The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of a company that specializes in the delivery of heating oil."Most homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as

The conclusion said in the argument that "we can safely predict that northeastern United States will experience an increased demand for heating oil during the next five years" seems at the first look to be reasonable, due to the given facts that this region has suffered an extremely cold winter and there are many new homes being built in the region. However, if considered carefully, the argument is flawed with some key evidences as follows.

First, we do not know that if most homes in the northeastern U.S. are still continuing use oil as their major fuel in the recent years. The author only said in the argument that homes there have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating, but the situation may have changed during the past years. For example, this region may have a lack of oil and residents there may find using oil as major fuel is too expensive, so they might have begun to use other kind of fuels, like coals and woods, or they may even use electricity as heating power. In these cases, even if they will continue to experience typically cold winters in the next five years, it is unwarranted to say that there would be an increased demand for heating oil.

Second, the author does not give any specific data about the actual temperature in the northeastern U.S. We only know that winters there are typically cold and the region had experienced 90 days with below-normal temperatures. But how typically, and what are the normal temperatures there? Without specific evidence about these, it is entirely possible that the normal temperatures are not so cold as the author wants us to imagine, especially in the days when global warming is becoming more and more severe. So the 90 days with below-normal temperatures does not mean anything, we cannot even be sure that people there really need so much heating oil to survive the winter. Maybe the weather there is just fine, and in the day there is enough sunshine, which could make people warm without having to use heating all day. We just do not know, yet we cannot say that an argument that lacked such evidence is convincing.

Third, the new homes that are being built in the region do not necessarily have any connection with the prediction that this region will experience an increased demand for heating oil. The author did not say clearly whether the growth in population is a nation-wide phenomenon or a thing happened exactly in the northeastern U.S., so it remains uncertain whether population there is in actual increase. Granted that population in the region is on the increase, there still remains a problem that not all the people are going to spend their winter in the region. The growing population may because of the region's comfortable climate in summer, and many people may choose to move into here in summer, just for a vacation, and move out to elsewhere when winter comes. So unless the author can provide some convincing evidence about whether the population is really growing in this region and if the growing population is to stay here in winter, we cannot be sure whether there will be more people spending their winter there and using oil as their fuel for heating. Thus, the statement that there will be an increase in demand for heating oil in this region is open to doubt.

In conclusion, even if with facts that seems to increase the demand for heating oil in northeastern U.S., some other evidences as above-mentioned are necessary for better evaluating this argument.

Votes
Average: 8.4 (4 votes)
Essay Categories

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, look, may, really, second, so, still, third, thus, for example, in conclusion, kind of

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2900.0 2260.96107784 128% => OK
No of words: 601.0 441.139720559 136% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.82529118136 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95129289623 4.56307096286 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.58520008112 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 244.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.405990016639 0.468620217663 87% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 912.6 705.55239521 129% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 31.0 22.8473053892 136% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 70.3153167334 57.8364921388 122% => OK
Chars per sentence: 152.631578947 119.503703932 128% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.6315789474 23.324526521 136% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.84210526316 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.224953101673 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0789607898722 0.0743258471296 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0602837841722 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139025650753 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0660880648285 0.0628817314937 105% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.1 14.3799401198 119% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.47 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 12.197005988 116% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.33 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.78 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.5 12.3882235529 149% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.1389221557 129% => OK
text_standard: 19.0 11.9071856287 160% => 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.

argument 1 -- OK

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 603 350
No. of Characters: 2821 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.955 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.678 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.523 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 122 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.737 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.012 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.895 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.357 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.566 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.208 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5