The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase — and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary."
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 memorandum from the planning committee has suggested that the demand for electricity in the area would decrease based on a survey which indicates homeowners to be energy conservative. Additionally, the arrival of energy efficient home appliances is also considered to be a factor in the decline. Based on these assumptions they have decided not to build additional power plants, believing that the existing plants would suffice their needs. I strongly believe that the argument made here is incredibly flawed for three reasons.
Firstly, the arrival of home appliances which are energy-efficient in the market does not imply that the homeowners would be willing to buy them, even if the survey is to be believed. These devices may be very expensive compared to the ones existing in their homes. Hence, it would strongly depend on the economic situation of homeowners, which would, in turn, depend on the economy of that area. Therefore, it is safe to say that the presence of energy-efficient home appliances in the market does not correspond to the fact that they will be bought just for conserving electricity. Hence arguing based on this assumption is bad.
Secondly, the demand for electricity might not plummet at all. Statistically speaking, the population of an area is bound to increase in most cases, which would automatically contribute to an increase in the number of homes and consequently resulting in expanding the boundaries of that area. Considering these circumstances, it might be safe to assume that the demand for electricity might rise, even if it is for the slightest. Therefore, one can say that the decision of not adding power plants to the existing arsenal is foolish. Additionally, since the plants have been working for more than twenty years, one can also say that technology on which the plants are based on might be outdated. If there is an actual hunt for energy conservation, it might actually be wise to construct new plants, just to save electricity in the long run. Thus, these pieces of evidence prove that the argument does not hold water.
To sum up the argument as it stands now, is considerably flawed, due to the carious unwarranted assumptions. However, the memorandum can be taken into consideration if the company addresses the assumptions that contribute to the argument, by giving sufficient pieces of evidence to solidify it.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 390 350
No. of Characters: 1943 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.444 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.982 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.932 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 131 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 56 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.853 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.833 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.5 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.056 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 586, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Hence,
...bought just for conserving electricity. Hence arguing based on this assumption is bad...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, consequently, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, thus, in most cases, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 1.0 11.1786427146 9% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2003.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 390.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1358974359 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.44391917772 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01443491935 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.487179487179 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 633.6 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.446348278 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.277777778 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6666666667 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.72222222222 5.70786347227 135% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.128293918364 0.218282227539 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.040400799968 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0429498132134 0.0701772020484 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0775862461414 0.128457276422 60% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0288032644998 0.0628817314937 46% => 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: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => 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: 12.53 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.