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 concludes that the existing electric generation plants are adequate to meet the demands of energy in the area, and thus there is likely no need to construct additional facilities. The author comes to this conclusion based on the findings of recent surveys. Before we can assess the validity of this claim, the author needs to counter the three unfounded assumptions listed below with more evidence.
Firstly, the author assumes that the total energy consumed by the new appliances in a house will not rise significantly in comparison to the previous decade. However, 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 still risen, because the number of appliances present in the house have multiplied over the last decade. Well even if the number of household appliances has remained constant, their consumption may have risen significantly. It is also reasonable 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 general trend of conserving energy as observed in the survey is not followed in the area where the company does business. Or maybe, the people refrain from benefiting 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 company has not taken into account the energy to be consumed by several factors in the near future, like newly constructed manufacturing plants that are yet to start their operations, and will require a significant amount of energy in the coming months. It is also possible that the newly constructed societies will be ready for people to move into, further raising the energy demands. 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: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 444 350
No. of Characters: 2240 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.59 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.045 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.684 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 171 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.143 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.459 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.619 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.311 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.52 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.081 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 714, 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 565, 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 584, 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, still, then, thus, well, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2289.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 444.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15540540541 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5903493882 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75528706481 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.495495495495 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 738.0 705.55239521 105% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.8422886544 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.0 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1428571429 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.14285714286 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.140050754024 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0398798997709 0.0743258471296 54% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0350901942035 0.0701772020484 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.072578510138 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0306684017446 0.0628817314937 49% => 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: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.73 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.