The following recommendation appeared in a memo from the mayor of the town of Hopewell.
"Two years ago, the nearby town of Ocean View built a new municipal golf course and resort hotel. During the past two years, tourism in Ocean View has increased, new businesses have opened there, and Ocean View's tax revenues have risen by 30 percent. Therefore, the best way to improve Hopewell's economy — and generate additional tax revenues — is to build a golf course and resort hotel similar to those in Ocean View."
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.
In the recommendation from the mayor of Hopewell it is suggested that, they should also build a gulf course and hotel as that of Ocean View. This is to increase the tax revenue of the Hopewell. However, before this recommendation is properly evaluated some of the questions must be answered.
Firstly, the time lapse stated in the prompt and the building of the golf course and resort hotel are irrelevant. The need of two years back may not be the need now. Also, the places are different so, we do not know if the new hotel and golf course will attract people and aid in tax generation in Hopewell. Hopewell to increase their tax revenue must know what their people want and are attracted to, rather than just copying form Ocean Views’.
Secondly, to assume that the need of the one place may not be the need of the other place. So, we cannot be sure if building the resort and golf course will be successful in achieving its goal. Moreover, in the it is stated that Ocean Views tax revenues was increased by 30 percent; but, we do not what its previous tax revenue was- it could be high or low in comparison to Hopewell. Also, we do know what is the tax revenue of Hopewell’s. Only by knowing the previous tax collection we could estimate if the new tax collection after building the structures have been benefitted or not.
Lastly, it is assumed that the golf course and resort hotel are the only ways to improve tax collection. But the tax collection increases only when the attraction of the people must be high. So rather than following what the Oceans View had done, Hopewell should conduct survey in there area and do accordingly.
In conclusion, the recommendation as it stands has many flaws due to its reliance on several unwanted assumption. If author is able to provide us with the additional information and answers to the aforementioned questions then the validity of the proposed recommendation could be evaluated.
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 340 350
No. of Characters: 1554 1500
No. of Different Words: 159 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.294 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.571 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.62 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 99 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 72 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 56 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.25 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.207 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.875 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.35 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5