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 author believes that construction of new generating plants are not necessary. He has come to this conclusion because he believes there will be an overall decrease in total demand of electricity. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, there are three unwarranted assumptions that must be brought to light.
First, the author assumes that the survey responses are honest and accurate. It is possible that some home owners are not actually concerned with conserving energy, but felt compelled to provide a noble response. Perhaps some surveyors did not actually pay attention to the question and were simply filling in random responses. If any of the above are true, then most home owners are not interested in conserving energy, therefore it would be unlikely that they would invest in energy efficient appliances or solar heating. Consequently, the authors argument would not hold water.
Secondly, the author assumes that home owners will purchase energy efficient appliances and new solar heating technology. Perhaps these appliances cost well over a thousand dollars more than the appliances that consume twice as much energy. It is also possible that some home owners do not need to replace their home heating system, and therefore would rather not waste additional money on installing passive solar heating. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the authors argument would be significantly weakened.
Lastly, the author assumes that, even with energy saving appliances and passive solar heating, that the total demand for energy will decrease. Nonetheless, is it possible that those who invested in these energy saving technologies are now leaving their heater and applieances on for longer durations than they did before. If this case is true, then they may be using equally as much energy as they did before. As a result, weakening the authors argument
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to provide evidence to back up the assumptions made in his original argument, then his recommendation to cease the construction of new generating plants may be reasonable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 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: 351 350
No. of Characters: 1823 1500
No. of Different Words: 173 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.328 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.194 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.741 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.328 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.889 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.542 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 543, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...ces or solar heating. Consequently, the authors argument would not hold water. Secon...
^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 474, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... of these scenarios has merit, then the authors argument would be significantly weakene...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 199, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'this energy' or 'these energies'?
Suggestion: this energy; these energies
... it possible that those who invested in these energy saving technologies are now leaving the...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 368, Rule ID: EQUALLY_AS[1]
Message: Don't say 'equally as'. You can use either 'equally' or 'as' on its own. When comparing two nouns, use 'just as'.
Suggestion: equally; as; just as
...is case is true, then they may be using equally as much energy as they did before. As a re...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 454, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...a result, weakening the authors argument In conclusion, the argument as it stands...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, consequently, first, however, if, lastly, may, nonetheless, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, well, in conclusion, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 32.0 55.5748502994 58% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1877.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 351.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34757834758 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32839392791 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83304934986 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 180.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.512820512821 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 596.7 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.6406608578 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.411764706 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6470588235 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.94117647059 5.70786347227 157% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.13524273891 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0445029785297 0.0743258471296 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0462129488217 0.0701772020484 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0733432400003 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0488075934682 0.0628817314937 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.