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 these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The author in the article suggests that the city government should devote more money in this year’s budget to riverside recreational facilities. However, several assumptions in the argument need supports.
The argument assumes that the quality of the river’s water and the river’s smell are worsening because of no maintaining riverside recreational facilities. However, it is possible that there are other polluting factors causing the quality of the river decreases. Maybe there are several factories existing near the Mason River, and these factories will produce a handsome amount of waste water and other pollutants. After a few years, these factories will not only cause seriously environmental problems, but also not attract more people coming here. Therefore, we must know that if there are other factors will cause the quality of Mason river decreasing.
The argument assumes that the state has announced plans to clean up the Mason River. However, the author does not provide thorough information about this plan, and we cannot totally know that will the state conduct its plan for cleaning up Mason river. Maybe the state will clean up the garbage produced by pedestrians, or the state will spend its money trimming the trees along the river. Still, the original reason that this river is polluted is that there are many residents discharge waste water from their home. Therefore, the author must provide more solid information about which factors are the main reasons that cause the pollution of the Mason River.
The argument assumes that use of the river for water sports is therefore sure to increase. However, maybe the number of the people who engage in these sports is a minority of the residents. These water sports will need professionals to teach these residents, or these residents will not be able to learn these water sports by themselves. Maybe the fees of theses water sports courses are so expensive that these residents cannot afford the fees. Maybe the income of these residents has largely decreased because they have just undergone a serious economic recession. Also, it is possible that the number of the people who are interested in these water sports is small, therefore, most of the residents will not be willing to participate these water sports or pay for the fees of these water sports courses. Moreover, it is also likely that these resident may consider that engaging in these water sports are very dangerous, thus, they will not be willing to let their children attend these water sports. Therefore, the author must provide more information about how many people will be willing to do these water sports after the states finish its plan.
A clean river may bring more benefits for local residents and produce a huge amount of profits for the local government. However, the author must still address the above assumptions to strengthen his argument.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 22 15
No. of Words: 473 350
No. of Characters: 2370 1500
No. of Different Words: 193 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.664 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.011 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.39 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 51 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.972 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.682 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.158 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, moreover, so, still, then, therefore, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 21.0 19.6327345309 107% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2437.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 473.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15221987315 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.50067014068 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 198.0 204.123752495 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.418604651163 0.468620217663 89% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 764.1 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.0264796735 57.8364921388 67% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.772727273 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.22727272727 5.70786347227 57% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.231467312186 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0782954598175 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0473734130933 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.114927863476 0.128457276422 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0403688032837 0.0628817314937 64% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.59 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.58 8.32208582834 91% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 98.500998004 88% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.