicians—all of which make for a “top choice for anyone seeking a place to retire.” No relevant, subsequent information is given to strengthen the conclusion. The evidence would be severely weakened if these so-called reasons are not accurately portrayed.
Clearview first states that the climate is consistent. However, a “consistent” climate is a vague term. Does Clearview mean that the climate is consistent relative to itself? If that is the case, then the climate should follow its own regular patterns. That said, a climate consistent with basic trademarks like “warm” and “comfortable” may not indicate that the climate is consistent at all. The climate may be warm but rains every few days, or the climate is comfortable but is not warm enough. A climate consistent according to these trademarks rather than regular patterns would weaken the argument because retirees would not want to live where climate is inaccurately portrayed.
Second, Clearview mentions its decreasing housing costs. This is a fanciful claim, but decreasing costs, in any industry, are only useful as they are relative to other business; in this case, that would be neighboring communities. First, the housing costs may be exorbitant relative to Clearmont, the town next door. In addition, Clearview’s housing costs may not have proportionally decreased as much so as Clearmont, again confusing and deceiving potential retirees. These retirees would not want to live in a town where they cannot afford the housing costs and are being duped. This would weaken the argument and again obfuscate the statement that the top choice is Clearview.
Finally, Clearview mentions the number of physicians as an advantage for living there. While it is nice to know the number of physicians in any given town, it is more important to know what kind of physicians they are. In other words, what is the diversity? Are they solely pediatricians? Are there therapists, neurologists, orthopedists, oncologists? The numbers must represent your needs, as there is not point of living in a town where there a lot of pediatricians, and you are a retiree. Based on this information, the the argument would be weakened.
It seems that Clearview is trying to confuse its potential customers by feigning its quality. Although it has pointed out its climate, housing costs, and number of physicians, it has not given an accurate depiction of any. We truthfully do not know whether the climate is consistent, the housing costs have decreased, and the number of physicians meets retirees needs. All of this information weakens the overall argument and concludes that Clearview should more accurately portray itself if it wants to attract retirees.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not exactly. better to say something like: maybe people like four seasons.
argument 2 -- not OK. better to say: people may consider other things too, not just house price or tax. for example: criminal rate, pollution rate.
argument 3 -- not exactly. here it says: '....is far greater than the national average.'
--------------------
also need to argue:
Moreover, Clearview's mayor promises many new programs to improve schools, streets, and public services.
----------------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 465 350
No. of Characters: 2381 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.644 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.12 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.795 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 106 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 73 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.034 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.453 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.517 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.484 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.109 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 250, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ber of physicians—all of which make for a 'top choice for anyone seeking a p...
^
Line 1, column 280, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'anyone' must be used with a third-person verb: 'seeks'.
Suggestion: seeks
... make for a 'top choice for anyone seeking a place to retire.' No relevant, s...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 65, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...hat the climate is consistent. However, a 'consistent' climate is a vag...
^
Line 7, column 520, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...e a retiree. Based on this information, the the argument would be weakened. It seems...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 520, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...e a retiree. Based on this information, the the argument would be weakened. It seems...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, while, in addition, kind of, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2514.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 464.0 441.139720559 105% => OK
Chars per words: 5.41810344828 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64119157421 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.22694592363 2.78398813304 116% => OK
Unique words: 217.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.467672413793 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 762.3 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.2091035733 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.7857142857 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.5714285714 23.324526521 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.57142857143 5.70786347227 63% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.259887661447 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0675169283705 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0680097731567 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148772292419 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0902906057009 0.0628817314937 144% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.24 48.3550499002 114% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.5 12.197005988 78% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.86 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.0 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 12.3882235529 48% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.