The following opinion was provided in a letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine:
"Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent successes of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men and women to space. Therefore, we should invest our resources in unmanned space flight."
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
The letter concludes by asking for resources to be invested in unmanned space flights largely due to the success from a series of unmanned space probes and satellites that came at lesser costs and risks when compared to manned space flight.
Clearly, the opinion writer assumes that the presence of men and women in spaced flights is unnecessary and the corollary that might result should there be any mistake in such flights can be costly. However, the opinion writer fails to address if these risks that were experienced prior to the supposed recorded successes where due to the paucity of resources and poor safety practices on the part of the aeronautics society. Also, the writer makes a statistical blunder by trying to prove the successes of unmanned flights on recent happenings rather than comparing this over a longer period of time. That is, over what period of time is the cost and risk reduction argument in unmanned flights been made? What if futuristic events see a downturn in the cost associated and risk being increased?
Also, in developing the opinion, the writer clearly does not present a full reason for some of the risks being associated with manned space flights. What if underlying details are responsible for these risks and if there are also possibilities for mitigating them? That is, manned space flights might prove more efficacious in the long-run if resources are amply supplied to address some of these challenges. In contrast to unmanned space flights, the possibility of its risk being increased in the future can be challenging and difficult to assess. In light of environmental impacts, interstellar travels utilize a lot of energy combustion that can be damaging to the ozone layer. The opinion writer is however not concerned with some other risks that still exist and can be threatening to other members of the society.
Conclusively, in trying to strengthen the writer's position, he should have catered for a whole scale assessment of the risk and cost reduction analysis in his assumption rather than clamoring for channeling of resources into unmanned space flights whose statical analysis of successes cannot be proven as compared to manned space flights. The assumptions clearly had missing links that mad this conclusion unstable.
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: 14 15
No. of Words: 372 350
No. of Characters: 1879 1500
No. of Different Words: 185 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.392 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.051 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.67 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 144 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.682 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.355 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.111 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 587, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...ather than comparing this over a longer period of time. That is, over what period of time is t...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 622, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...nger period of time. That is, over what period of time is the cost and risk reduction argument...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 88, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...arly does not present a full reason for some of the risks being associated with manned spac...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, however, if, so, still, then, in contrast, in contrast to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1915.0 2260.96107784 85% => OK
No of words: 372.0 441.139720559 84% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14784946237 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.39173103935 4.56307096286 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71001208677 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.502688172043 0.468620217663 107% => OK
syllable_count: 590.4 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.3442647892 57.8364921388 116% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.785714286 119.503703932 114% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5714285714 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.5 5.70786347227 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.241645573881 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0862629593558 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0894375505273 0.0701772020484 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.189736724001 0.128457276422 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.102889764958 0.0628817314937 164% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.09 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.