The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Batavia newspaper.
"The department of agriculture in Batavia reports that the number of dairy farms throughout the country is now 25 percent greater than it was 10 years ago. During this same time period, however, the price of milk at the local Excello Food Market has increased from $1.50 to over $3.00 per gallon. To prevent farmers from continuing to receive excessive profits on an apparently increased supply of milk, the Batavia government should begin to regulate retail milk prices. Such regulation is necessary to ensure fair prices for consumers."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The author in the report accuses dairy farmers of obtaining an inordinate profits by raising up the milk price while producing more milk. But close scrutiny shows that this would be an unfounded accusation if the author does not answer two questions: Is there truly an increased supply in milk at Batavia? Does the milk price really go up at Batavia?
Citing a report from the department of agriculture, the author concludes the supply of milk in Batavia has increased. While the report does show that dairy farms has grown 25 percent in number throughout the country, but whether Batavia specifically is undergoing the same level of increase is unclear. It is completely possible that there are less dairy farms in Batavia or the number remains unchanged while overall the country has more dairy farms. This would be the first question the author needs to answer.
Furthermore, even if there are indeed more dairy farms in Batavia as well, the increased amount of dairy farms does not always indicate a higher milk production. Many other issues, such as the availability of grasslands and the average number of cows in each dairy farm, also have impact on the final milk production. If there are less grasslands due to some other factor such as human activities, the cows would have less food, and thus producing less milk. These are all the questions that the author needs to investigate before concluding there is an “apparent” growth in milk supply in Batavia.
The author then implies the local price of milk at Batavia has gone up by arguing that the milk price at one specific store, which is the local Excello Food Market, has increased from $1.5 to over $3.0 per gallon. What about other stores? Did the price of milk also escalate? Price rise in one store is inadequate to prove the average price has also increased on the market. The author needs to answer these questions before determining if the average price of milk has really increased. Moreover, inflation also affects milk price. For example, if the inflation rate over the past ten years turns out greater than the rate of price rise, the milk would be technically cheaper and more affordable than it was ten years ago.
While the author may feel indignant about the increased price of milk, he would need to evaluate more evidences and answer the questions above to conclude that the farmer are making more profits, otherwise the recommendation is unjustified.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK. Need to argue: 'an apparently increased supply of milk' doesn't mean farms will receive excessive profits.
argument 3 -- not exactly. need to argue the conclusion: 'Such regulation is necessary to ensure fair prices for consumers'
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Always try to find the conclusion and argue against the conclusion in argument essays.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 414 350
No. of Characters: 1975 1500
No. of Different Words: 189 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.511 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.771 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.395 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 126 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 56 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.789 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.431 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.383 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.578 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.135 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 143, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: scrutiny
...lk price while producing more milk. But close scrutiny shows that this would be an unfounded a...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 176, Rule ID: ADJECTIVE_IN_ATTRIBUTE[1]
Message: A more concise phrase may lose no meaning and sound more powerful.
Suggestion: percent
...does show that dairy farms has grown 25 percent in number throughout the country, but whether Bat...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 332, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun grasslands is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...the final milk production. If there are less grasslands due to some other factor suc...
^^^^
Line 7, column 279, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (Price) must be used with a third-person verb: 'rises'.
Suggestion: rises
... the price of milk also escalate? Price rise in one store is inadequate to prove the...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, if, may, moreover, really, so, then, thus, well, while, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2038.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 414.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92270531401 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51076378781 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58944408292 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.463768115942 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 641.7 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.5969382037 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.263157895 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7894736842 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.63157894737 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.169714006108 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0625604040283 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0688462916621 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.108861817648 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0983340330623 0.0628817314937 156% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.26 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.77 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.