The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper:
"In the first four years that Montoya has served as mayor of the city of San Perdito, the population has decreased and the unemployment rate has increased. Two businesses have closed for each new business that has opened. Under Varro, who served as mayor for four years before Montoya, the unemployment rate decreased and the population increased. Clearly, the residents of San Perdito would be best served if they voted Montoya out of office and reelected Varro."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The argument claims that the residents of San Pedito would be better served if they vote the current mayor Montoya out of office and reelect the former mayor. The evidence cited to support this conclusion is that the unemployment rate has increased and the population has decreased during the first four years of Montoya’s ruling. To further support the argument, the author also stated that the situation of unemployment and population was reversed when Varro served as mayor. However, I think that this argument is not convincing, the reasons are as following:
First of all, the author readily assumes that the current mayor's governing is the main cause of decreasing population and increasing unemployment rate. There’re some other factors that should be taken into consideration. For example, the economic recession might have occurred in the past four years so that it seriously impacted the local business in San Pedito. Also, it could be possible that a natural disaster has happened, such as flooding and tornado, causing some mortalities and forcing residents to leave.
Moreover, the unemployment rate and population are not the only indicators of the mayor’s performance. More indicators should be involved to evaluate a mayor’s ability, such as the neighborhood security and education quality. The two mayors may have focused on different aspects while they are serving the residents. It’s unfair to compare the performance between those two person solely based on the unemployment rate and population.
Finally, the argument cites that two businesses have closed for each new business that has opened during the four years of Montoya serving as mayor and it readily considers that this is a bad sign for the city. However, this could be a good sign instead. Nowadays, with the newly developed technology and advanced management measure, the businesses are able to increase the efficiency in production and operation, so it's not surprising that one business could now achieve what two business could do before.
In sum, it would be prudent for the city of San perdito to replace the mayor based on the evidences provided. The conclusion would be more reasonable if the author could prove that eliminate the other factors causing the increased unemployment rate and decreased population, and evaluate the mayor’s performance with more indicators.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- can be more, like: there are only two samples; maybe more businesses are opened; ...
----------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 377 350
No. of Characters: 1947 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.406 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.164 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.699 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 145 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.176 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.382 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.824 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.321 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.567 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.04 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, while, for example, i think, such as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 55.5748502994 56% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 26.0 16.3942115768 159% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2029.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 376.0 441.139720559 85% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.39627659574 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.40348946061 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90393259644 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 635.4 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.3089830129 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 126.8125 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.5 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.5 5.70786347227 114% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.33301151209 0.218282227539 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112103945275 0.0743258471296 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0696639804718 0.0701772020484 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.187580708544 0.128457276422 146% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.038137862427 0.0628817314937 61% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.8 14.3799401198 110% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.34 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.