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."
The argument claims that, one should invest in consolidated industries to get profits as it's major business operations of this industries is retail sale of home heating oil. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The author have come to this conclusion based on the premise that, most homes in northeastern United States used oils as their major fuel for heating and further, there will be a huge demand for oil as the forecasters predicted that the temperature will be below normal temperatures in the coming days. This conclusion relies on assumptions, for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing and, has several flaws.
First of all, the author readily assumes that there will be huge demand for oil based on the past oil usage and climatic conditions. However, this might not be the case as the statement is a stretch and not substantiated in anyways. Perhaps people use electric methods for home heating instead of using oil as fuel for heating. Further, the oil might be in a declined state due to excessive usage and people tend to use other mode for home heating. If either of these has merit, then the conclusion drawn from original argument is significantly weakened.
second, the argument claims that increase in population growth will lead to more oil usage. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between population growth and oil usage. For instance, the population growth may lead to alternative source for heating instead of using oil. If the argument had provided evidence that growth in population requires more oil, then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader.
Finally, the argument assumes that retail sale of home heating oil profits solely helps the investors in Consolidated industries to gain profits. However, careful scrutiny of evidence reveals that it provides little credible support for the author's conclusion in several critical respects, and raises several skeptical questions. For example, What is the share of retail sale of oil in the industry? What are other possible operations in this industry?. Without convincing answers to these questions, the reader is left with the impression that claims made by author are more of a wishful thinking rather that substantive evidence. As a result, this conclusion has no legs to stand on.
In summary, the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. To bolster it further, the author must provide more concrete evidence, perhaps by way of a detailed analysis of consolidated industries profits. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 474 350
No. of Characters: 2368 1500
No. of Different Words: 221 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.666 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.996 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.724 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.861 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.542 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.495 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.059 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 123, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...its as its major business operations of this industries is retail sale of home heati...
^^^^
Line 3, column 153, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...climatic conditions. However, this might not be the case as the statement is a st...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Second
... argument is significantly weakened. second, the argument claims that increase in p...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 453, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... oil, then it would have been a lot more convincing to the reader. Finally, th...
^^
Line 7, column 242, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rovides little credible support for the authors conclusion in several critical respects...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
anyway, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, therefore, for example, for instance, in summary, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 57.0 55.5748502994 103% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2433.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13291139241 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80157417415 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.481012658228 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 764.1 705.55239521 108% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 53.0801117547 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.375 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.75 23.324526521 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.83333333333 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.246672284006 0.218282227539 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0686555897072 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0843169646645 0.0701772020484 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138603889461 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0786630236405 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.47 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.34 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.