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.
In the petition, the environmental protection group states that The Smith Corporation plans to purchase and develop a hotel on the land which is a part of Youngtown Wildlife Preserve. They state that the hotel will have disastrous consequences on the area and that it will harm the sanctuary. However, we would like to examine this conclusion by explaining three assumptions the protection group has made.
The argument states that only a small amount of land will be sold to Smith Corporation. However, it does not mention the area the entire land covers, or how far the sanctuary is from the land sold. For instance, it is highly possible that maybe the distance between the land where the hotel is to be developed and the sanctuary are so far apart that it does not have any impact on the sanctuary irrespective of whether the hotel is causing harm or not. The argument should take into account how far the two entities are from each other as the first step and later, examine its consequences at that distance. Without examining this, the claim that the hotel after being developed will harm the environment stands unwarranted.
In addition to the distance, the argument also assumes that the developed small hotel will definitely cause disastrous consequences to the area as well as the sanctuary. It maybe possible that The Smith Corporation understands that the sanctuary is nearby and hence, they already have mitigation plans. For example, the Corporation's development plans might be done by a team which is highly skilled at developing hotels and ensuring that the environment will have zero negative impact. Thus, just like the previous assumption, even this one does not stand grounds as there are chances of the owners already taking proactive measures to ensure that the environment is completely safe for the sanctuary.
The argument has even stated that the community relies on tourist to visit the bird population. It is possible that the hotel might serve as a accomodation for the tourists and this would thus allow tourists to spend more time. There might be limited accomodations available which would be a concern for tourists to visit. This hotel might thus lead to more tourists visiting the place and thus the community will benefit from this.
As discussed, without answering these assumptions, the argument is flawed and does not stand water. The environmental protection group must thus examine these more profoundly so that the petition will have a stronger purpose and thus, warrant the argument.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 418 350
No. of Characters: 2073 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.522 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.959 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.667 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.222 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.1 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.611 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.575 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 13, column 142, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... possible that the hotel might serve as a accomodation for the tourists and this ...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, however, if, may, so, thus, well, for example, for instance, in addition, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 55.5748502994 61% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2129.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09330143541 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7287507537 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 190.0 204.123752495 93% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.454545454545 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 655.2 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.0903414146 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.277777778 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2222222222 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.77777777778 5.70786347227 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.197052364381 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0690358815902 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.086439907703 0.0701772020484 123% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.118022008407 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.076385169805 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.2 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.14 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.