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 use of the city’s river to practice water sports is a widely debated topic. On one hand, people dictate that it is important to incentive this practice because the river is a public place and everyone should be able to use it. Another school of thought supports the idea of this type of activities should be done in a controled space, with lifeguards available to help anytime. The main river should be used only to economic purposes, such as transport and water supply. In the preceding statement, the author contends that if the city government cleans the Mason River, surely the practice of water sports will increase. Though his claim may have some merit, the article presents a poorly reasoned argument, based on several questionable premises and assumptions. Regarding solely on the shreds of evidence provided by the author, we cannot accept his argumentation as valid. Hence, his conclusion is weak and unconvincing, endowed with substantial flaws.
The primary issue with the author’s reasoning lies in his unsubstantiated premises. The passage cites the survey of Mason City residents as that basis of the discussion that people ranks water sports among their favorite recreational activities. Conversely, the scope and validity of the study is uncertain. The author does not provide any indication as to the real reasons for which the survey was conducted. For example, he could have asked if people prefer to do water sports or skydiving. In other words, the article does not provide any indication of the recreational activities that were among the citizen’s choice. Moreover, the sample may not have been representative of the residents, asking only to people that already practice water sports or people that live close to the Manson River. Unless the survey encompasses a significant portion of the inhabitants, it cannot be used to effectively support the statement. Therefore, the author’s premises lack a legitimate evidence and thereby render his conclusion unacceptable.
In addition, the author makes various assumptions that remain unproven. The text states that the reason for which the residents do not practice water sport is the bad quality and smell of the Mason River based on the resident’s complaints. However, it is impossible to verify the real state of the river. These complaints could be made by only few residents living next to wastepipes and, in reality, the general quality of the water is good for its use in water sports. Consequently, the author weakens his argument making the above assumptions and fails to provide an explanation of the links between water sports and the quality of the river’s water he assumes exists.
While the article has key issues in the premises and assumptions, it is erroneous to dictate that the entire argument is without a base. It is a common sense that people prefer to make their activities in a clean space but there are a lot of evidences that remain unclear on the article. For instance, the author could have made an study specifically to evaluate the Mason River quality or even to create a new survey based only in his suggestion, evaluating if in fact a cleaner river will attract people to practice water sports. Though there are several problems with the author’s reasoning at present, with research and clarification, the article could be improved significantly.
In sum, the author’s unreasoned arguments are based on unsupported premises and baseless assumptions, that contributes to an false conclusion. The author should revisit the research and analysis done for the Mason City river and refine his suggestions. If the author truly hopes to change the city government’s mind, he would have to largely restructure his arguments, fix the gaps in his logic, clearly elucidate his assumptions and provide further evidentiary support. Without these, his inadequately reasoned article is unlikely to convince many people.
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: 30 15
No. of Words: 634 350
No. of Characters: 3211 1500
No. of Different Words: 288 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.018 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.065 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.741 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 243 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 174 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 123 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 78 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.133 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.924 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.293 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.453 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 330, 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
...or instance, the author could have made an study specifically to evaluate the Maso...
^^
Line 9, column 128, 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
...seless assumptions, that contributes to an false conclusion. The author should rev...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, conversely, hence, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, so, therefore, while, as to, for example, for instance, in addition, in fact, such as, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 42.0 28.8173652695 146% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 74.0 55.5748502994 133% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3331.0 2260.96107784 147% => OK
No of words: 634.0 441.139720559 144% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.25394321767 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.01790360848 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98418086078 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 299.0 204.123752495 146% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.471608832808 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 1071.0 705.55239521 152% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 19.0 8.76447105788 217% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 10.0 4.22255489022 237% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 30.0 19.7664670659 152% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.6060546663 57.8364921388 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.033333333 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1333333333 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.93333333333 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.234133802527 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0691765640802 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0937888996318 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.143908088059 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0499069734395 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.9 14.3799401198 97% => 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: 13.17 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.66 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 160.0 98.500998004 162% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.