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.
In a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client, the author recommends investing in Consolidated Industries that one major business is the retail sale fo home heating oil. To justify this recommendation, the author assumes that oil consumption of residential market in the northeastern United States will increase significantly as the result of using oil is their major fuel for heating, more house built in this region and temperature in winters will decrease in several years, which may appear plausible at a cursory glance. With a streak of dubious and poor evidence and holes, however, the argument is ill-conceived. The reasons are stated as follows.
To begin with, the author assumes that the residents in the northeastern United States will continue enlarging to use fuel oil to heat their houses. Although it is possible, the author offers no evidence to corroborate this crucial assumption. The residents will likely choose alternative energy to get warm. An appropriate example is not very far to seek. For example, with green energy policy implementation, the civil of American ought to consider deploying renewable and green energy like Solar or bioenergy, etc. To fortify this assumption, the author should provide more reliable evidence and preclude these and other alternative scenarios. If the author can convince me that, this argument will be significantly strengthened. Otherwise, the trustworthiness of this argument is far-fetched.
Also, the author assumes that more houses build will cause more fuel oil consumption in the future. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that it is necessarily the case, the author does not supply any evidence to affirm this assumption. What is of the equal possibility that these buyers of the new-built house only spend time in these houses during summer because they only treat these houses as the places for a holiday. It means that these buyers never live in these houses during winter and never consume fuel oil for hearting. To illustrate this point clearly, let us have a look at this following representative example. For example, the winter climate in southeastern American, always so warm and comfortable that during the harsh weather these residents cline to the exodus and migrate to this area. To reach the cited conclusion, the author has to provide more cogent evidence. Otherwise, without accounting for and ruling out these and other alternative explanations, the author cannot bolster this recommendation.
Last but not least important, even the evidence turns out to support the aforementioned assumption, the author just simply relies on the assumption that the Consolidated Industries will benefit from this increasing demand for fuel oil, and none of any scientific evidence is provided to confirm this assumption. It is very reasonable to doubt that what the author assumes will not happen in reality. It is as possible that the oil quality of Consolidated Industries is not competitive as that of other companies and the price of oil from Consolidated Industries is much higher than others' so that the sales performance lag behind the expectation. For example, the other companies will conduct promotion for their premium fuel oil but the Consolidated Industries will not follow up. In such a case, customers prefer to order fuel oil from other companies. To get a more convincing recommendation, the author must explain either why none of these alternatives are available or none of them can sustain.
To sum up, this recommendation is not based on valid evidence or sound reasons, and none of which is dispensable for a certain argument. To draw a better conclusion, the author should reason persuasively, cite more compelling evidence, and take every possibility into account.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 27 15
No. of Words: 602 350
No. of Characters: 3108 1500
No. of Different Words: 279 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.953 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.163 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.912 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 231 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 159 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 115 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 87 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.296 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.352 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.481 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.281 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.453 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 752, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'residents'' or 'resident's'?
Suggestion: residents'; resident's
...ble that during the harsh weather these residents cline to the exodus and migrate to this...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 138, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... is dispensable for a certain argument. To draw a better conclusion, the author sh...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, look, may, nevertheless, so, then, as to, for example, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 49.0 28.8173652695 170% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3185.0 2260.96107784 141% => OK
No of words: 602.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.29069767442 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95335121839 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01904392453 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 293.0 204.123752495 144% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.486710963455 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 1010.7 705.55239521 143% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 20.0 8.76447105788 228% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 13.0 4.22255489022 308% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 72.3942842907 57.8364921388 125% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.75 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.67857142857 5.70786347227 64% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.225889260615 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0593422642057 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0765516687647 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139411897695 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.100779710067 0.0628817314937 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 145.0 98.500998004 147% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.