In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fishing) among their favourite 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.
In the argument given, Mason City plans to invest an amount of money for cleaning their water bodies as a sure way of increasing the use of the water bodies for recreational facilities. The author assumes that the quality of the water body was not of the best due to the little budget apportioned for the maintenance of the water bodies and also assumes people stopped patronizing in water sports because of lack of maintenance.
First of all, the statistics that the residents of Mason City enjoy water sports was not credible, as the source of the research was not stated. It could have been by somebody’s observation which may not have been objective enough or it could be a research carried in some parts of the city which is not a direct representation of the whole city. It could also be it was a passing interest that seemed like a trend. The people might have interest in other sports better than water sports which reduces the likelihood of the increase in patronage.
Also, as time goes on, the interest of certain groups of people may change. An important factor is the weather. If it happens the budget is increased to ensure quality of the water bodies in say November through to February where the weather is cold, it would be a waste of money - nobody will set foot there. Other factors can be taken note; for instance, the number of youth in the city declined or the number of children declined or perhaps again the adults engage in different activities because of busy schedules. All these affect the rate at which such a facility will be used. Perhaps another survey should be conducted to find out the recreational activity the residents will enjoy first to be sure they still have interest in water sports.
Additionally, it is stated that complaints come from the residents about the poor quality of the water and the smell. It is possible the money for maintaining will not have to increase. It may be that the people in charge do not carry out their duties well and that resulted in the poor quality water bodies. That could also have resulted because people patronized it less often and so they did not see the need to keep maintaining it. The state can make sure the right care is being given even with the little money before investing more into it to make sure the increase is really needed.
The argument seems cogent but when thought about critically, there are a lot of things to be dealt with before the assurance of the increase in patronage can be firm. This includes the bases on statistics of the interest of the residents. Not to talk of the weather at the particular point in time, the cause of the decline in the quality of water, and the alternative for solving the issue.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 484 350
No. of Characters: 2190 1500
No. of Different Words: 219 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.69 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.525 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.407 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 140 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 91 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.801 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.076 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 281, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... is cold, it would be a waste of money - nobody will set foot there. Other factor...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, really, so, still, well, for instance, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2240.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 484.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 4.62809917355 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69041575982 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.49906433761 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.464876033058 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 715.5 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.2441997009 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 112.0 119.503703932 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.2 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.9 5.70786347227 68% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.20758483034 146% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.165165313111 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0490619335633 0.0743258471296 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0606438099952 0.0701772020484 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0956421488847 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0599922192826 0.0628817314937 95% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.87 12.5979740519 78% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.37 8.32208582834 89% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 98.500998004 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.