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 argues that if residents of Masontown want to reduce garbage disposal fees they have to start recycling more and to implement an advertising campaign to encourage the residents to recycle more. However, the conclusion seems unconvincing because the are standing on some questionable assumptions.
First of all, the author compares Masontown to Hayesworth where the cost of garbage disposal decreased after there was a fine imposed if all households did not recycle paper and glass. However, there is a problem because the assumes that Masontown will show the same result just by implementing advertising campaign. This is a problem because Hayesworth was able to reduce their disposal fees because there might be a chance that fines were too high and they were forced to recycle and on the other hand in Masontown there is no mention of a fine so the residents of masontown would not be encouraged enough to recycle just by the advertising campaign.
Adding to it, recycling also has a cost involved. Such as throwing recyclable waste in a separate dustbin so that they could be taken to the recycling plant. This would have a considerable amount of cost associated to it because the government will have to provide seperate dustbins throughout the town which would reflect on the taxes paid. Apart from that setting up a recycle plant is a huge investment and involves a high maintainance cost aswell. Although, there might a reduction in the garbage disposal fees but there will be a rise in the cost of recycling fees.
Furthermore, garbage disposal fees which goes to the municipal might be one of the major source of income which the municipal recieves which helps them to maintain the standards of the town to keep it clean and upto the mark for betterment of the residents. If there is a cost reduction in that area then there is a chance that the municipal might not be able provide the services which it already does.
In conclusion, the argument which the author makes completely fails because he makes assumptions which have no evidence to support them. However, had the author provided some evidence to support the assumptions then his argument would have made much more sense.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 371 350
No. of Characters: 1804 1500
No. of Different Words: 166 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.389 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.863 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.675 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.944 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.929 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.629 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 257, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...e conclusion seems unconvincing because the are standing on some questionable assumptio...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 259, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...e mark for betterment of the residents. If there is a cost reduction in that area ...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, so, then, well, apart from, in conclusion, such as, first of all, on the other hand
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 : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1842.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 371.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.96495956873 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.38877662729 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71798103365 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.463611859838 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 580.5 705.55239521 82% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
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: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 70.0800198607 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.571428571 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.07142857143 5.70786347227 159% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.169441143534 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0621460086419 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.065772827504 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.103191224489 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.064701725065 0.0628817314937 103% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.91 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 70.0 98.500998004 71% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.