The Town Council concludes that available space in the landfill will last longer than it was predicted before by the consultants. To support his conclusion the chairperson points out that recycling has been rising and is predicted to grow as the charges for garbage pickup will double. Moreover, he cites the survey’s results that prove the same. Close scrutiny of this argument, however, reveals that it is logically flawed and more evidence is required for it to be valid.
In order to evaluate the argument, more information about the consultants’ research is required. We need to know if the recycling was taken into account, whether the model was simply based on the historical data or the current trends were included. It could be the case that the two-year-old prediction relies on the data from 10 years ago, then it obviously does not have any value right now. Therefore, without such crucial facts, it is impossible to make any comparisons and draw any conclusions from such a prediction.
As for the survey that the memorandum cites, it cannot be considered convincing as well. First of all, it does not provide a whole number of participants. It is entirely possible that there were only 100 respondents while the population of West Egg is 10,000 times more than that. Secondly, we do not know anything about the respondents: their age, their income and so on. For that matter, perhaps the participants of the survey were teenagers who do not make important decisions in the households, or they could be environmental activists. Unless we know the details of the survey, the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council cannot assume that those 90 percent of the respondents are the ideal representation of the whole town.
Finally, the behavior of citizens cannot be easily predicted as the chairperson thinks. His argument relies on a faulty assumption that if the charges for pickup of household garbage will double, then the recycling will increase. However, this might not be the case. People could start dropping the garbage illegally in the hidden places or, perhaps, even at the landfill just doing it on their own. Accordingly, the Town Council cannot draw any firm conclusion about what effect the increased charges would have on the citizens’ behavior.
In sum, the conclusion is not convincing in several respects. To be more persuasive, the author would need to provide more evidence that the research made by the consultants is valid and we can draw conclusions from it as well as about the survey - the number, age, income and other facts of its respondents and how well they represent the whole town. Finally, to better evaluate the chairperson’s claim we would need solid arguments that the citizens’ behavior will develop as it was predicted in response to the doubled charges.
Essay evaluation report
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2278 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.868 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.676 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 157 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.273 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.483 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.272 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.487 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.1 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 353, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: Scrutiny
...vey's results that prove the same. Close scrutiny of this argument, however, reveals that...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, finally, first, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, while, as for, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2372.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.06837606838 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91117324229 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 233.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497863247863 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 720.9 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.5092677537 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.818181818 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.2727272727 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.18181818182 5.70786347227 108% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.224651095615 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0603994867731 0.0743258471296 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0460807219618 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122565121076 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0198180622746 0.0628817314937 32% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.13 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.42 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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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.