In surveys, Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river's water and the river's smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is therefore sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year's budget to riverside recreational facilities.
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.
The author argues for the city government, in the present year budget, to devote more money for maintaining Mason City riverside recreation facilities. The argument believes that implementing plans for cleaning up the river is positively associated with greater use for water sports. However, there are many unwarranted assumptions that need to be addressed. The argument is invalid if the implications are not expressed and examined. It is thus, not strong enough, for greater funding.
Firstly, the author assumes that ranking water sports by preference is actually correlated with performing water sports. The paragraph mentions having gleaned information from multiple surveys. More necessary information about the residents surveyed: the demographics, their preferences, also whose characteristics represent the Mason City population along with other important factors. So, there could have been questions, in different surveys, about respective preferences, for example, do they want a hydroelectric dam or not? Or, questions about whether they enjoy watching recreational sports, though in no particular order. It is impossible making an informed judgment unless more information about the surveys are closely examined.
Another assumption pertains to resident complaints about the quality of Mason river water and the smell of it. Again, just like aforementioned paragraph, were the complaints from only a handful of local area inhabitants, those that actually represent the Mason City population, among other questions. Also, what about the specific nature of the complaints or even the frequency of a particular type of complaint. Complaints germane to the water smell, or gleaning information about the pollution, the sulfur deposits from rocks underneath as an example, some of these need a closer scrutiny for determining, if river cleanup will actually increase river water use.
Finally, another assumption specifically relates to increasing funding for maintaining riverside recreational facilities. We need to know if there are other alternatives for riverside facilities apart from only increasing funding. Also, whether denizen preferences about the facilities needs to be gleaned from the surveys; is there a point of access to the river for certain residents, or is it for water sports only. Furthermore, even if the local inhabitants of the area want the facilities and a cleaner river, we need to know if outsourced organizations and other policies is practical, whose feasibility is a proper alternative for managing such facilities instead of merely relying only on city government funding.
To conclude, the author makes many unwarranted assumptions in arguing for greater funding. Unless the potential implications of these assumptions are specified, the validity of the argument falls apart. Some of the assumptions are not restricted to, firstly, if denizen water sports rankings necessarily corresponds to actually using the river for water sports, or if the specific complaints about the water quality and smell actually represent the Mason City population. There are other assumptions too, whose implications need a closer examining for evaluating the argument’s validity.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 8 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2664 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.597 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.006 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 199 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 172 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 129 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 97 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.696 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.127 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.609 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.302 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.511 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.075 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 204, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: Some
...e validity of the argument falls apart. Some of the assumptions are not restricted to, firs...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 583, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...for evaluating the argument’s validity.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, so, thus, apart from, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 3.0 13.6137724551 22% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 28.8173652695 52% => OK
Preposition: 50.0 55.5748502994 90% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2648.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 460.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.75652173913 5.12650576532 112% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6311565067 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.07951951669 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 221.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.480434782609 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 827.1 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.8505486088 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.130434783 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.0 23.324526521 86% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.34782608696 5.70786347227 76% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.262538952926 0.218282227539 120% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0748541575682 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0738354549622 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.163234584035 0.128457276422 127% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0324860486102 0.0628817314937 52% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.26 48.3550499002 71% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.5 12.197005988 111% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.13 12.5979740519 128% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.23 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 98.500998004 136% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.9071856287 134% => 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.