The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper.
"Throughout the country last year, as more and more children below the age of nine participated in youth-league sports, over 40,000 of these young players suffered injuries. When interviewed for a recent study, youth-league soccer players in several major cities also reported psychological pressure exerted by coaches and parents to win games. Furthermore, education experts say that long practice sessions for these sports take away time that could be used for academic activities. Since the disadvantages outweigh any advantages, we in Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted
In a letter to the editor of the Parkville daily newspaper, it is mentioned that the Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children below nine years of age due to increase in number of injuries over 40,000; psychological pressure exerted by coaches and parents to win games in soccer and their unwillingness for academic activities due to long practice sessions. The author’s argument looks plausible in the initial look. However, if we look at the evidences given by the author to support argument, it does not look convincing. Therefore, a careful study and discussion reveal that the letter is groundless and has several flaws.
Firstly, the author talks about the participation of children in youth-league sports of last year but not before that to draw conclusion regarding discontinuation of athletic competition for children under nine. The author fails to provide any relevant data before last year regarding the number of injuries. The author has mentioned more and more children below nine years in youth-league sports but has failed to provide exact data of participation throughout the country. The author is claiming of injured young players over 40,000 but has not provided any germane information of the total participation in youth league sports. It may be 40,000 out of forty lakhs which is 4 percent. This data is so minimum to decide discontinue of organized athletic competition. Thus, the argument does not hold water.
Secondly, the author has mentioned the increasing reports of psychological pressure among children from coaches and parents to win games in youth league soccer. How about the reports of psychological pressure among players except than that of soccer? The argument does not provide any pertinent information of other sports. Similarly, the generalization is made on the reports of increasing psychological pressure by evaluating the data from several major cities but not from all. The author fails to describe the number of players who are actually facing the pressure from coaches and parents. It may be possible that the number of players who are facing the pressure are few and most of the parents do not care about the result. The parents are mostly in the field to support and motivate their children. Significantly, the argument fails to provide any evidences in support of the author’s conclusion.
Thirdly, the author includes the voice of education experts which supports the long practice session take away their time which can be used in academic activities. It may be possible that the number of players who are in the youth sports want to build their career in sport and therefore has given more emphasis in sport activities. The author fails to provide the duration of practice session that these players involved in sports activities and is few in comparison to the hours these players spend on social media and online gaming relentlessly. If it is true, then the decision of education experts is full of flaws.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is full of unwarranted assumptions. The author needs to provide more evidences in support of his positioning of banning athletic competition of children below nine years of age.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 522 350
No. of Characters: 2654 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.78 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.084 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.798 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 204 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 109 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.88 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.054 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.72 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.488 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 476, 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.
...f participation throughout the country. The author is claiming of injured young pla...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, regarding, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, in conclusion, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 93.0 55.5748502994 167% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2716.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 522.0 441.139720559 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2030651341 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77988695657 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87805523739 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 214.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.409961685824 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 834.3 705.55239521 118% => 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: 17.0 8.76447105788 194% => 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: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 70.8533810061 57.8364921388 123% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.64 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.88 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.52 5.70786347227 114% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.278010569881 0.218282227539 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0703124747599 0.0743258471296 95% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0935494387096 0.0701772020484 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.159317365178 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0867594779687 0.0628817314937 138% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.62 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.