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 writer argues that residents of Mason City wish to use the river for waterside activities and concludes that the government should therefore pump more revenue into establishing these facilities, however, the writer places all his arguments with a egregious inadequacy in terms of factual evidence. For instance he argues that the fact residents of Mason City rank water sports highly means they would actually participate in these events. There is no proof that the residents would indulge in such activities as the survey reports they enjoy it as opposed to if they would actually participate in it. If the government should increase its budger for riverside activities without proof of if they would be used these facilities would only deteriorate and waste away.
The writer goes on to argue that in a case where an increase in government funding for these riverside activities is actually given a greenlight that the use of the Mason River is sure to increase. Objectively the statement alone is a mere assumption due to fact that mason city residents highly rank the sports and it doesn't account for the question if the residents of the city even live close enough to the river for the use of it to increase. If the writer gave factual proof that supports his stament in terms of increase of usage of the river the argument would hold still but it lacks this and thus can be regarded as a fallacy.
The ongoing yearly complaint about the river's odour and the quality of its water doesn't state how many complaints have been registered and the frequency or time period to which these complaints are being registered. The odour and water quality might be a natural process that occurs at specific times of the year due to an icrease in inflow of sea water or for the fact that there might be an industrial plant along the riverside whose waste seeps into the river. Increasing the money spent on the river without addressing this fundamental problem would only result in a wastage of the governments money.
Lastly, the writer implies that the government is reluctant to maintain the these facilities and in doing so invlidates his argument of an increase in budget as this doesn't say if these improved facilities would be maintained properly. Thus, if these assumptions can't be addressed and factual evidence rovided the government owuld be wasting a portion of its budget in providing or improving facilities that have no ceratinty of their usage.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 12 15
No. of Words: 420 350
No. of Characters: 2023 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.527 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.817 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.601 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.475 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.398 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.64 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.149 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 250, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...he writer places all his arguments with a egregious inadequacy in terms of factua...
^
Line 5, column 320, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...residents highly rank the sports and it doesnt account for the question if the residen...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 40, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'rivers'' or 'river's'?
Suggestion: rivers'; river's
... The ongoing yearly complaint about the rivers odour and the quality of its water does...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 82, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...vers odour and the quality of its water doesnt state how many complaints have been reg...
^^^^^^
Line 9, column 587, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'governments'' or 'government's'?
Suggestion: governments'; government's
...m would only result in a wastage of the governments money. Lastly, the writer implies ...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 167, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...gument of an increase in budget as this doesnt say if these improved facilities would ...
^^^^^^
Line 13, column 264, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...ed properly. Thus, if these assumptions cant be addressed and factual evidence rovid...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, however, if, lastly, so, still, therefore, thus, for instance
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 49.0 55.5748502994 88% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2054.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 417.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92565947242 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5189133491 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62036033101 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 192.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.460431654676 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 652.5 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 34.0 22.8473053892 149% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 46.7430178981 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 171.166666667 119.503703932 143% => OK
Words per sentence: 34.75 23.324526521 149% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.33333333333 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.223618848551 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.096176690437 0.0743258471296 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0945946517309 0.0701772020484 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141193307002 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.089624425971 0.0628817314937 143% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 19.2 14.3799401198 134% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.97 48.3550499002 76% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.6 12.197005988 136% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.91 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.96 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.0 12.3882235529 153% => OK
gunning_fog: 15.6 11.1389221557 140% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.