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.
While it might be true that home owners are interested to conserve energy; however, the author's argument does not make a cogent sense. It is easy to understand that more efficient home appliances and new home insulation technologies are available, but this argument is rife with holes and assumptions, therefor not strong enough to guarantee energy conservation by home owners.
The author indicates that recent surveys shows that home owners wants to save more energy; however, the author does not provide any further information about surveys' sample group and type of questions. For example, it could be just few yes and no questions from small sample group which does not bring valuable results. Moreover, there is no guarantee if sample groups are going to conserve energy or not. To strengthen his or her argument, the author needs investigation about all home owners eager to conserve energy and their energy consuming amount.
Additionally, the author mentions that better home insulation technologies and more efficient home appliances are available, but the author does not talk about the price which is an important factor. If those home energy consuming devices such as refrigerators and air conditioners are expensive, residents are not going to buy them. As a result, there will be no energy conservation by using same old home electric devices. Moreover, there is no guarantee that home owners are interested to have better home insulation and passive solar heating.
The author implies that construction of new generating plants is not necessary because energy demand will decrease based on past assumptions and also because there are already three twenty years old electric generating. However, the author does not mention about total population change during past twenty years that is essential to know. Imagine there are more people living in same houses compared to past, so electric energy will increase. Moreover, one or two of the old generating might need to be replaced which will cost money.
This suggestion is persuasive when the author gathers information about population change, home electric instruments' prices, and survey details. After answering these questions, the author can make such a conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 353 350
No. of Characters: 1843 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.335 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.221 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.636 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 141 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 92 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.062 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.058 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.812 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.381 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.381 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 89, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...rested to conserve energy; however, the authors argument does not make a cogent sense. ...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 232, Rule ID: MANY_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun yes seems to be countable; consider using: 'few yeses', 'few yesses'.
Suggestion: few yeses; few yesses
...uestions. For example, it could be just few yes and no questions from small sample grou...
^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 554, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ergy and their energy consuming amount. Additionally, the author mentions that b...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, moreover, so, then, while, for example, such as, 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: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 55.5748502994 56% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1886.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 353.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.34277620397 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33454660006 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7237426319 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.515580736544 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 602.1 705.55239521 85% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => 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: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.6159862721 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.875 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0625 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.25 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.243202174955 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0883550606202 0.0743258471296 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0618813754198 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143815091291 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0687346785024 0.0628817314937 109% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.69 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.