The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper in Masontown:
“If we want to save money on municipal garbage disposal fees, we need to encourage our residents to recycle more. Late last year, our neighboring town, Hayesworth, passed a law requiring that all households recycle paper and glass, or pay a fine. Since that time, Hayesworth has seen its garbage disposal costs significantly decrease. If we implemented an advertising campaign encouraging our residents to recycle, Masontown would also save money on disposal of its waste.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered 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 of the letter presents a case for encouraging the residents of Masontown to recycle enough through an advertising campaign. The argument is not cogent enough and is full of holes. There are many questions that need to be answered before coming to any sort of conclusion.
Citing the municipal garbage disposal fees as the main reason for encouraging the residents of Masontown, the author assumes that majority of the garbage contains products which can be recycled. That is, there is an appreciable amount of recyclable garbage for the town to reduce its municipal costs. No evidence or support is provided for this. So, what is the proportion of garbage that is recyclable in this town? To know this a survey has to be conducted to assess the reality of the situation in Masontown. It might be the case that there is not enough amount of recyclable garbage and the system or recommendation will fail to work if it is the case.
Additionally, the author assumes that the type of garbage present in Haynesworth is similar to Masontown for the recommendation to work. Is the garbage in Masontown similar to that of in Haynesworth? It sure can be the case that Masontown produces a different type of recyclable waste such as metals. The recommendation may not work here because even though the people of Masontown recycle their product, it will not have any effect on the municipal garbage disposal fees as the metals were never part of the garbage in first place. Maybe people were selling the metal to some shops that used to recycle them before and will continue to do the same afterwards too. This makes the recommendation unwarranted.
Building upon that, the author clearly misses a huge point or he simply assumes that there will be a system in place for recycling the waste. How will the residents recycle the waste products? Is there any system already in place for that? If not how much will it cost to build such a system? Recycling the waste is not a simple process, it requires a certain system that ensures that the garbage is collected on time and delivered to the factory or any similar place. To develop or maintain such a system there are many costs involved. Like paying the person who collects the recyclable waste from house to house. These must be taken into account before going for the advertising campaign.
Lastly, the author implies that the residents of Masontown will be motivated enough to recycle the garbage just by the advertising campaign. The same might have worked in Haynesworth but that does not mean it will work here. The reason it might have worked in Haynesworth might be due to the law that was imposed on its residents rather than their moral consciousness propelling the people to do so. So, does an advertising campaign suffice in motivating the people of the town to recycle?
In conclusion, after a thorough analysis, considering many of the possible factors, the argument presented by the author is not persuasive enough to warrant an advertising campaign.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not OK
argument 4 -- OK
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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: 28 15
No. of Words: 516 350
No. of Characters: 2454 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.766 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.756 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.682 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.429 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.449 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.393 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.273 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.49 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, if, lastly, may, so, as to, in conclusion, sort of, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2514.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 516.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87209302326 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76609204519 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73849484301 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 216.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.418604651163 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 801.9 705.55239521 114% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 50.8881827427 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.7857142857 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.4285714286 23.324526521 79% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.53571428571 5.70786347227 44% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => 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: 14.0 4.67664670659 299% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.138611777167 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0451583597607 0.0743258471296 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0450320246447 0.0701772020484 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0788002379231 0.128457276422 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0494127540024 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.7 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.97 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.19 8.32208582834 86% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => 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
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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.