Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author of the argument claims that particular woven baskets that were previously considered to be made only by the Palean people, might actually be originated from other places as well. He supports his argument by claiming that some baskets were found in another village that the Palean people could only reach by crossing the river by boat and that there is no evidence that boats existed in Palea. The statement, however, is not entirely logically convincing as it bases on a number of assumptions.
First of all, the author’s argument is based on the assumption that after all the time that has passed since then, at least some fossils of ever existed boats must have remained. However, one may assume that if boats were made of wood it is possible that all of them were completely destroyed with time. The argument would have been more convincing if the author has provided some evidence that no matter how much time has passed, if the Palean people ever used boats it is necessary that there exists some evidence of this fact.
Secondly, the author assumes that all the territory that was occupied by the Palean people once, has been carefully checked by archeologists. It is equally possible, however, that not enough investigation has been carried out to prove the fact that the Palean people never used boats. Because the author’s statement lacks any evidence that no piece of the land was missed from archeologists’ attention, the conclusion that the author draws seems flawed.
Finally, when describing the river that separated the village of Palea from the village of Lithos, the author uses such words as “very deep and broad” that do not provide enough information on how deep and broad the Brim river actually was. Was it broad enough for the Palean people not to be able to cross it without any boat or other means of transport? Unfortunately, one is not able to answer this question without any specific numbers on the river’s depth and width. If the author has provided such information the argument would have been strengthened.
Thus, the argument is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion does little to prove that the Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean. Ultimately, the argument might have been strengthened by making it clear that there must have remained any evidence of the boats ever existed, that all the territory of the village of Palea was carefully checked and that it was really impossible to get to another village without a boat.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 --not OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- not OK
----------------
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: 16 15
No. of Words: 424 350
No. of Characters: 2032 1500
No. of Different Words: 176 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.538 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.792 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.431 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 98 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.034 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.688 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.372 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.591 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.114 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 488, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...rs on the river's depth and width. If the author has provided such informatio...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, first, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, thus, well, after all, at least, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 25.0 13.6137724551 184% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2117.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 424.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9929245283 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53775939005 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66969360198 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.443396226415 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 666.0 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => 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: 16.0 19.7664670659 81% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.0215426957 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 132.3125 119.503703932 111% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.8125 5.70786347227 137% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => 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: 0.222918246784 0.218282227539 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0779340581398 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0617123134888 0.0701772020484 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1366090598 0.128457276422 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0658256697453 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.96 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.83 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 98.500998004 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.