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 letter sent to the editor says that in order to reduce the municipal garbage disposal costs, people should be encouraged to recycle more and more of their garbage. The argument uses the example of Hayestown, a neighboring town which has implemented the recycling methods, that was able to reduce the garbage disposal costs. The argument hence concludes that we should start advertisements that will create awareness and encourage people to start recycling and in turn reduce the municipal garbage disposal costs. There are several assumptions and factors that need to be evaluated before we can arrive at such a conclusion.
Firstly, the argument states that the new law passed in Hayestown which made it mandatory for households to recycle paper and glass, was the only reason that the costs decreased. There might have been other reasons why the costs decreased. The people of Hayestown might have started using more reusable products which in turn reduce the amount of garbage and waste produced. The population of Hayesworth might have been reduced and hence the garbage produced by the populace might have decreased. Thus, there might be several other reasons why the garbage disposal costs might have been reduced for Hayestown.
The decrease in costs is attributed to the garbage produced by the households. There might be industries operational in Masontown who might be generating garbage that is significantly greater than the garbage produced by households. Hayestown might not have such industries. Thus, even if the new recycling laws were implemented for households, it might not help decrease the garbage disposal costs because households produce only a smattering amount of the total garbage produced. The aim of reduced garbage costs might not be achieved in this case. The argument assumes that the advertising will result into people adopting the new recycling methods. The people in Hayestown might be using these methods because there are fines and not because they are motivated to do so. In this case it is important to know whether Masontown will also incorporate fines if citizens don't abide by the recycling law. If fines are the only reason people recycle waste, not having fines in Masontown may not produce the intended recycling of waste.
The argument does not talk about the requirements for the recycling of waste, what tools are required and how will the residents acquire them. The municipality in Hayestown might have provided it's people with tools to recycle garbage, which might have required huge initial investment. It will be important to know if Masontown already has these tools that they can provide to the residents or if they have the initial investment handy to acquire such tools and give it to the people.
In conclusion, the proposition to start advertisements to encourage people to start waste recycling does carry the right intentions to reduce the municipal garbage disposal costs. However, it does not delineate on all the essential factors required to deduce whether or not recycling garbage by households will indeed reduce the costs. The various factors involved need to be evaluated and the assumptions made should be justified for the plan to be a success.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 523 350
No. of Characters: 2659 1500
No. of Different Words: 186 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.782 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.084 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.616 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 191 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 158 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.792 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.946 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.458 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.537 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.161 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 329, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...e to reduce the garbage disposal costs. The argument hence concludes that we should...
^^^
Line 5, column 654, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ple adopting the new recycling methods. The people in Hayestown might be using thes...
^^^
Line 5, column 871, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...will also incorporate fines if citizens dont abide by the recycling law. If fines ar...
^^^^
Line 9, column 260, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...he essential factors required to deduce whether or not recycling garbage by households will in...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, so, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => 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: 2711.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 522.0 441.139720559 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.19348659004 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77988695657 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67138913876 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 199.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.38122605364 0.468620217663 81% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 855.0 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => 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: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.3561085389 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.958333333 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.75 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.125 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.169282230742 0.218282227539 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0585613476995 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0474517544906 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.109214977978 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0676024969482 0.0628817314937 108% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.82 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.52 8.32208582834 90% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.