Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic regions. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of the year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the purported decline in deer populations is the result of the deer's being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea.
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.
The effect humans have on the planet is undeniable. Humans as a species have drastically changed almost all aspects of the world around us, from geography to temperature, and these changes can have serious effects for the cohabitating species. While it is very possible that the current decline in artic deer population may be caused by climate change, there are some key pieces of evidence that need to be discovered before a causal association can be made.
The first piece of evidence that must be obtained regards the state of the deer’s traditional route. Are the ice bridges no longer useable due to melting ice, or is something else like a construction site making the bride un-accessible? By knowing more information about the current state of their migratory route we will be able to either support the current hypothesis, or come to a new realization. It’s possible there are outside forces barring them from even reaching the ice bridges.
If the traditional route is in fact too thin to cross, obtaining previous trends in ice thickness and weather temperatures would help us decide whether climate change has consistently led to a thinning of the ice or if this is just a uniquely warm winter. If the ice has been thinning every year then global warming becomes even more likely, however if the ice and temperature have remained variable or constant prior to this year, a change this drastic would not be supported by the global warming hypothesis.
A final trend that would be helpful in this determination of cause would be the population numbers of the deer in previous years. By having an accurate idea of what the previous populations looked like we can better understand when this decline started taking place. It is quite possible these artic deer have been subjected to overhunting for many years resulting in the declines being reported today. If there is a significant difference between the previous two years a disease could be the cause of the reduced population. However, if the population has been steadily decreasing for over ten years, global warming would become the most likely factor.
While the threat global warming has on many species throughout the world is undeniable, it is not the only factor that can lead to a decline in animal population. Before one can confidently define global warming as the cause to the arctic deer population decline, information regarding the current state of the deer’s traditional migratory routes must be obtained, as well as the trends of both the deer and weather from previous years and decades. Until this information is obtained, there is not enough evidence to dismiss the possibility of another force. Prematurely spending time and money to combat global warming could be fruitless efforts and result in artic deer endangerment.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 466 350
No. of Characters: 2303 1500
No. of Different Words: 229 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.646 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.942 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.677 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.889 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.482 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.444 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.316 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 60, Rule ID: OF_CAUSE[1]
Message: Did you mean 'of course' (=naturally)?
Suggestion: of course
... would be helpful in this determination of cause would be the population numbers of the ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 405, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” 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.
...g in the declines being reported today. If there is a significant difference betwe...
^^
Line 5, column 693, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... and result in artic deer endangerment.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, look, may, regarding, so, then, well, while, in fact, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2380.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 466.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10729613734 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64618479453 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77834268029 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 238.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.510729613734 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 758.7 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 9.0 2.70958083832 332% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.92638748 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.222222222 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.8888888889 23.324526521 111% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.66666666667 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.115136166308 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0397379836317 0.0743258471296 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0298146083129 0.0701772020484 42% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0690947153295 0.128457276422 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0293752363715 0.0628817314937 47% => 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: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.6 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.