The following appeared as a letter to the editor of National Issues magazine in the country
of Ganadia.
Last month, National Issues ran an article about the decline—as measured by shrinking
populations and the flight of young people—of small towns in Ganadia. Here in
Lemmontown, a small resort town on the ocean, we are seeing just the opposite:
citizens from the neighboring towns of Armontown and Gurdy City are moving here at a
record rate. Furthermore, greater than ever numbers of high school graduates in
Lemmontown are choosing to stay in Lemmontown, as the building of new hotels has
created a significant number of jobs. All along the eastern seaboard are similar stories.
Small towns in Ganadia are not in decline.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival
the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the
facts presented in the argument.
In the letter, it has been concluded that, opposite to the printed article in the magazine, small towns in Ganadia are not experiencing decline in population because Lemmontown's highschool graduates are hired in the hotels being built in the resort town and even some citizens from nearby areas are immigrating into the town. It is stated that this condition is shared with other towns in eastern seabord as well. However, the evidence presented is not enough to make such a conclusion as there might be some other explanations, as it follows:
First, not every small town in the country is a resort or located near the sea. For example, maybe most small towns in the country are located far from the sea or any natural tourist attraction and hence, people in those towns make a living by farming. Also, some small towns might be located in areas with bad weather. In any of these conditions, the argument is extremely weakened.
Further, even if most towns in the country are located near the sea, they might be not this popular. For instance, some of these towns might be still unknown to public and therefore, not attracting many people. Furthermore, residents of a particular town may be against building hotels and transforming their tranquil small town to a famous resort. If any of these hypothesises are right, the argument is not robust enough.
Last, even if most small towns of the country are located near the sea, and they all have perfect conditions to be resorts, what if it is not possible to build new hotels in those towns. As an example, most of these towns might lack finances to build new hotels. Also, they might be already filled with hotels and torurist facilities. If these instances are proven to be real, such a general conclusion cannot be drawn about small towns.
In short, the current argument is extremely flawed because it lacks evidence about ratio of small towns near the sea, tourism popularity of those towns and feasibility of building new hotels in them. Such evidences will help elliminate some the presented alternative explanations and therefore make a better evaluation of the argument, possible.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 17 15
No. of Words: 363 350
No. of Characters: 1732 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.365 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.771 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.516 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 114 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 88 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.353 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.792 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.824 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.364 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In the letter, it has been concluded tha...
^^^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...me other explanations, as it follows: First, not every small town in the count...
^^
Line 3, column 118, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...sea. For example, maybe most small towns in the country are located far from the ...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
..., the argument is extremely weakened. Further, even if most towns in the count...
^^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...t, the argument is not robust enough. Last, even if most small towns of the co...
^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...on cannot be drawn about small towns. In short, the current argument is extrem...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, furthermore, hence, however, if, may, so, still, therefore, well, even so, for example, for instance, in short
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 2.0 13.6137724551 15% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1788.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 363.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92561983471 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.3649236973 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59217964374 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 204.123752495 84% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.473829201102 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 557.1 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.3759853534 57.8364921388 120% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.75 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6875 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.6875 5.70786347227 135% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.121161663739 0.218282227539 56% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.045254407983 0.0743258471296 61% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0368439511779 0.0701772020484 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.079070151087 0.128457276422 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0200060471093 0.0628817314937 32% => 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: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.61 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.25 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => 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.