The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice for a client.
“Most home 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 or 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 author recommends to invest in Consolidated Industries to the client. To support this argument, the advisor claims that several more years with colder temperature than usual will continue and increased residents in the northeastern United States will require more resources. Although this argument may seem plausible at first, the assumptions lead readers to doubt the validity of the argument.
To begin with, the validity about expert opinion is open to doubt. The author uses personal opinions of several climate forecasters to bolster the argument without stating the professional information about the forecasters. To confirm their expertise and representativeness, further details such as their affiliations, educational background, and antecedents. Also, the number of climate forecasters who espoused this idea must be revealed to argue that this opinion is supported by the majority of the specialists.
Second, to be able to calculate the actual gain, the exact number of stated evidences has to be presented. The investor needs to corroborate that he or she will make more profit by investing on consolidated industries than by depositing money to a bank. The first important number to be mentioned is the number of years predicted to be colder than the average. In addition, the number of new homes built in the region has to be confirmed to determine the raise in needs of heating oil.
Finally, the main energy source for heating might change in several years. Many countries including the United States are trying to consume less oil to achieve sustainable development goals of the United Nations by 2030. Thus, more sustainable energy such as solar energy and biofuel energy could replace the heating oil in a foreseeable future.
In conclusion, to advocate the argument to invest in consolidated industries, the author needs to strengthen the validity of the evidences. The details of climate experts and predicted numbers presented have to be demonstrated. Moreover, the growth potential of heating oil industry in the future which might be a risk need to be compared.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 331 350
No. of Characters: 1724 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.265 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.208 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.912 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 139 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 72 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.471 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.203 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.306 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.571 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 13, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'recommends investing'.
Suggestion: recommends investing
The author recommends to invest in Consolidated Industries to the clien...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, may, moreover, second, so, then, thus, as to, in addition, in conclusion, such as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1772.0 2260.96107784 78% => OK
No of words: 331.0 441.139720559 75% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.35347432024 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.26537283232 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00763442936 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.537764350453 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 558.0 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.5109179856 57.8364921388 60% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 104.235294118 119.503703932 87% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4705882353 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.94117647059 5.70786347227 122% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.141849373716 0.218282227539 65% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0458393420955 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0351016188514 0.0701772020484 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.075704490221 0.128457276422 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0310880683173 0.0628817314937 49% => 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: 13.5 14.3799401198 94% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.35 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.