The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a journal on environmental issues.
"Over the past year, the Crust Copper Company (CCC) has purchased over 10,000 square miles of land in the tropical nation of West Fredonia. Mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution and, since West Fredonia is the home of several endangered animal species, in environmental disaster. But such disasters can be prevented if consumers simply refuse to purchase products that are made with CCC's copper unless the company abandons its mining plans."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The letter to the editor of the journal provides certain arguments to reach a conclusion but these arguments are rife with fallacies and consists of illogical statements. Environmental issues are a burning topic that is churning the minds of every human being and the governments of different countries. The Abate in flora and fauna has raised several questions on the present norms and rules governing the safety of nature. In the letter, the author states that over the past year, the Crust Copper Company (CCC) has purchased over 10,000 square miles of land in the tropical nation of West Fredonia. This issue has been seen as a potential danger to the environmental conditions of West Fredonia but the author provides dubious evidence to strengthen the conclusion.
Firstly, contemplating that the company has been buying land for mining is substantial. No business plans or the company’s future endeavors are provided in the letter for supporting this argument. There is a probability that the company might be looking into other ventures which might be more environmentally friendly. Also, the author of the letter states that mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution. No proof or evidence is provided stating that the company has not been following the norms and the laws. Maybe the company strictly follows rules to reduce the pollution level in West Fredonia.
Secondly, the author states that there are endangered animal species present in West Fredonia which might be uprooted from their homes or affected due to the Crust Copper Company’s new venture. West Fredonia is a large region and the endangered animal’s habitat could be in different regions. CCC bought only 10,000 square miles of the land, hence it is not necessary that any endangered species is being affected due to them. The letter fails to provide the specific regions of the different natural habitats of the endangered animal species which would have been much more helpful to predict if CCC is causing any harm to the environment.
The conclusion stated that the people should stop buying products from CCC, which could further lead to the company abandoning its mining project is a presumption. It is not necessary that the products obtained from mining in West Fredonia are being sold to people instead it could be a B2B (Business to Business) plan, hence the conclusion does not support the environmental effects from the mining if caused any.
In conclusion, preserving the environment is an important task and each individual has a responsibility to work towards saving nature but it is important to understand if an issue is present in reality or is it just an illusion. Banning the use of a company’s product is an example of taking responsibility after the damage has been done. Efforts should be made in stopping the issue at origin and not its after-effects.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 474 350
No. of Characters: 2360 1500
No. of Different Words: 220 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.666 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.979 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.702 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.7 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.385 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.45 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.553 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => 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: 2413.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.09071729958 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79143582722 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.466244725738 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 740.7 705.55239521 105% => 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: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.2270411699 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.65 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.7 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.374036964792 0.218282227539 171% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.109911123752 0.0743258471296 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.144135740948 0.0701772020484 205% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.189858664322 0.128457276422 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.136328079563 0.0628817314937 217% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.