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."
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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 presented above is specious on various grounds. It states that the population of tufted groundhog will be plunged if the West Lansburg council allows to build a road on the edge of the coastal wetlands but fails to provide substantial information regarding that.
Initially, it sumrises that since in the neighboring Eastern Carpenteria, the sea otter population declined after abolishing the sanctuary in 1978, the identical action will take place at West Lansburg. The author, however, fails to take into account that apples aren't oranges and what happened at Eastern Carpenteria might not happen at the West Lansburg.
Secondly, the demographics for sea otter population has not been provided in the argument which can corroborate that the sea otter population was actually dwindling. Also,there is no specific reason mentioned for the decreasing population. So, it presupposes that it was due to the same reason, as in constructing a road.
Thirdly, the author has given ancient records of groundhog population to be in millions, whereas no present record is mentioned to compare if the tufted groundhog population has declined or risen since the past.
In addition, the argument makes various ambiguous claims, like the sea otter population may have diminished because they found a new habitat and migrated or that the place they inhabited originally might not have enough resources to survive. The former could also be the case for tufted groundhogs that they may have left the place and since no current record is presented to prove that, it could be a possibility.
Therefore, the argument has enough fallacies and it lacks significant information to validate its claims. Hence, the reasons provided questions its veracity.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- too short
argument 4 -- can be put in argument 2
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flaws:
No. of Words: 279 350 //try to paraphrase the topic to give more content.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 12 15
No. of Words: 279 350
No. of Characters: 1435 1500
No. of Different Words: 148 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.087 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.143 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.766 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 108 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 89 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.67 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.833 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.712 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.054 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 164, Rule ID: ALLOW_TO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'building'? Or maybe you should add a pronoun? In active voice, 'allow' + 'to' takes an object, usually a pronoun.
Suggestion: building
...ged if the West Lansburg council allows to build a road on the edge of the coastal wetla...
^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 264, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: aren't
... fails to take into account that apples arent oranges and what happened at Eastern Ca...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 171, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma
Suggestion: , there
... population was actually dwindling. Also,there is no specific reason mentioned for the...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 213, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n has declined or risen since the past. In addition, the argument makes various ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, hence, however, if, may, regarding, second, secondly, so, therefore, third, thirdly, whereas, in addition
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 32.0 55.5748502994 58% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1485.0 2260.96107784 66% => OK
No of words: 277.0 441.139720559 63% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.36101083032 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.07962216107 4.56307096286 89% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85259784133 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 152.0 204.123752495 74% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.548736462094 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 453.6 705.55239521 64% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 64.3583716388 57.8364921388 111% => OK
Chars per sentence: 123.75 119.503703932 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.0833333333 23.324526521 99% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.5 5.70786347227 184% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 8.20758483034 12% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.213290878145 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.068013656577 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.077772247768 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.106594962157 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0765896177266 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.1 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.22 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 98.500998004 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.