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.
It is argued in the given memorandum that there is no need to construct an extra electric generating plant on the basis of several conditions and assumptions. One of the many reasons in support for the argument is that more home owners, manufacturers, and newly emerging technologies resonate to the need for conserving energy than before. However, the assumptions lack significant details, leaving uncertainty in properly evaluating the argument. The following are the assumptions and alternative explanations in terms of illuminating the validity of the statement.
Firstly, although the author provides several recent surveys in order to convince the readers that home owners are likely to conserve more energy than before, it is improper to apply the results to the region that may not be directly connected to the respondents of the survey. If the targeted interviewees are not identical to the region that is now being investigated, then the result may lose its validity. Furthermore, even if the home owners in the town have actually responded as provided in the article, it may be possible that the actual residents of the town are mostly tenants who are there for rental. That is, if the residents are not willing to conserve energy as the home owners did, then the rate of energy usage is unlikely to decrease.
Secondly, although it is said that manufacturers are marketing many more energy efficient home appliances than before and new technologies are available in the market, the author has to ascertain whether the marketing resulted in actual purchase. If the facilities introduced are costly and inefficient in other terms, then the customers are not likely to purchase the products. Thus, the author should clarify the connection between marketing efforts to the actual amount of sales by providing additional evidence that stands as a fact.
Thirdly, even though the author contends that the total demand for electricity will not increase or may even slightly decrease, it is unclear whether it shall be realized as projected. For example, even if the residents in the area will try to use less energy by purchasing energy efficient home appliances, if there is a significant rise in population in the given area due to external factors, then the amount of energy usage will possibly rise instead of fall. Thus, the author has to make sure if there are no other factors affiliated to the circumstance which may give potential influence to the amount of energy usage.
Finally, albeit every assumption provided above being true, there still needs to be further evidence in terms of investigating the sustainability of the established generating plants. Since it is, in the memorandum, stated that the plants had been operated more than 20 years by now, the life expectancy of the facilities might be doomed to finish in the near future. If this holds water, then an additional construction becomes necessary despite the fact that the previous generating plants had met our needs. Therefore, the author ought to verify whether the plants will be able to operate in the coming future as well.
The conclusion now stands that the argument stated in the memorandum contains several fallacies that might result in misleading effects. In order to evaluate the assumptions provided, the author should reconsider and supplement the aforementioned factors that are regarded as invalid.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 550 350
No. of Characters: 2791 1500
No. of Different Words: 246 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.843 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.075 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.812 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 216 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 76 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.069 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.307 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.307 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.061 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, as to, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2852.0 2260.96107784 126% => OK
No of words: 550.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.18545454545 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87790097981 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.474545454545 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 925.2 705.55239521 131% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 11.0 2.70958083832 406% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.8031761261 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 142.6 119.503703932 119% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.5 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.9 5.70786347227 138% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.208655166329 0.218282227539 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0580324113352 0.0743258471296 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0590967206288 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102260457966 0.128457276422 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0523199371935 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.31 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 151.0 98.500998004 153% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.