The following appeared in the Pine City Gazette.
"Fifteen years ago, Pine City launched an electricity-conservation program that reimbursed residents some of the cost for replacing energy-wasteful motors, home office equipment, and home appliances with energy-efficient ones. For ten years, spending on this program increased annually, and annual total energy consumption declined. But spending on the program began to decline five years ago, and since then Pine City's total electricity consumption has increased sharply. If this increased usage continues, the city will have to build a costly new power plant. Obviously the best way to avoid this expense is to increase reimbursement to residents for replacing energy-wasteful equipment. This will reduce energy usage to the levels of five years ago."
The conclusion in the argument is highly dubious. Merely based on the scant information about an electricity-conservation program over the past fifteen years and some gratuitous assumptions, it is too hasty for the author to suggest that the reimbursement to residents for replacing energy-wasteful appliances should be increased and that by such means, the energy usage of Pine City could decline to the levels of five years ago.
To begin with, the author unfairly assumes that the fluctuation of energy consumption directly results from the electricity-conservation program. There are several critical points that the author fails to take into account. First, no evidence is cited to demonstrate that most of the residents have participated in this program. If very few people took advantage of the reimbursement to change their original appliances, it is hardly the case that the program has been a main contributor to either the decrease or the increase of energy consumption.
Second, even assuming that many residents have replaced their old equipment with the new energy-saving ones, it is still possible that other alternatives have played more crucial roles than these equipments in determining the energy consumption over the past fifteen years. These alternatives might include changes in demography, life standards, and climate in Pine City. It is highly possible that people gradually moved away from Pine City fifteen years ago, causing a decline in energy consumption regardless of what kind of equipments residents were using. Also, it is likely that since five years ago, the economy of Pine City has enjoyed a significant boom and residents' living standards have been enhanced accordingly, rendering a hike in energy consumption inevitable. Or perhaps the temperature was milder before, so that residents did not need to use much electricity to keep the house comfortable for living. Therefore, without providing more relevant evidence concerning the issues mentioned above, it is unwarranted for the author to assume any correlation between the program and the alteration in energy consumption.
Similarly, even if the program proved to be vital to energy conservation, the author's assumption that the difference in reimbursement indicates the effectiveness of the program is equally arguable. Perhaps the increase of investment before was due to inflation rather than enthusiasm. In this case, it is even likely that fewer families changed their old equipment during that period of time. Or maybe the reason why the expenditure dwindled five years ago was that most of the families have already changed all of their old equipment. If there was no more family to cater to, it is rather reasonable for the program to receive less money than before. Hence, if the author cannot present more information on this issue, he is not able to convince me that the amount of money put into this program determines its effectiveness.
Finally, the author gratuitously presumes that the city's energy consumption is able to return to its levels of five years ago. He lacks proof to verify that the city's current condition is similar to its condition five years ago. Without such proof, it is reasonable to postulate that more businesses and manufacturers have settled in Pine City during the past five years, making the basic need of energy in Pine City largely surpasses its standard before. Under this circumstance, not only a reverse in energy consumption is impossible at best, but such decrease might also be deleterious to the wellbeing of the stability of the society.
As shown above, the argument is poorly reasoned. To strengthen the author's conclusion, more detailed investigations and researches must be undertaken to find out whether there was a close correlation or causal relation between the program and energy usage before, whether the expenditure of the program was a correct indicator of its effectiveness, and whether the city is warranted to copy its policies made fifteen years ago.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
argument 4 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 638 350
No. of Characters: 3318 1500
No. of Different Words: 294 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.026 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.201 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.045 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 243 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 182 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 98 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.583 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.323 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.542 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.526 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.106 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 79, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...to be vital to energy conservation, the authors assumption that the difference in reimb...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 378, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...changed their old equipment during that period of time. Or maybe the reason why the expenditur...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 68, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...t is poorly reasoned. To strengthen the authors conclusion, more detailed investigation...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, but, finally, first, hence, if, may, second, similarly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, well, kind of, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 48.0 28.8173652695 167% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 94.0 55.5748502994 169% => OK
Nominalization: 35.0 16.3942115768 213% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3391.0 2260.96107784 150% => OK
No of words: 638.0 441.139720559 145% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.31504702194 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.02579962599 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.09888719962 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 302.0 204.123752495 148% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.473354231975 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 1098.0 705.55239521 156% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 4.96107784431 242% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 86.3459510567 57.8364921388 149% => OK
Chars per sentence: 141.291666667 119.503703932 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5833333333 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.70833333333 5.70786347227 100% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.292105396013 0.218282227539 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0780447134575 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0794890212092 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169102868909 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0931879444954 0.0628817314937 148% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.9 14.3799401198 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 158.0 98.500998004 160% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
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.