The following is a letter to the head of the tourism bureau on the island of Tria.
"Erosion of beach sand along the shores of Tria Island is a serious threat to our island and our tourist industry. In order to stop the erosion, we should charge people for using the beaches. Although this solution may annoy a few tourists in the short term, it will raise money for replenishing the sand. Replenishing the sand, as was done to protect buildings on the nearby island of Batia, will help protect buildings along our shores, thereby reducing these buildings' risk of additional damage from severe storms. And since beaches and buildings in the area will be preserved, Tria's tourist industry will improve over the long term."
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 author contends that charging people for using the beaches in Tria Island for raising money to replenish the sand will prevent the erosion of the beaches and the buildings along the shore and improve the tourist industry over the long term. While at first glance the argument might seem acceptable, further inspection reveals some assumptions that render is unconvincing as it stands.
The first assumption that is not based on sound evidence is that charging people will cover the costs of replenishing the sand. I would be more convinced if the author included statistics of the average number of people that visit the beaches each month and an estimation of how this number will be altered if the fee is implemented by the tourism bureau. Without this pieces of evidence, we cannot conclude whether the revenue from charging tourists will be adequate for replenishing the sand.
Another useful piece of evidence would be the impact that the preservation of the beaches and the buildings will bring to the tourism. The author states that tourism will improve in the long term but fails to take into consideration the impact to tourism if replenishing should be frequently repeated to eliminate any potential erosion. Another piece of information that is missing and could disqualify the argument is the extent to which tourists will be annoyed by the process of replenishing the sand.
Finally, the argument is based on a far-fetched analogy between Tria Island and Batia Island. Common sense informs me that protecting the buildings in Batia by replenishing the sand does not guarantee that the specific process will have the same effect in Tria. To illustrate this, let us consider that weather conditions or the land composition might differ in the two islands. Moreover, the author does not cite any evidence about the durability of the project in Batia. Thus, the idea that replenishing the sand will protect the buildings is based on an assumption.
In conclusion, the letter is not based on sound reasoning. The author could make a well-substantiated case if he based his claims on evidence about the impacts of replenishing the land both on the buildings and the tourists.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 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: 362 350
No. of Characters: 1799 1500
No. of Different Words: 169 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.362 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.97 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.737 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 100 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 63 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.133 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.861 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.354 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.596 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.087 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 365, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...lemented by the tourism bureau. Without this pieces of evidence, we cannot conclude ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, if, moreover, so, thus, well, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1837.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 362.0 441.139720559 82% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.07458563536 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.36191444098 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78048931753 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.488950276243 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 555.3 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
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: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.2273055441 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.466666667 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.1333333333 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.73333333333 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.193327798721 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0663931835584 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0752275356965 0.0701772020484 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107198451812 0.128457276422 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0620638116602 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.42 12.5979740519 99% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.53 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4 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.