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 investment firms suggests its client to invest in Consolidated Industries, whose one of the major business is retail sale of home heating oil. This suggestion was made with the premise that sale and demand of home heating oil is predicted to rise in the northeastern area of United States pertaining to expected drop in temperatures in the coming years and population growth. Therefore, an investment in the aforementioned should yield great profits to the addressed client. However, there are three unstated assumptions that need to be analysed, before we can corroborate or deny the mentioned investment suggestion.
According to the firm, new homes are being built on the area as a response to population growth. But will the new homes rely on the same level of technology as old (already existing) houses? It may happen that the contractors in charge of building the homes have upgraded the technology and, instead of relying on fuel for heating, the new homes have built-in centrally heating system or an electric heater. Additionally, it is plausible that habitants have lived there for generations. And they might not have adjusted to new technologies. However, people who plan to move there might be open to new technological advances and thus use better heating systems (that do not use heating oil). If the listed situations have merit, then the conclusion draw by the firm based on the evidence is flawed.
Moreover, the firm lists population growth as one of the reasons for investment in heating oil. Even if we assume that the newly built homes will rely on oil based heating, do we know if the habitants of the place won’t relinquish their homes in the Northeastern United States following the harsh (below-normal) weather conditions? That is, will the population grow with the same trend in the next year and beyond? It may so happen that in one year people reside in the newly built homes. Since forecasters have predicted further drops in temperature, it is reasonable to expect that oil based heating might not be sufficient to provide the residents the required heat. Hence, majority of the population might move out and abandon their homes. It implies that the demand of heating fuel will decrease thereby posing a high risk to the said investor. If we do not get data for this unstated assumption, or the mentioned situations arise, then the conclusion is fallacious.
Even if the above two arguments reason with the stated conclusion, can we argue that Consolidated Industries, having other businesses too will not change its focus on the home heating oil? In other words, can we expect instead of focussing on its other business operations, Consolidated Industries will keep on retailing home heating oil. There might be a situation where the said industry is supplying oil to not just Northeastern United States but other cold regions too. If the demand of oil abates in the other regions (where we expect that the industry serves), it may shut down its operations pertinent to oil retailing. It may use that investment (in heating oil) for its other, perhaps more lucrative branches (business operations). If such cases are corroborated with evidence, then the conclusion drawn on the assumptions is specious.
In culmination, the argument presented by the firm is inadequate. There is a need of a data collection experiment or robust predictive mechanisms which can account for the listed unstated assumptions. Only when the firm can offer evidence for the three questions using some techniques, we can further evaluate the firm’s recommendation to the client regarding investment in Consolidated Industries for home heating oil.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 9 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 601 350
No. of Characters: 2993 1500
No. of Different Words: 260 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.951 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.98 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.795 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 203 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 156 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 90 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.464 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.304 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.643 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.288 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.478 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.135 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 20, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'lists'' or 'list's'?
Suggestion: lists'; list's
...idence is flawed. Moreover, the firm lists population growth as one of the reasons...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, hence, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, then, therefore, thus, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3065.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 600.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10833333333 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94923200384 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87894608417 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 270.0 204.123752495 132% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.45 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 954.0 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 8.0 2.70958083832 295% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.1636405296 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.464285714 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4285714286 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.28571428571 5.70786347227 58% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.346888851034 0.218282227539 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0938468156607 0.0743258471296 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0687309308737 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.206617345289 0.128457276422 161% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0165073645275 0.0628817314937 26% => 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: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.36 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.18 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 133.0 98.500998004 135% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.