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 conclusion made by the planning department suggests the power company should not build new generating plants as the existing number of plants generate sufficient energy to meet the demand requirements and in contrast might be more than what is actually needed. If examined superficially, conclusion looks persuasive but a deeper look provides us with the argument being flawed due to its dependence on several understated assumptions.
First of all, the author assumes that the energy requirement by each house will remain constant over the concerned period of time. Even if less energy consuming appliances are used, the evidence that the people will not use more number of appliances is missing. With rich people consuming more appliances and increasing population demanding more appliances, the energy demand may definitely surge. Hence, more energy generation will be needed and the conclusion made by planning department gets invalidated.
Again, the department assumes that no new appliance or innovation will take place in the future. It may be possible that a new appliance which consumes more energy comes into the picture and shockingly starts getting used in every house. The perpetual advancement in technology will always lead to such innovations turning up and hence it should not be concluded that in such unprecedented situations, the energy demands will not increase.
Lastly, the planning department states how the energy requirements in the last twenty years can be used as a model for he upcoming years. It may happen that there will be a sudden shift in the lifestyle of people that they will start using more appliances. Nevertheless, the planning department has also not mentioned whether the energy these plants generate is used only by the residential people. What if other small factories, industries and offices be using this energy. If their demand rises or they grow in population, energy demands will definitely increase and hence more plants will be needed.
The argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its assumptions on several unwarranted assumptions mentioned previously. If author is able to justify these assumptions, than the validity of conclusion can be assured
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 351 350
No. of Characters: 1840 1500
No. of Different Words: 179 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.328 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.242 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.833 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 81 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.938 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.768 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.59 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.096 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 116, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...will remain constant over the concerned period of time. Even if less energy consuming applianc...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 184, Rule ID: COMMA_THAN[1]
Message: Did you mean 'then'?
Suggestion: then
...r is able to justify these assumptions, than the validity of conclusion can be assur...
^^^^
Line 9, column 230, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...he validity of conclusion can be assured
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, hence, if, lastly, look, may, nevertheless, so, in contrast, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 30.0 55.5748502994 54% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1887.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 351.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.37606837607 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32839392791 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.90837006025 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.532763532764 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 592.2 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.4935340022 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.9375 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9375 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.3125 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.117679773284 0.218282227539 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0461409862898 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0292614369706 0.0701772020484 42% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0711005144228 0.128457276422 55% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0252045891701 0.0628817314937 40% => 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: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => 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: 13.92 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.64 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 88.0 98.500998004 89% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.