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.
The petitions urges the residents of Youngtown to prevent the development of land that comes under Wildlife Preservation. The corporation to whom this land would be sold are planning to build a hotel which will disturb and harm the sanctuary and the bird species. The petition makes a lot of assumptions which arriving at conclusion and does not clearly delineate on the factors that it says would be harmful. The claims are not backed with any evidence and seem to be just an abstract idea with little support.
The argument says land would be sold to Smith Corporation and then the development would happen. If the land has not been sold yet they should instead focus their attempts to prevent this deal from happening. If Smith Corporation are not allowed to buy the land the harm caused by the development as the argument says, would not happen. It says a small percentage of land would be sold how does not enumerate it. This is an important factor because if the Wildlife Preserve has thousands of acres of land and the land planned to be sold to the Corporation is just 0.2%, it's "serious" impact would be dubious.
The argument assumes that the development in this land would have disastrous consequences for the area. It does not say how exactly would it be disastrous? Is it in terms of pollution? In terms of human interference in wild life? This is not very clear. The interference in wild life and other factors called into questions might not be as serious as the protection group estimates .The group believes and assumes that although the company has promised to ensure preservation of the sanctuary, their plans will only cause harm to it. The company might actually take a lot of precautionary steps and have strict guidelines with respect to operations and ensure that they cause minimal disturbance. There is no reason to believe that the corporation plans will be harmful. If they follow procedures rigorously and take care of protocol there might be no harm caused at all. The protection group needs to consider the previous projects undertaken by the corporations in such wildlife areas, if any. This data might give them some idea whether the corporation has previously followed such procedure that they say they will follow in Youngtown.
The argument says the sale of land and the hotel that would be built on it would not benefit the community. Youngstown is famous for its bird species with many tourists visiting the town to see the birds. Building a hotel in the sanctuary land might be a positive point. It might attract more tourists who will want to stay in the hotel from which they could occasionally see or hear birds from their hotel windows. This might attract more tourists and in turn the help develop the economy of Youngstown.
Thus, the protection group needs to be evaluate a lot of factors, find some evidence to back their claims that building the hotel would only be harmful. They need to consider the pros and cons of building such a hotel on the economy of the town and the sanctuary as well. Only when these factors have been rigorously evaluated, should the people of Youngtown conclude whether the development should or should not happen.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 550 350
No. of Characters: 2599 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.843 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.725 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.553 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: 19.643 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.423 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.321 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.272 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.459 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 15, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[1]
Message: You should probably use 'urge'.
Suggestion: urge
The petitions urges the residents of Youngtown to prevent t...
^^^^^
Line 1, column 265, 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.
...arm the sanctuary and the bird species. The petition makes a lot of assumptions whi...
^^^
Line 1, column 411, 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.
... factors that it says would be harmful. The claims are not backed with any evidence...
^^^
Line 3, column 1, 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 abstract idea with little support. The argument says land would be sold to Smi...
^^^
Line 5, column 382, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Don't put a space before the full stop
Suggestion: .
...erious as the protection group estimates .The group believes and assumes that alth...
^^
Line 5, column 384, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: The
...ious as the protection group estimates .The group believes and assumes that althoug...
^^^
Line 5, column 535, 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.
...their plans will only cause harm to it. The company might actually take a lot of pr...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, if, so, then, thus, well, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 30.0 12.9520958084 232% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 62.0 55.5748502994 112% => OK
Nominalization: 27.0 16.3942115768 165% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2663.0 2260.96107784 118% => OK
No of words: 550.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 4.84181818182 5.12650576532 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67368010227 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.410909090909 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 793.8 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
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: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 52.1516015173 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.1071428571 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.6428571429 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.82142857143 5.70786347227 32% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.267850722474 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0781206614563 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0587375626166 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.161406239125 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0522026648782 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.2 14.3799401198 78% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 69.11 48.3550499002 143% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.3 12.197005988 68% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.79 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.71 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.