Several charitable organizations in Pleasantville provide opportunities for teenagers to engage in community service. These organizations have a great need for volunteers, but in recent years, the number of teenage volunteers has significantly declined.
The Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of volunteers. Teachers, parents, and other community members agree that it is important for young people to learn the value of community service. Requiring high school students to engage in community service would provide much-needed assistance to worthy local charities and would also help young people understand the importance of giving back to their community. For this reason, the Pleasantville School Board should institute a program requiring students of Pleasantville High School to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation.
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 the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
There is no doubt that local charities need volunteers. Charities are often short on funds, which deters them from hiring employees. As a result, they may struggle to run their operations efficiently without volunteers routinely assisting them. In addition, what a charity provides is always in demand; they cannot slow down operations simply because they do not have enough labor, whether they be through voluntary or involuntary employment. In that sense, the services or products they provide are different from a business': A business can choose to slow down operations if need be; a local charity cannot. Both of these reasons demonstrate a need for volunteers. However, the author makes an unstated assumption that teenage volunteers should be one of the most important sources for voluntary employment. In conjunction with that assumption, he or she concludes that the Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of volunteers. This argument is flawed for several reasons, all based on the his or her assumptions about teenage volunteers.
The author assumes that teachers, parents, and community members agree that it is important for young people to learn the value of community service. However, how do we know that there is consensus? Perhaps some parents think that community service takes away from family time. Maybe teachers believe that too much community service decreases the amount of time that students have available for schoolwork, which, in turn, decreases the quality of their work. If there is a lack of consensus among community members, then the value of community service service is not as high as we should believe it to be. As a result, teachers, parents, and community members may not want to take measures to increase the number of teenage volunteers.
The author additionally assumes that local charities want teenage volunteers. Typically, teenage volunteers are immature: They do not fully understand the impact their work has on the charity's functioning. Therefore, teenagers may detract from the organization's success, distracting workers while they volunteer or even making their jobs more difficult. For example, a food bank needs to sort through 100 pounds of cans per hour, so it may have teenage volunteers do the sorting. What if the teenagers get easily distracted and, instead of following guidelines, accidentally sort through the cans in ways that make finding the food more difficult. Rather than providing additional support, the teenage volunteers pose extra work on the full-time employees, making their jobs more difficult. Having teenage volunteers makes that food bank's, and charity's, operations more efficient and effectively run.
Finally, the author seems to imply that young people can only give back by directly doing so. While teenagers are volunteering, their parents may be at home watching television, learning about municipal issues by following the news. Additionally, local politicians may be writing legislation to support the growth of the local economy and business investment. Rather than directly doing so by volunteering, teenagers can follow in the paths of their adults: They can get involved in local politics, learn about particular topics of interest in the community, and talk about is happening in their community. Being active citizens in their communities is just as important as volunteering.
It is nice to know that there are opportunities for teenagers to engage in community service. Opportunities should be available. However, we should not conclude that local charities rely on, or should rely on, teenagers. If local charities are absolutely desperate for volunteers, whether that be because of a severe decrease in the number of volunteers overall or a shortage of employees, then yes, the Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of teenage volunteers. That way, local charities always have a source of volunteers. However, teenage volunteers should only feel invited by charities; otherwise, they may only pose difficulties for the charities they volunteer with.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
No. of Words: 640 350
the introduction and conclusion are too long. they can be shorter.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 33 15
No. of Words: 640 350
No. of Characters: 3387 1500
No. of Different Words: 278 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.03 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.292 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.805 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 264 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 211 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 149 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 117 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.394 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.595 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.269 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.453 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1021, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'his'?
Suggestion: the; his
...lawed for several reasons, all based on the his or her assumptions about teenage volunt...
^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 473, Rule ID: A_LOT_OF_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun consensus seems to be countable; consider using: 'a lack of consensuses'.
Suggestion: a lack of consensuses
... the quality of their work. If there is a lack of consensus among community members, then the value...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 546, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: service
...ty members, then the value of community service service is not as high as we should believe it ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 249, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'organizations'' or 'organization's'?
Suggestion: organizations'; organization's
...erefore, teenagers may detract from the organizations success, distracting workers while they...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, while, for example, in addition, no doubt, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 53.0 28.8173652695 184% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3483.0 2260.96107784 154% => OK
No of words: 640.0 441.139720559 145% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.4421875 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.02973371873 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91322709205 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 295.0 204.123752495 145% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.4609375 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 1073.7 705.55239521 152% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 19.7664670659 167% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 53.1744361621 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.545454545 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.3939393939 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.09090909091 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 20.0 8.20758483034 244% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.297293632983 0.218282227539 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0857893290204 0.0743258471296 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0758211271965 0.0701772020484 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.170208206582 0.128457276422 133% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0735502331909 0.0628817314937 117% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 43.73 48.3550499002 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.27 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.16 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 145.0 98.500998004 147% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.