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 littl

Essay topics:

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.

Citing surveys of city residents, the author reports city resident's love of water sports. It is not clear, however, the scope and validity of that survey. For example, the survey could have asked resi-dents if they prefer using the river for water sports or would like to see a hydroelectric dam built, which may have swayed residents toward river sports. The sample may not have been representative of city residents, asking only those residents who live upon the river. The survey may have been 10 pages long, with 2 questions dedicated to river sports. We just do not know. Un-less the survey is fully representative, valid, and reliable, it can not be used to effectively back the author's argument.

Additionally, the author implies that residents do not use the river for swimming, boating, and fish-ing, despite their professed interest, because the water is polluted and smelly. While a polluted, smelly river would likely cut down on river sports, a concrete connection between the resident's lack of river use and the river's current state is not effectively made. Though there have been complaints, we do not know if there have been numerous complaints from a wide range of people, or perhaps from one or two individuals who made numerous complaints. To strengthen his/her argument, the author would benefit from implementing a normed survey asking a wide range of residents why they do not currently use the river.

Building upon the implication that residents do not use the river due to the quality of the river's wa-ter and the smell, the author suggests that a river clean up will result in increased river usage. If the river's water quality and smell result from problems which can be cleaned, this may be true. For ex-ample, if the decreased water quality and aroma is caused by pollution by factories along the river, this conceivably could be remedied. But if the quality and aroma results from the natural mineral deposits in the water or surrounding rock, this may not be true. There are some bodies of water which emit a strong smell of sulphur due to the geography of the area. This is not something likely to be afffected by a clean-up. Consequently, a river clean up may have no impact upon river usage. Regardless of whether the river's quality is able to be improved or not, the author does not ef-fectively show a connection between water quality and river usage.

A clean, beautiful, safe river often adds to a city's property values, leads to increased tourism and revenue from those who come to take advantage of the river, and a better overall quality of life for residents. For these reasons, city government may decide to invest in improving riverside recreation-al facilities. However, this author's argument is not likely significantly persuade the city goverment to allocate increased funding.

Votes
Average: 4.2 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 686, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...can not be used to effectively back the authors argument. Additionally, the author imp...
^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, however, if, may, so, then, while, for example

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2357.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 473.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.98308668076 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69737119453 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.477801268499 0.468620217663 102% => OK
syllable_count: 747.0 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.1101820605 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.136363636 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.95454545455 5.70786347227 52% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.233273047749 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0800682090865 0.0743258471296 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0618132715324 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.161635519727 0.128457276422 126% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0530903414965 0.0628817314937 84% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => 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: 11.6 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.55 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.

Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 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: 474 350
No. of Characters: 2302 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.666 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.857 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.61 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.545 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.753 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.545 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.345 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.503 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.147 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5