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 following argument is flawed due to a number of reasons. The non-discovery of boats at Palea village should not be the main factor to rule out whether the Palean basket was unique to the Palea civilization or not.
First and foremost, the argument very vaguely describes that woven baskets with a “distinctive pattern” can only be associated to Palean civilization. However, there is no further information on what is this distinctive pattern that is being referred here. Is it the craftsmanship, or the shape, the material, the geometric patterns or life-like drawings that would set apart the woven baskets and associate them to Palean civilization? Thus, the argument would have been further strengthen had there been a clear specification on the exact pattern that sets apart the Palean woven baskets than any other woven baskets found in other civilization such as Indus, Mohenjo Daro etc.
Further to the above, the argument also fails to mention the exact measure of the total distance that might comprise the “immediate vicinity” of the Palea village. Is the writer considering a vicinity of 5000m or 10000m? It can be any number! There aren’t enough information to assess how far is Lithos village and the Brim river from Palea. If there is no measure of the distance that constitutes the vicinity of the Palean village, then it cannot be independently assessed whether Lithos is outside of the vicinity of Palea, such that the discovery of Palean woven basket in Lithos renders the baskets off its exclusivity to the Palean civilization. Therefore, a clear articulation of the measure of the vicinity of the Palean village would have helped to assess properly whether Lithos is actually outside of the vicinity of Palean village or not.
Lastly, the argument posits that Palean would not have been able to cross the Brim River since no boats were. However, if one thinks critically, a boat is not the only vehicle by which one may cross a river. The Paleans may have successfully built a bridge that would have allowed them to cross the river over foot. The bridge may not have been excavated yet by the archaeologists. Moreover, it is assumed that the depth and breadth of the Brim river prevented the Paleans to cross it. However, there is no information on exactly how deep and broad the river is to pose as a hindrance for the Paleans. Had the argument used additional factors such as weather conditions and measure of tides as preventing factors, it would have been much more stronger.
Because the argument makes several unwarranted assumptions, it fails to make a convincing case that since Palean woven baskets were found in Lithos, they are no more explicit to the Palean civilization
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 456 350
No. of Characters: 2207 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.621 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.84 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.657 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.539 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.548 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 81, 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
...guely describes that woven baskets with a 'distinctive pattern' can onl...
^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...ion such as Indus, Mohenjo Daro etc. Further to the above, the argument also fails t...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 33, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...not. Lastly, the argument posits that Palean would not have been able to cross...
^^
Line 7, column 740, Rule ID: MOST_COMPARATIVE[2]
Message: Use only 'stronger' (without 'more') when you use the comparative.
Suggestion: stronger
...enting factors, it would have been much more stronger. Because the argument makes several ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, lastly, may, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, in fact, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2292.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 455.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03736263736 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61852021839 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87428836953 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446153846154 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 731.7 705.55239521 104% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => 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: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.0964613501 57.8364921388 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 120.631578947 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.9473684211 23.324526521 103% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.36842105263 5.70786347227 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.323752763348 0.218282227539 148% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0987451420405 0.0743258471296 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.056436671795 0.0701772020484 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.166282475823 0.128457276422 129% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0609485683939 0.0628817314937 97% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.25 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.18 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.