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 the letter, the editor recommends that Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine for there are several disadvantages, such as injuries, less studying time, and so on.
The editor assumes that 40,000 of young players suffered injuries is a large amount, but he doesn’t provide readers what the total number of children under nine participating in youth-league sport is. It’s likely that there are 1,000,000 people taking part in the athletic activities, and the injure rate is only 2.5 percent, which looks like those activities are safe.
The editor also assumes that the sample in several major cities is equivalent to Parkville. However, we’re not sure how many teams in the league in Parkville, and it’s possible that the amount is lower than those in big cities. Consequently, to children participating in the athletic activity, they don’t feel any psychological pressure when exercising. What’s more, having some pressure isn’t necessary bad for children for sometimes pressure can motivate them to perform better during the competition than the usual practice. On the other hand, he only points out students playing soccer have the pressure. How about other students joining other categories except for soccer? It’s possible that not all the sporting activity is competitive.
The editor quotes education experts’ data that long practice sessions for these sports take away time that could be used for academic activities. Even though the athletic activities indeed deprive students of studying time, there’s no concrete evidence showing that these students perform worse than other students only concentrating on academic. In addition, the editor doesn’t provide readers with the individual health conditions of two groups of students. It’s likely that those students working on studying suffer from obesity.
To sum up, before considering the disadvantages outweigh any advantages, he needs to give more information to ensure that this decision is made by careful analysis.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
----------------
also need to argue:
Since the disadvantages outweigh any advantages, we in Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine.
---------------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 317 350
No. of Characters: 1674 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.22 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.281 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.689 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.133 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.676 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.328 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.57 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 300, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...ng part in the athletic activities, and the injure rate is only 2.5 percent, which looks l...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, however, look, so, except for, in addition, such as, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1789.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 312.0 441.139720559 71% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.73397435897 5.12650576532 112% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20279927342 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90462964186 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 196.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.628205128205 0.468620217663 134% => OK
syllable_count: 559.8 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.2564976451 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.266666667 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.06666666667 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.214690885695 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0667525716049 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0610561234218 0.0701772020484 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.116926151023 0.128457276422 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0601318558487 0.0628817314937 96% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.0 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.26 48.3550499002 71% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.5 12.197005988 111% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.95 12.5979740519 127% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.08 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 Out of 6
---------------------
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.