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 argument advanced by Mason City government is that the love of water sports by the city's residents can be capitalised upon if the under-utilized and unhygenic Mason City river is given strong investment both in improving quality and maintaining riverside recreational activities. This argument rests on a number of unfounded assumptions, the implications of which are onerous, given their weak substantiation.
The first major assumption made by the Mason City government is that residents will want to use the river for swimming boating and fishing. There are two key difficulties with this assumption. The most apparent of these is that the proposed efforts to clean the river will successfully counter the negative impression of the river created by multiple complaints from residents over the years. These complaints undoubtedly formed a broader impression that the river is not fit for human use, let alone recreation. Ergo, improvements in river quality will likely take considerable time to translate to a genuine desire to use the river for water sports. The second assumption is that Mason City residents will not opt to travel outside of Mason City for water recreational activities. This is difficult to support. It is completely plausible that Mason City residents see water sports as a prime objective of any vacation, as such, it is much more tempting to travel elsewhere for much better, and distinctly less urban water recreational locations.
The second critical assumption the city government relies upon in advocated for greater funding for riverside recreational facilities is the belief that upon greater investment the riverside recreational facilities will generate greater usage. A key unstatated assumption of the City's proposal is that this is a predicted turn of events, rather than an proportionate investment to an in demand public service. The state city government is operating off the presumption greater supply will engender greater demand. This logic doesn't hold true. It is false, because there is no actual stated demand. There is evidence given by the City government that suggests this is a need that must be met by public resources. It is merely a belief built on supposition. Following on from this, another key assumption of the Mason City residents is in effect a misinterpretation of their demands. The City government acknowledges that there have been consistent complaints as to water quality. While they do intend to clean it up, they further appropriate resources to developing recreational facilities; this is public money best allocated to river cleanliness. The city government's implicit arguments that concurrent investment should occur in both river upkeep and increasing recreational facilities is a malapropriation of the public's will.
The implications of this argument advanced by the Mason City government are severe. Firstly, the City government will risk significant public finance through the incorrect allocation of funds, which will hinder development of other key areas of City spending, such as healthcare, safety and combatting poverty. Following this, the assumptions of the City government imply that they are unable to adequately interpret the intentions and desires of their citizenry, and instead rely on supposition and prospective demand at the expense of voiced concerns. In extension of this, the reasons advanced to increase investment in recreational facilities demonstrates a capacity to try and infer demand rather than a sober appraisal of the needs, wants and desires of the Mason City residents. Finally, a concerning implication is the failure of the Mason City government to adequately communicate with their residents. At no point is any evidence given that the public's passion for water sports would translate to greater usage of the river if it was cleaned.
This response has discussed the argument by the Mason City government concerning greater investment in riverside recreational facilities. It has critically examined two key assumptions. Firstly, that the residents would use the river in their recreational activities, and secondly, that the belief that greater investment will garner greater demand. These assumptions are largely unsupported, and raise a number of worrying implications. These are that the City misinterprets public demand, that the government cannot appropriately identify need, that government officials are willing to infer rather than evidence opportunities and that they are unwilling or unable to figure out the genuine needs of their residents.
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: 32 15
No. of Words: 704 350
No. of Characters: 3807 1500
No. of Different Words: 287 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.151 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.408 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.064 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 277 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 223 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 178 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 144 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.642 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.312 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.294 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.438 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 351, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...a predicted turn of events, rather than an proportionate investment to an in deman...
^^
Line 5, column 526, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...ill engender greater demand. This logic doesnt hold true. It is false, because there i...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 675, Rule ID: TRY_AND[1]
Message: "Try and" is common in colloquial speech, but "'try to'" is recommended for writing.
Suggestion: try to
...l facilities demonstrates a capacity to try and infer demand rather than a sober apprai...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 956, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'publics'' or 'public's'?
Suggestion: publics'; public's
...no point is any evidence given that the publics passion for water sports would translat...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, firstly, if, second, secondly, so, while, as to, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 35.0 19.6327345309 178% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 23.0 13.6137724551 169% => OK
Pronoun: 54.0 28.8173652695 187% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 86.0 55.5748502994 155% => OK
Nominalization: 45.0 16.3942115768 274% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3879.0 2260.96107784 172% => OK
No of words: 703.0 441.139720559 159% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.51778093883 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.14918898149 4.56307096286 113% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.12237530632 2.78398813304 112% => OK
Unique words: 297.0 204.123752495 145% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.422475106686 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1225.8 705.55239521 174% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 18.0 4.96107784431 363% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 32.0 19.7664670659 162% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 71.1230228196 57.8364921388 123% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.21875 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.96875 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.25 5.70786347227 39% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.35100813416 0.218282227539 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.105121467695 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0925934845865 0.0701772020484 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.2486607686 0.128457276422 194% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0631704694635 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.74 12.5979740519 117% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 173.0 98.500998004 176% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => 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: 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.