The following appeared as part of a petition sent to residents of Youngtown by an environmental protection group:
“The Smith Corporation should not be permitted to develop the land that is now part of the Youngtown Wildlife Preserve. This sanctuary is essential to the survival of the 300 bird species that live in our area. Although only a small percentage of the land will be sold to Smith, the proposed development will have disastrous consequences for our area. The company plans to build a small hotel on the land. Although they have promised to ensure the preservation of the sanctuary, there is no way that their plans will do anything but harm the sanctuary. There are no circumstances under which this sale will benefit our community, which relies on tourists who visit primarily to see our magnificent bird population.”
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 if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
According to the petition, the argument states that the Smith Corporation should not be permitted to develop the land that is now part of the Youngtown Wildlife Preserve. To support their argument, they mention its harmful effects on the sanctuary and on the sales of the community. The argument stands flawed because of the lack of evidence provided and due to the following assumptions.
Firstly, the argument assumes that the Smith Corporation will fail in fulfilling their promise of protecting the sanctuary. For example, what if the Corporation has already figured out a way to preserve the sanctuary? What if the Corporation has enjoyed success over the past in such similar projects? The environmental protection group should do proper research and first consult the corporation about their plans and only then come to a conclusion. If this assumption about the corporation's failure proves unwarranted then the argument would not hold water.
Furthermore, the argument assumes that the sales generated by the hotel would not benefit their community. Currently, the sales depend upon the tourists that come to see the birds. But perhaps, the hotel might boost the sale because the tourists that come to visit the sanctuary might stay at the hotel or at least eat something there as most tourists enjoy to do so. If this happens then this will foster sales and bring in more money more from tourism thereby weakening the argument further. It can not be assumed that the tourists will definitely not use the hotel in any way and there has to be proper evidence if this is the premise used to reach the conclusion.
Finally, the argument assumes that even if a very small percentage of land is developed, it will drastically affect the sanctuary. This might not be true as the corporation could have a plan of using the land better than it is used now. For example, the land that the corporation is planning to develop is far from the area where the birds naturally live. In this case, the development of the land would have no effect whatsoever on that sanctuary. It might as well be used to develop some recreational activities for the tourists which would again foster sales and increase profit. Therefore, the argument has to specify exactly what part of land is going to be developed and how will this affect the bird sanctuary. A correlation has to be provided to assume the disastrous consequences of the proposed development.
In conclusion, the argument depends on various assumptions and hence, is flawed. There has to specific evidence provided as mentioned above to efficiently evaluate the argument. The effect on the sales, and the harmful effects of the development on the sanctuary should be properly stated backed up by proper evidence to come to a proper conclusion.
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: 23 15
No. of Words: 467 350
No. of Characters: 2281 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.649 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.884 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.674 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 154 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.304 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.279 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.093 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 452, 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.
...ans and only then come to a conclusion. If this assumption about the corporations ...
^^
Line 3, column 481, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'corporations'' or 'corporation's'?
Suggestion: corporations'; corporation's
...onclusion. If this assumption about the corporations failure proves unwarranted then the arg...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 353, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'enjoy doing'.
Suggestion: enjoy doing
...st eat something there as most tourists enjoy to do so. If this happens then this will fost...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, hence, if, so, then, therefore, well, as to, at least, for example, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 30.0 16.3942115768 183% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2342.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 467.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.01498929336 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.64867537961 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76424910959 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.44539614561 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 726.3 705.55239521 103% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.0202080607 57.8364921388 54% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 101.826086957 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.3043478261 23.324526521 87% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.39130434783 5.70786347227 94% => 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 : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.238441373155 0.218282227539 109% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0709894753368 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0938250344909 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.14151149918 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0872952353352 0.0628817314937 139% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 48.3550499002 106% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 102.0 98.500998004 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.