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."
Biodiversity- quite a buzzword these days and an important one too. Earth is facing difficult times. Whether its global warming, climate change or maintaining endangered species. The prompt reads out to assert an opinion the author is trying to make about saving a particular species. He, however, fails to point out the logical consistency between the ideas.
First of all, the author talks about the declination of population of the groundhog over the years and he has adduced some historical data. So, question remains about the authenticity of the source of the information. The author did not mention any specifics as to where he/she got the information and he did not give any proper reference. So, the source remains unclear here.
Further, the author talked about the reducing numbers, yet, he did not indicate what may have been the probable cause of that. It could have been anything. Not always the situation is that whenever something happens, it is due to a man-made reason. For instance, the blue button fish that were seen abundantly in the coastal areas or Australia, now have shifted the course of their habitat. The reason behind this was, the live in a hot temperature zone in the sea and somehow the temperature of their previous area lowered due to natural reasons and they swam across Asia for finding the appropriate place to be. We can also mention dinosaurs that got wept off the planet due to completely natural phenomena. These example show that, a change in a species may occur due to natural reasons.
However, the author has mentioned biodiversity- an important and frankly burning topic of the time. He has presented an example of some neighbouring area that also had similar kind of conditions. In some extent, that is true. We are currently living in a time of mass development. And the rise of population demands many things. So, the population factor also needs to be taken into consideration. Back in 2004, maybe there were not too many people living there. We do not know, because the author did not provide any information on this at all. Now, in present times, there is a population boom everywhere. So, it would not be an exaggeration that people will demand more things as they continue to grow. If the road is not built, maybe the people will have to pay the price for it.
Based on the state of the information presented by the author, it is unclear how the whole thing is circulating. There was no mention of the appropriate or even a referenced information on the reason behind the mass reduction in the number of ground hogs. The author tried to provide a posteriori on the case, which means, in order to save the groundhogs, do not built the bridge, but did not say how building the bridge was going to affect them. A more sound presentation could have been offered with appropriate information source, cohesive links among ideas and the consequences resulting from this step.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 31 15
No. of Words: 503 350
No. of Characters: 2355 1500
No. of Different Words: 262 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.736 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.682 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.61 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 16.226 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.155 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.484 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.233 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.426 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.107 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, frankly, however, if, may, so, then, as to, for instance, kind of, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2436.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 502.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85258964143 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68429824279 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 271.0 204.123752495 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.53984063745 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 765.9 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 31.0 19.7664670659 157% => OK
Sentence length: 16.0 22.8473053892 70% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 45.1916487823 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 78.5806451613 119.503703932 66% => OK
Words per sentence: 16.1935483871 23.324526521 69% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.12903225806 5.70786347227 55% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 16.0 4.67664670659 342% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.0458366696467 0.218282227539 21% => The similarity between the topic and the content is low.
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0104995897843 0.0743258471296 14% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.019370674637 0.0701772020484 28% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0223299896857 0.128457276422 17% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0164088198114 0.0628817314937 26% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.5 14.3799401198 66% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 63.7 48.3550499002 132% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.4 12.197005988 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.55 12.5979740519 84% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.7 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 12.3882235529 52% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.4 11.1389221557 75% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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It is not exactly right on the topic in the view of e-grader. Maybe there is a wrong essay topic.
Rates: 16.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 1.0 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.