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.”
In the preceding statement, the author claims that the illegal immigrants should be deported to their country of origin because of the dangers they pose the autonomy of the country by citing that border strength is vital to the country's autonomy. Although at first glance, the argument seems to have merit, but scrupulous evaluation of the evidences clearly shows the poor premises and grounds on which the conclusion is based. The author needs to provide further explanations in order to bridge the gap between the evidence and the conclusion.
The initial problem with the argument is the possible flaws in the idea that the autonomy of any country depends on their border's strength. The author provides no further evidence for this statement that could substantiate the conclusion's reliability. There are many factors that can affect the country's independence. If the country's defense strategy is so strong that no other government could attack their sovereignty, then the border problem would not create much problem. We can take the example of the countries in Europe. European countries have their individual borders to just mark their territory and any person living within Europe can move around the whole continent. Their autonomy is still intact. No people crossing the border have threatened their way to implement any policy or run the government. Instead, it has created mutual understanding among everyone and every country is thriving together without interfering with one another. Unless the author accounts for elucidation on the statement, the argument will undermine itself.
Moreover, the inadmissible assertion that the illegal immigrants endanger the national identity and economy brings the argument more downwards. I concede that illegal immigrants can hoard the jobs available to the natives and the unemployment within the country's citizen might increase a little. But it does not necessarily mean that it will create a huge turbulence in the economy. If the country's economy is dependent on the industries and the exports it does from those industries, then the arrival of immigrants will not bring any issue. Instead, the economy might even thrive. Generally, the immigrants will need jobs to survive and might agree to work in lesser money and the industries might hire even more workers to do more jobs and the exports most probably would increase. Furthermore, how does illegal immigrants threaten national identity of a country? If the country has strict policy of passing some big enough criteria such as birth on the same soil or relation with the country people to get the identity of the country, then I see no threat to the nation. So, if the country's economy depends on mentioned factors and it has strict policies for foreigners, then the argument is likely to fail.
Finally, the author suggests that every effort made to return the immigrants back to their country will reduce the risk. If the country is already suffering from failing government and the policies of the country are not appropriate to protect from foreign intervention, then deporting the immigrants will not solve the problem. In such case, it is highly probable that the government is hiding its inability to function by putting the blame on the illegal immigrants entering the country. If such is the case then, the conclusion of the argument is fallible.
Although the argument contains unexplained premises and baseless reasonings, it is not to say that entire case is inadmissible. So, to sum up, if the author agrees to fix up the flaws and provide more explanations for the argument, then it could be considered for further investigation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 591 350
No. of Characters: 3018 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.931 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.107 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.686 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 241 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 189 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 125 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 72 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.107 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.131 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.464 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.285 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.454 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 141, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...ntry depends on their borders strength. The author provides no further evidence for...
^^^
Line 3, column 228, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'conclusions'' or 'conclusion's'?
Suggestion: conclusions'; conclusion's
...s statement that could substantiate the conclusions reliability. There are many factors tha...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, furthermore, if, moreover, so, still, then, such as, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 36.0 28.8173652695 125% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3078.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 591.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 5.20812182741 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.93056706295 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.75581071309 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 278.0 204.123752495 136% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.470389170897 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 950.4 705.55239521 135% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 10.0 2.70958083832 369% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.2414307981 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.928571429 119.503703932 92% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1071428571 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.96428571429 5.70786347227 52% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 18.0 6.88822355289 261% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.307500006476 0.218282227539 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0837817763705 0.0743258471296 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0680948113614 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.159244592883 0.128457276422 124% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0610890333641 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 14.3799401198 95% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 98.500998004 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.