The following appeared in a memorandum written by the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council:
"Two years ago, consultants predicted that West Egg's landfill, which is used for garbage disposal, would be completely filled within five years. During the past two years, however, the town's residents have been recycling twice as much material as they did in previous years. Next month the amount of recycled material — which includes paper, plastic, and metal — should further increase, since charges for pickup of other household garbage will double. Furthermore, over 90 percent of the respondents to a recent survey said that they would do more recycling in the future. Because of our town's strong commitment to recycling, the available space in our landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In the memorandum written by the chairperson of the West Egg Town Council, it is stated that due to residents’ strong commitment to recycling, the available space in their landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted. The author has come to this conclusion based on the increment of recycled material as well as the duplication in the charges for pickup of other household garbage. Moreover, he is also supporting this conclusion with a survey in which 90 percent of the respondents would do more recycling in the future. However, it is necessary three specific evidences to evaluate the argument’s validity properly.
To begin, the first needed evidence is the real amount of recycled material. The author is assuming that there is a great amount of recycled material now because this it has duplicated in the last two years. However, a duplicated quantity does not mean a high quantity. For instance, to pass from one kilogram of recycled material to two kilograms is certainly a duplication but it is not a considerable amount. In addition, even if this amount is actually high, for example one ton, the author is not saying how much mass of recycled material is necessary to increase the durability of the landfill in a considerable way. If this amount proved to be insufficient, the author’s argument would be weakened.
Secondly, the next evidence needed is to know if people would accept paying more money for the pickup of other household garbage or if they would change their habit in order to recycle more for a lower cost. For instance, if the people of West Egg Town were rich and they could spend more money for their garbage recollection, the effect of a higher charge would not yield to an increase in the amount of recycled material. Furthermore, if they do not have time to separate the garbage and do recycling, the landfill would be full in few years. This doubt could be resolve with a research study asking the people if they are open to pay more or not. If this study showed that they were able to pay higher charges, then again, the argument would be weakened.
Thirdly, the last evidence needed is more information about the survey because the author could be falling in the fallacy of the sampling error. Although that 90 percent seems to be a great number in favour to recycling, what if the sample size was not enough representative of the entire population. For instance, if the asked people were just a few, perhaps only 30 or 40 people, the result of the survey could not be enough representative of the entire town. Moreover, this sample could be skewed. For example, if the survey only has asked to those people who were in favour of recycling, the result would be clearly skewed. For these reasons, more evidence or information about the survey is needed. If these suppositions were not true, then the author’s argument would be strengthened.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unstated assumptions. If the author is able to provide these three evidences, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the conclusion that the available space in the landfill should last for considerably longer than predicted.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 24 15
No. of Words: 550 350
No. of Characters: 2611 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.843 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.747 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.646 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 191 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.917 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.363 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.512 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 602, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a considerable way" with adverb for "considerable"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...increase the durability of the landfill in a considerable way. If this amount proved to be insufficie...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, well, for example, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 35.0 19.6327345309 178% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 13.6137724551 51% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2711.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 550.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.92909090909 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.84349685777 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 228.0 204.123752495 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.414545454545 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 852.3 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 11.0 2.70958083832 406% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.738055519 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.958333333 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9166666667 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.45833333333 5.70786347227 131% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.16503212286 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0496496319458 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0486038589809 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0927683777826 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0480541269413 0.0628817314937 76% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.61 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.68 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.