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.
To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.
The author concludes that the existing electric generation plants are sufficient to meet the demands of energy in the area, and, thus there is likely no need to construct an additional plant. The author bases this claim on the observations from recent surveys. The author has to provide more proof against the three unfounded assumptions stated below before we can evaluate the viability of this argument.
Firstly, the author assumes that the total energy consumed by the new appliances in a house will not rise significantly in comparison to previous decade. There can be multiple reasons which can escalate the energy usage. It is possible that though the new appliances are twice as energy efficient as compare to old one's, the total energy consume in a house have risen, because the number of appliances present in the house have multiplied over the last decade. Even if, the number of household appliance have remained constant, their consumption have risen significantly. It is also feasible that the appliances are falsely marketed as more energy efficient to appease the consumer. If either of the above possibilities holds true then author's contention fail to hold water.
Secondly, the author assumes that the residents will readily install the new home insulation and passive solar heating technologies. Perhaps, the people are refrained from benefitting from these technologies due to their high cost and limited availability. It is also probable that houses cannot rely on solar energy due to the restricted sunlight available to them. Either of the above case, is likely to hinder the credibility of the author's assumption.
Lastly, the author assumes that the demand for energy in their area will not surge and is likely to decline slightly. Maybe, the newly constructed manufacturing plants which are yet to start their operations, requires a significant amount of energy in coming months. It is also possible that the newly constructed societies will be ready for people to move in. Either of the above cases is likely to hinder the credibility of the author's assumption.
In conclusion, the planning might be right that there is no need to construct a new generating plant. However, as it stands now the conclusion stands on three assumptions that hinder its validity. The author needs to provide evidence for above mentioned assumptions to increase the persuasiveness of their argument
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 388 350
No. of Characters: 1984 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.438 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.113 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.765 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 150 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.996 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.55 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.533 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 39, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The author concludes that the existing electric generation plants are sufficien...
^^
Line 1, column 263, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...n the observations from recent surveys. The author has to provide more proof agains...
^^^
Line 3, column 684, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ergy efficient to appease the consumer. If either of the above possibilities holds...
^^
Line 5, column 437, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...likely to hinder the credibility of the authors assumption. Lastly, the author assum...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 431, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...likely to hinder the credibility of the authors assumption. In conclusion, the plann...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, as to, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2030.0 2260.96107784 90% => OK
No of words: 388.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23195876289 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.43821085614 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8256404246 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.502577319588 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 650.7 705.55239521 92% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
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: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.340147496 57.8364921388 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.5 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.4 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.1 5.70786347227 89% => 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 : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.113585172083 0.218282227539 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0339731276395 0.0743258471296 46% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0265321457077 0.0701772020484 38% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0597416566433 0.128457276422 47% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0179859498197 0.0628817314937 29% => 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: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.77 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.