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 writer argues that the customer should stop buying products that are produced by Crust Copper Company (C.C.C.) in order to prevent the company from establishing its facilities in West Fredonia. It is based on the premises that the company had purchased a land in West Fredonia where animals are already in precarious conditions and moreover, the operations of the company would lead to pollution. The argument seems true at first sight, however, on deeper analysis it becomes clear that certain relevant aspects have not been taken into account, leading to a number of unstated assumptions and logical flaws.
First such assumptions is analogy between the principal business of the company and the intention of doing it on the land that was purchased last year. However, it is possible that the company might have purchased the land for other business such as for establishing solar power plants which would make the argument significantly weak. It is possible that the company might have sudden revelation that its operations are affecting the environment that it has decided to compensate that with the business of solar power plants that would prevent energy consumption. Therefore, in order to overcome this flaw, the writer should state facts from research concerning the plans of the company and should also prove that this company had purchased land only for mining.
Secondly, the writer’s argument is incorrectly based on the assumption of consumer inclination towards buying copper products that would be produced on this land. However, there may be the case that this land was purchased for the export plans of the company which would make the argument unreliable. The company might have decided that owing to significant competition in the domestic market, it should venture into export markets. Moreover, this land would produce copper products that would not be sold in the domestic market. Hence, to make the argument more reliable, the writer should verify the facts from authorities pertaining to objective of the company for buying a land and should also assert that company would produce products for domestic markets as well and customers are currently buying products that are being manufactured by this company.
Finally, the writer has arbitrarily assumed that this company would not implement any measure to compensate the environment effects because of its mining business in West Fredonia. However, it is possible that the company might have acquired a land after obtaining approval from environmental authorities which would make the argument unacceptable. The company might have required as prescribed by this authority that all necessary measures would be put in place to neutralize the impact of its mining business and in certain cases company would relocate the animals at its own cost to some other location. Thus, to make the argument acceptable, the writer should check facts from the authorities about the mandatory conditions on which permission was granted for buying the land and should also demonstrate that company would fail to fulfil its obligations.
After close examination of the argument presented, it is apparent that the argument is considerably flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions. The recommendations in the above paragraphs show how this argument may be strengthened and made more logically sound in order to evaluate the proposed action.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 542 350
No. of Characters: 2829 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.825 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.22 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.678 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 211 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 170 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 119 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.111 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.647 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.722 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.414 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.609 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.13 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, well, as for, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 28.0 13.6137724551 206% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2898.0 2260.96107784 128% => OK
No of words: 541.0 441.139720559 123% => OK
Chars per words: 5.35674676525 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.82280071112 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75394682159 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 222.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410351201479 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 894.6 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 30.0 22.8473053892 131% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 52.4449152521 57.8364921388 91% => OK
Chars per sentence: 161.0 119.503703932 135% => OK
Words per sentence: 30.0555555556 23.324526521 129% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.83333333333 5.70786347227 120% => 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 : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.161730100731 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0697211285011 0.0743258471296 94% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0455827295374 0.0701772020484 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.100841459775 0.128457276422 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0461235199714 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.8 14.3799401198 131% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 32.57 48.3550499002 67% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.2 12.197005988 133% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.4 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.69 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.0 11.1389221557 126% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.