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 presented is not convincing. The author fails to highlight several keys factors on the basis of which the conclusion could be evaluated. The author concludes that the government should devote more money to the cleaning up of Mason River based on the survey's evidence that Mason City residents rank water sports among their favorite recreational activities. However, the author fails to consider several factors such as the subset of the people involved in the survey and the reasons why Mason city residents are not using the Mason river for recreational activities. Thereby, resulting a logical gap between the premise and the conclusion.
Firstly, the author readily assumes that the reason Mason city residents are not using the Mason river only due to the quality of river's water and the river's smell. For example, it is possible that Mason City residents do not use the Mason river as it is not feasible maybe because of its size. Thereby, just cleaning the river will not help resolve the situation. Hence, the argument would have been more convincing had it mentioned the feasibility of the usage of the Mason river for recreational purposes.
The argument fails to ackowledge the budget of cleaning the river, a key concept omitted while arriving at the conclusion. Will the city management be able to meet the budget requirements to clean the river? What is the current state of the river? What procedures or techniques have to be adopted in order to clean the river? There is no answers provided to these questions. Thereby, implying the author's conclusion is based on a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
Finally, the data presented also lacks a depth of detail that would help us to evaluate the significance of the study results. How many people were surveyed? What is the margin of error and how was the study conducted? Is the figure statistically significant? If the study represented a large enough survey group to extrapolate to the general population, across regions, industries and jobs responsibilities, then the study results may be conveying something. If, althernatively, few people were surveyed, then perhaps the survey represented a small number of people, well within the statistical variance expected.
The author presents an interesting hypothesis. However, the long litany of unjustified assumptions seriously jeopardises the certainty of the conclusion. Although, if the author explicitly provided information on the subset of people surveyed and the various reasons involved for Mason City residents not using Mason river, it would help tighten the logical gap between the premise and the conclusion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 426 350
No. of Characters: 2195 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.543 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.153 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.763 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 128 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.888 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.417 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.293 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.089 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 151, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...hich the conclusion could be evaluated. The author concludes that the government sh...
^^^
Line 9, column 327, Rule ID: THERE_S_MANY[4]
Message: Did you mean 'There are no answers'?
Suggestion: There are no answers
...be adopted in order to clean the river? There is no answers provided to these questions. Thereby, i...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 398, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... these questions. Thereby, implying the authors conclusion is based on a wishful thinki...
^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 543, Rule ID: SMALL_NUMBER_OF[1]
Message: Specify a number, remove phrase, use 'a few', or use 'some'
Suggestion: a few; some
...ed, then perhaps the survey represented a small number of people, well within the statistical var...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, so, then, well, while, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2258.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.30046948357 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87232640684 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 209.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490610328638 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 709.2 705.55239521 101% => 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: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 61.7641121976 57.8364921388 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 94.0833333333 119.503703932 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.75 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.125 5.70786347227 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.350838416911 0.218282227539 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0859718146659 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.124606470439 0.0701772020484 178% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.199800171202 0.128457276422 156% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.134708157887 0.0628817314937 214% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 45.76 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.16 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.56 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.