The following argument was made in a newspaper editorial:
“The autonomy of any country is based on the strength of its borders; if the number of illegal immigrants entering a country cannot be checked, both its economy and national identity are endangered. Because illegal immigrants pose such threats, every effort must be made to return them to their country of origin.”
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 for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
An argument was published in a newspaper editorial which states that if the autonomy of a country has to be protected, illegal immigrants should be sent back to the country of their origin. The arguer has provided supporting evidences and premises on which his or her conclusion stands. On the first reading, these evidences and premises look legible. Although, a close scrutiny points otherwise. A few unstated assumptions or evidences can prove the final stand of the arguer, weak.
Firstly, the arguer states that the autonomy of a country depends upon the strength of its borders. The strength of a country's border monitoring is only a partial aspect of protecting the autonomy of a country. It is also possible that a country has a weak defense system, a weak army and a weak secret service organization. This could prove that the nation will be unable to record threats against it, irrespective of the border being strong. Attributing the automony of a country, entirely upon the borders of a country is a fallacious assumption that has been presented by the arguer.
Secondly, the arguer states that the immigrants pose a threat upon the economy and national identity of a nation. What if a tyrant is heading the country who has no regard towards the well-being of it's citizens? Or what if the incumbent government is filled with corrupt officals who are feeding over the money, paid by the citizens of the nations in form of taxes? This could mean that the economy and national identity of the nation is still under threat. Therefore, blaming the imigrants towards the same is a biased viewpoint by the arguer.
Lastly, the arguer puts forward the point that illegal immigrants are a threat to the nation. What percent of illegal immigrants are attributed towards creating nuisance for the nation? Such a statistic has not been provided in the prompt by the arguer. If the number of immigrants guilty of creating nuisance falls below the number of citizens who are guilty of malpractices in the nation. Then, it would mean that the immigrants are being wrongfully rebuked over something they are not guilty off. It could also be the case that these immigrants have fled their home country to find a safe haven and live peacefully. Therefore, these immigrants do not pose a threat to the national security. It could be the case that they just want to restart their life from scratch.
In sum, there are plenty of unstated assumptions and possibilities that the arguer has turned a blind eye towards. Failing to consider these unstated assumptions can weaken the overall stand of the arguer and prove his argument to be unwarranted.
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: 25 15
No. of Words: 447 350
No. of Characters: 2150 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.598 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.81 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.624 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.88 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.559 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.56 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.507 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.1 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 365, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: scrutiny
... and premises look legible. Although, a close scrutiny points otherwise. A few unstated assump...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 255, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...n provided in the prompt by the arguer. If the number of immigrants guilty of crea...
^^
Line 7, column 588, Rule ID: SAFE_HAVEN[1]
Message: Use simply 'haven'.
Suggestion: haven
... have fled their home country to find a safe haven and live peacefully. Therefore, these i...
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, lastly, look, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, well, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2206.0 2260.96107784 98% => OK
No of words: 447.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 4.93512304251 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.59808378696 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70059160208 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.454138702461 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 682.2 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 30.3973683071 57.8364921388 53% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 88.24 119.503703932 74% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.88 23.324526521 77% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.08 5.70786347227 71% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.301741579068 0.218282227539 138% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0798909914252 0.0743258471296 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0767165440525 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.157238420682 0.128457276422 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0703554748844 0.0628817314937 112% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.8 14.3799401198 75% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 48.3550499002 130% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 12.197005988 71% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.8 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.