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 both lower prices and an adequate supply
of milk for consumers."
This editorial recommends that Batavia's government regulate milk prices because profits from
milk sales are excessive given the apparently adequate supply. The editorial also claims that
price regulation would help ensure an adequate supply of milk. To support these assertions the
author cites the fact that over the past ten years the number of dairy farms in Batavia has
increased by 25% while at ExceUo Food Market milk prices have increased by 100%.
However, the argument relies on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions, which render it
unconvincing as it stands.
First of all, the author assumes that ExceUo's milk prices reflect those throughout Batavia.
However, the author provides no evidence that this is the case. To the extent that Excello's
milk prices currently exceed nationwide averages the author's argument for government
regulation of milk prices would be undermined.
In the second place, even if ExceUo's milk prices reflect those in Batavia generally, in
claiming that milk prices are particularly "excessive" the author assumes that milk-sale profits
exceed profits from the sale of other goods in Batavia to a significant degree. But the author
provides no evidence to substantiate this assumption. Perhaps other prices have risen
commensurably, or perhaps even more on a percentage basis, during the same t/me period.
Moreover, perhaps profit margins from the sale of other goods are even greater than profits
from milk sales. In either event the author could not justifiably rely on the mere fact that milk
prices have increased by 100% to support the claim that milk sale profits are excessive.
In the third place, the author assumes that an increase in milk prices results in increased
profits. However, this is not necessarily the case. It is entirely possible that the costs
associated with producing and delivering milk have increased as well over the last ten years.
Thus the strength of the author's claim of excessive milk-sale profits depends on a cost-benefit
analysis that the author does not provide.
In the fourth place, based on the fact that the number of dairy farms has increased the
author infers that the supply of milk has also increased. However, this is not necessarily the
case. It is possible that dairy farm production has shifted away from milk to other dairy
products, and that the supply of milk has actually declined over this time period. To the extent
that this is the case, then the author's supply-and-demand argument that milk prices are
excessive is unconvincing.
Finally, in asserting that price regulation would help ensure an adequate supply of milk the
author overlooks the possibility that milk producers would respond to the regulation by
producing less milk, depending on the extent to which demand increases as a result of lower
milk prices. If regulation has the effect of lowering profits, then common sense tells me that
milk producers might be less inclined to produce milk. Without ruling out this possible scenario,
the author cannot convince me that the recommendation would help ensure an adequate
supply of milk.
In conclusion, the recommendation for regulation of milk prices is not well supported. To
convince me that the proposed regulation is needed to ensure a reasonably priced milk supply,
the author must provide clear statistical evidence that Excello's milk prices reflect nationwide
milk prices and that profits from milk sales are in fact excessive. To better evaluate the
recommendation, I would need more information about how the proposed regulation would
effect both the supply of milk and the demand for milk in Batavia.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
Such regulation is necessary to ensure both lower prices and an adequate supply
of milk for consumers.
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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: 26 15
No. of Words: 583 350
No. of Characters: 2983 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.914 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.117 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.665 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 227 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 113 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.423 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.248 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.808 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.392 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.555 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 10, column 54, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...urrently exceed nationwide averages the authors argument for government regulation of ...
^^^^^^^
Line 23, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...eased as well over the last ten years. Thus the strength of the authors claim of ex...
^^^^
Line 43, column 1, Rule ID: AFFECT_EFFECT[6]
Message: Did you mean 'affect'?
Suggestion: affect
...bout how the proposed regulation would effect both the supply of milk and the demand ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, apparently, but, finally, first, however, if, look, moreover, second, so, then, third, thus, well, while, in conclusion, in fact, as a result, first of all, in the second place, in the third place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 28.0 13.6137724551 206% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 46.0 28.8173652695 160% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3123.0 2260.96107784 138% => OK
No of words: 582.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.36597938144 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91168771031 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78323627313 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 229.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.393470790378 0.468620217663 84% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 949.5 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 15.0 4.22255489022 355% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.4454641647 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.115384615 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.3846153846 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.15384615385 5.70786347227 143% => OK
Paragraphs: 42.0 5.15768463074 814% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
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: 0.0732893402809 0.218282227539 34% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.033314424872 0.0743258471296 45% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0366413639222 0.0701772020484 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.026562825039 0.128457276422 21% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0407145886114 0.0628817314937 65% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.09 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.