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.
Although the recycling campaign suggested in the letter might result in Mason town saving its money on waste disposal, the arguments provided in the letter for undertaking such a campaign are speculative at best. The letter needs to provide answers to many pertinent questions before a conclusion can be made about the effectiveness of the recommended advertising campaign.
Firstly, we need to know the exact garbage composition of both Mason town and Hayes worth before we can conclude that the policy taken in Hayes worth will be effective in Mason town as well. If the composition of the garbage materials are quite similar, then it is plausible that the recycling will reduce the disposal cost of waste. As we know, not all waste materials can be recycled. If the garbage materials of Mason town do not contain much recyclable waste like Hayes worth such as paper and glass, then undertaking a recycling campaign will only be a sheer waste of time and resources.
Secondly, what was the biggest contributing factor in the significant reduction of waste disposal costs of Hayes-worth? This question is a very valid one and needs to be carefully and meticulously considered. May be the amount of garbage generated was less due to some other reasons such as the decrease of population or an economic crisis. The disposal cost may have only decreased due to this very plausible reason. In order to know for sure the reasons behind the decrease in disposal costs, a study needs to be conducted on the total amount of waste generated.
Another important question that arises is whether Mason town is willing to fine its citizens if they do not comply with the recycling policy. Since, it is quite possible that the Hayes worth residents only recycled their garbage in the fear of lofty fines, we need to understand whether the residents of Mason town will simply start recycling their waste because of a uncompelling advertising campaign.
The letter also fails to address the costs of recycling. If the costs of recycling is higher than the disposal costs, then it would be foolish to implement a recycling policy. In order to know whether the recycling of waste would bring any economic benefit to Mason town, we need to first conduct extensive studies. If indeed it is found that the recycling cost is significantly lower than the disposal expenses, then it would be logical to implement the advertising campaign.
In conclusion, we can state that in order to decide whether the proposed advertising campaign will bring the desired results we need to know the answers to some crucial questions.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 10 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 436 350
No. of Characters: 2125 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.57 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.874 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.664 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 117 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 87 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.222 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.785 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.622 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.151 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 594, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...be a sheer waste of time and resources. Secondly, what was the biggest contribut...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 214, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[8]
Message: The proper name in singular (May) must be used with a third-person verb: 'is'.
Suggestion: is
...efully and meticulously considered. May be the amount of garbage generated was les...
^^
Line 7, column 367, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... start recycling their waste because of a uncompelling advertising campaign. T...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, well, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => 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: 2176.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 436.0 441.139720559 99% => OK
Chars per words: 4.99082568807 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56953094068 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.72967001529 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 189.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.433486238532 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 679.5 705.55239521 96% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.2895653743 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.888888889 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.2222222222 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11111111111 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.181697109727 0.218282227539 83% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0662799190934 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0379298098306 0.0701772020484 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107029160337 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0288516955737 0.0628817314937 46% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.96 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.94 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 86.0 98.500998004 87% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.