"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase — and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary."
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 conclusion that additional power plants would not be necessary to meet the energy requirements of the area the company serves is based on several premises, majorly, 1) Surveys stating increasing eagerness amongst homeowners to conserve energy 2) Availability of energy efficient appliances and their extensive marketing by manufacturers and 3) Sufficiency of available power plants to generate power for the area.
Though the argument talks about surveys that state homeowners’ eagerness to conserve energy, no information has been provided about the relevance of the surveys to the company’s target area. It is also assumed that the eagerness of people would eventually catapult into action leading to conservation of sizable amount of energy. Such assumptions turning out to be negative for the target area might result in rather increased use of energy, creating more demand.
Furthermore, marketing by manufacturers about energy efficient products has no significance until they are purchased by the residents. The document assumes that the residents are financially stable enough to constantly change to/purchase new home appliances. Appliances like air conditioners/refrigerators could be new additions due to global warming over time in the area which might not have needed them a few years back. This would amount increased energy consumption, in contrast to what is stated. Added to this is the assumption of efficiency and acceptance of passive solar heating appliances, which is not backed by scientific/empirical data.
The premise that the available three plants would suffice the needs of the residents does not consider the fact that population is continuously on the rise. Growing population demands more energy and the rate of increase is much more than the case a few years back. In addition, the document assumes the plants to be as healthy as they were a few years back. Engineering marvels do shine down over time, eventually rendering the technology obsolete. The raw materials required for running the plant are also assumed to be in plenty, which might not be the scenario in case of non-renewable resources. The rising population, aging power plants and availability of raw materials decide the energy demands and the probability of meeting the demand with the available resources.
To conclude, the document’s claim that no new power plants would be required to cater to the target area is not strong enough due to several loopholes in the stated premises. Surveys’ relevance to an area and the conversion of residents’ intent to action are not backed by numbers. The financial and climatic landscape have not been studied thoroughly enough. Alas, growing population, health of existing generation sources, and doubts on availability of raw materials have not been considered while stating the conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 445 350
No. of Characters: 2347 1500
No. of Different Words: 214 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.593 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.274 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.875 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 187 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 139 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 105 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 80 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.421 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.679 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.316 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.3 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.471 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, furthermore, if, so, while, in addition, in contrast, such as, in contrast to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 14.0 28.8173652695 49% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2428.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 442.0 441.139720559 100% => OK
Chars per words: 5.49321266968 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.58517132086 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.26079247298 2.78398813304 117% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497737556561 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 771.3 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => 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: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.0000585229 57.8364921388 123% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.789473684 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2631578947 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.36842105263 5.70786347227 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.168376940237 0.218282227539 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0488286849533 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0433966007328 0.0701772020484 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.102065713666 0.128457276422 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0619421483544 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.86 12.5979740519 118% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.49 8.32208582834 114% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 98.500998004 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 20.5 12.3882235529 165% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.