The following appeared in a magazine article about planning for retirement.
"Clearview should be a top choice for anyone seeking a place to retire, because it has spectacular natural beauty and a consistent climate. Another advantage is that housing costs in Clearview have fallen significantly during the past year, and taxes remain lower than those in neighboring towns. Moreover, Clearview's mayor promises many new programs to improve schools, streets, and public services. And best of all, retirees in Clearview can also expect excellent health care as they grow older, since the number of physicians in the area is far greater than the national average."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author of the article argues that Clearview is a top choice for anyone seeking for a place to retire. To support his argument, the author cites housing costs, mayor’s promises and the excellent health care services offered, unconvincingly and makes several assumptions. In order to improve the persuasiveness of his argument, the author must offer evidence regarding the following three assumptions.
Firstly, the author assumes that housing costs having fallen significantly is a positive thing. Perhaps, the houses in Clearview are arcane and deteriorating as a result of non maintenance and thus the housing prices have fallen. It is also possible that the conditions of the environment surrounding Clearview is not healthy and thus most buyers do not prefer Clearview housing. Perhaps, there is a factory discharging harmful pollutants through air. If that is the case, the prospect of Cleaview as a retirement place does not hold water. It might add on to the expenses of the people desiring to retire when they cannot earn money anymore and thus would not prefer to renovate a deteriorating house. The author has to provide evidence that Clearview housing are in good condition for old people to move in without much hassles in terms of maintenance or renovation. It would also be helpful if conditions of the environment, such as air quality, are healthy enough for old people to live in.
Another one of the argument’s deficiencies is that the author assumes that the mayor of Clearview has funds to implement his promises. Perhaps, the mayor wants to improve the living conditions by building better schools or streets and public services but what guarantees that he has the funds to actually implement them. Maybe he has plans but has no intention to follow it through and just wants to embezzle the money funded for the project. Moreover, what attraction do schools have for old people. In most cases, old people have children who are married and do not have any parental obligations. Perhaps their grandchildren would visit them during their holidays but their grandchildren would not go to schools in a place where they retire. Maybe retired people would be happier with parks or public spaces for gatherings instead of schools. If that is the case, the mayor’s promises hold little attraction and the author has to provide more information about the details of the plans of the mayor such as how soon would the project be completed, what attractions do improvement in public services and streets hold for old retired people.
Finally, one of the most glaring deficiencies of the argument is that the author assumes that retirees in Clearview can expect excellent health care as they grow older, since the number of physicians in the area is far greater than the national average. It is possible that the number of physicians exceed the national average because most of the retired physicians live in Clearview. It is also possible that the national average of physicians is quite low and hence the number of physicians exceeding the national average is not a comprehensive number. If that is the case, the author should provide data about the national average of the physicians and what health care retirees can expect to better justify his claim.
In sum, the argument made by the author as it stands now is not convincing enough for a retiree to make a decision to move to Clearview. The author should provide further evidence perhaps, a survey or research data of the housing and environment conditions, the national average of physicians and the health care benefits and also about the plans of the mayor and his funding, to vindicate his argument that Clearview is a top choice to retire.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 619 350
No. of Characters: 3042 1500
No. of Different Words: 234 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.988 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.914 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.684 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 239 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 174 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.76 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.347 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.68 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.515 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.154 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 76, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'anyone' must be used with a third-person verb: 'seeks'.
Suggestion: seeks
...at Clearview is a top choice for anyone seeking for a place to retire. To support his a...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 818, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
...ition for old people to move in without much hassles in terms of maintenance or reno...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, firstly, hence, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, thus, as to, such as, as a result, in most cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3111.0 2260.96107784 138% => OK
No of words: 619.0 441.139720559 140% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.02584814216 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.98795655647 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76137681938 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 246.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.397415185784 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 951.3 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.5574636193 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.44 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.76 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.4 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.20758483034 195% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.230023744581 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0710707182949 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.073426230461 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.133537375557 0.128457276422 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0436333028564 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.19 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 112.0 98.500998004 114% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.