The following appears in a letter to the editor for the West Lansburg News:
"The tufted groundhog lives in the coastal wetlands of West Lansburg. Ancient records suggest that the tufted groundhog once numbered in the millions. Since they were declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2004, development along the coastal wetlands has been prohibited. Now local development interests are lobbying for the West Lansburg council to allow an access road to be built along the edge of wetlands. Neighboring Eastern Carpenteria, which had a similar sanctuary, has seen its sea otter population decline since the repeal of its sanctuary status in 1978. In order to preserve the region's biodiversity and ensure a healthy environment, the West Lansburg council should not allow the road to be built."
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.
The argument, that in order to preserve the region of coastal wetlands of West Lansburg’s biodiversity and ensure a healthy environment the West Lansburg council should reject the proposal for building an access road along the edge of the wetlands put forward by the advocates of local development, is not entirely logical and inherently flawed due to the several unstated assumptions.
Primarily, the statistical data belonging to the exact number of tufted groundhogs present at the time of this proposal is missing. The population of the animal for the given period will indeed play an important role in acceptance of the proposal. Further the time period for “Ancient Records” is also a critical factor in determining the proposal’s consideration. However, there might be a possibility that the current population of the tufted groundhog has outnumbered to be considered for a wildlife sanctuary and that the council can permit construction of an access road along the coastal wetlands.
Secondly, the comparison between the Eastern Carpenteria and coastal wetlands of West Lansburg is preposterous. If comparison is being made, then the data should be provided in which ways are the lands similar. What is the area of protected land, what is the nature of biodiversity being protected and what is the environmental conditions prevailing in both the lands. Given answers to such questions would then provide a solid ground for making a witty comparison between the lands and only then a wise decision be made regarding the infrastructure building.
Thirdly, repealing the sanctuary status of Eastern Carpenteria’s land might not be the sole reason for the decline of sea otter’s population. There is a possibility that other factors, such as rapidly changing enivornment conditions, lack of availability of food, exposure to excessive predation, exploitation of the lands by greedy humans, played a critical role in plummeting the sea otter’s population. And the fact that there is a wide gap in the time period of 1978 and 2004 raise questions about the integrity of the comparison being made. If these particulars are meticulously considered only then preventing the decline of population of the species is possible after an access road’s permission is granted.
Thus, the argument is not completely sound. The argument as it stands is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions such as lack of statistical data of current population of the species, several pillars of comparison between the two conserved areas.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 15 15
No. of Words: 404 350
No. of Characters: 2111 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.483 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.225 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.002 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.933 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.588 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.327 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.051 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 9.0 28.8173652695 31% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2175.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 404.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.38366336634 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48327461151 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12732121418 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.502475247525 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 673.2 705.55239521 95% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 81.2509418749 57.8364921388 140% => OK
Chars per sentence: 145.0 119.503703932 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.9333333333 23.324526521 115% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.8 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.151796255024 0.218282227539 70% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0500725442327 0.0743258471296 67% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0670125979494 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0824278643933 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0747480588784 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.4 14.3799401198 121% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.22 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.34 8.32208582834 112% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.0 12.3882235529 161% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.