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 state has finally responded to the incessant complaints of Mason city residents regarding the quality of the water and the bad smell emanating from the Mason River as they announce plans to clean up the river. Citing the above and the results of surveys depicting water sports as people's favorite recreational activities, it is argued that the city government must invest more money in order to facilitate riverside recreational activities. While the argument is noble, it is filled with loopholes and rests on questionable assumptions.
In a survey, water sports comes out as the favorite recreational activities of the people of Mason city. However, the reliability of the survey remains questionable. The argument does not provide information about the number of people who participated in it or whether it covered all age groups across all localities. The investment from city government would require the survey to be representative of the public opinion. Accepting an undue survey would lead to wastage of government funds as well as potentially disrupt other functions due to a skewed budget.
Even if the survey were to be accepted, does this mean that the people would make use of the facilities? Perhaps their jobs take out a lot of time out of their schedule, rendering it impossible for them to enjoy water sports. It would be unwise to expect old aged people to use the facility. A survey aimed at gathering occupational and age related information would suffice. If the assumption that people would pursue riverside recreational activities with enthusiasm turns out to be unwarranted, money invested would be tantamount to money wasted.
In addition, the argument assumes that cleaning up the river would undeniably pave way for riverside recreational activities. However, it would largely depend on the scale and scope of cleaning up task. It might not free the river from deleterious materials completely, hence, human activities might still be unadvised. Moreover, a deeper knowledge of topography and characteristics of river would be required. Rocky beds might render the river unfit for such activities. Depth, slope of the river and average speed of river currents must be studied to ensure safety. An unjustified assumption might pose a threat to people's lives. This concern must be paramount.
In sum, it is laudable that the state is planning to cleanse the Mason river but a government investment to enable riverside water sports is not justifiable due to faulty assumptions. Conducting proper surveys to know people's interest and their propensity to enjoy water sports aimed at every region of the city must be carried out. Topographical study of the river as well as the efficacy of the cleaning up task must also be taken into account to steer towards an intelligent decision.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2315 1500
No. of Different Words: 225 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.088 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.854 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 161 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 94 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.958 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.039 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.501 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, hence, however, if, moreover, regarding, so, still, thus, well, while, in addition, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 67.0 55.5748502994 121% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2366.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93243976832 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 226.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496703296703 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 752.4 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 49.1607164479 57.8364921388 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.5833333333 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9583333333 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.75 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.233644032184 0.218282227539 107% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0683512270598 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.068356136981 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.151701726698 0.128457276422 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0754123374075 0.0628817314937 120% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.