The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice for a client.
"Most homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last heating season that region experienced 90 days with below-normal temperatures, and climate forecasters predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes are being built in the region in response to recent population growth. Because of these trends, we predict an increased demand for heating oil and recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil."
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.
The advice by the investing firm to the client to invest in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major operations would be to sell home heating oil, based on the fact that in northeastern United States people traditionally used oil as the major fuel in for heating disregards certain crucial assumptions.
Initially, it is said that people traditionally used oil to keep the homes warm. However, it is not mentioned that people still use only oil nowadays. They could be using other materials such as gas, wood, etc along with the oil. Just because it was traditional to use oil, doesn’t mean that they still do it or use it as much as they did before.
In addition, the author says that new homes are being built due to the influx of population in these regions. Here, the fact that the new homes may contain centrally heating systems or electrical radiators or use other material that may help keep the homes warm could be used. Had the author provided any information about the new homes being built in the same fashion as the old ones and the primary source of heating them would be a fuel, the claim would have been authenticated.
Furthermore, there argument has mentioned climatic variations below the normal temperature and is forecasted to for on for several years. Although, the temperature plummeted last year, there is no guarantee that this trend will continue. The predictions could go wrong and the temperature may be reinstated the following year. The impotency of the claim to guarantee a decreasing temperature in the following years renders it unsound.
Hence, the argument that the client should invest in Consolidated Industry with oil being its major selling commodity based on the predicted assumptions fails to make a cogent case in proving out its conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- better: the forecast didn't tell the above-normal temperatures. maybe it is over 90 days.
----------------
Need to argue against the conclusion always. For this topic it is:
Because of these trends, we predict an increased demand for heating oil and recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil.
----------------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 13 15
No. of Words: 302 350
No. of Characters: 1453 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.169 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.811 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.704 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 87 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 69 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 51 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.231 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.92 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.615 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.65 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
furthermore, hence, however, may, so, still, then, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 32.0 55.5748502994 58% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1504.0 2260.96107784 67% => OK
No of words: 301.0 441.139720559 68% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.99667774086 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.16525528304 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79641480512 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 204.123752495 82% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.554817275748 0.468620217663 118% => OK
syllable_count: 459.9 705.55239521 65% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 65.7297677378 57.8364921388 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.692307692 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.1538461538 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.46153846154 5.70786347227 96% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.275046841849 0.218282227539 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0886817455427 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0828346224099 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.148614247294 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.104574666309 0.0628817314937 166% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.02 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.13 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 64.0 98.500998004 65% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.