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.
According to the local Mason town newspaper, recycling will save the town money in municipal garbage disposal fees. While this argument may seem logical at first glance, there are many unstated assumptions and ill-defined terms that ultimately render this argument unreasonable. Before a campaign encouraging residents to recycle can be initiated, further research and refinement of details of the original argument must be made, then re-evaluation can ensue.
The argument, first, suggests that Masontown needs to save money on municipal garbage disposal fees. No where in the argument does it specifically state that Masontown has high garbage disposal fees or that these garbage disposal are a problem for the town. Does the garbage disposal fees really warrant a change in policy? In order to answer this question, empirical data must be collected. Data that would demonstrate the current cost of garbage disposal, its perception of it from the community, and its cost relative to other community fees (education, public space, etc.) would be necessary to answer this question. If, in fact, the fees are high, the community also believe its too high, and that it costs as much or more than other community fees, then and only then can the garbage disposal fee be considered an issue that needs to be addressed with policy change.
The argument also states that the neighboring town, Hayesowrth, passed a law and saw significant decrease in garbage disposal costs. The argument used this data as reasoning for policy change in garbage disposal in Masontown. While empirical data is important, the data must be very detailed so as not to fall for the common statistical error of 'correlation is causation'. The argument claims that the law directly affected the disposal costs, but there is the possibility that the decrease in disposal costs could be due to many other community factors such as the community, in general, having less waste than before. Research data such as this needs to be directly related to the situation at hand before it can be used as evidence to back the argument. If Hayesworth produced data that confirms that the decrease in disposal costs were directly due to the passing of the law, then this data can be considered relevant and useful in the Masontown argument. Once this research is more defined, it can then be used to evaluate the argument.
Lastly, the argument assumes that advertising recycling will lead to money savings on waste disposal. However, it is incorrect to assume this correlation because people are erratic in behavior, and the power of advertisement is being overestimated. Just because, the town advertises recycling doesn't mean the towns people will recycle. In fact, if Masontown invests money into recycling advertisement, and the towns people do not recycle, Masontown will actually lose money. Therefore, this specific recommendation should not be followed and should be replaced with a recycling campaign that can better persuade residents to participate in recycling.
With all these unstated assumptions and lack of detailed data, the recommendation made in the local Masontown newspaper should not be implemented until more research is done.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 101, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: Now
...ney on municipal garbage disposal fees. No where in the argument does it specifica...
^^
Line 2, column 207, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this garbage' or 'these garbages'?
Suggestion: this garbage; these garbages
... has high garbage disposal fees or that these garbage disposal are a problem for the town. Do...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 293, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... because, the town advertises recycling doesnt mean the towns people will recycle. In ...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, lastly, may, really, so, then, therefore, while, in fact, in general, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2692.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 514.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2373540856 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.76146701107 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8072709768 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455252918288 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 861.3 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Interrogative: 0.0 0.471057884232 0% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.8730216107 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.043478261 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.347826087 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.13043478261 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.191525849514 0.218282227539 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0738926859626 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0754115019814 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119058351407 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0294752682685 0.0628817314937 47% => 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: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.41 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.23 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.