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.
While it is possible that the woven baskets were not uniquely Palean, it is by no means certain from the presented argument. The argument makes bold assumptions without taking the bigger picture into consideration.
For instance, the Brim River in ancient times may not have been as deep and broad as it is now. In that case, it cannot be said that ancient Paleans could have only crossed the river via boat. Alternatives to boats such as rafts which are more make-shift could have been a medium of transport across the river hence the implication is rather daunting. There could also have been portions of the river narrow in width allowing villagers to come up with indigenous ways to get across. Finding information about the state of the river in the past is thus crucial to the argument. Moreover, abscence of evidence for the existence of Palean boats does not imply that there were never any boats. Maybe there were boats which got destroyed, or as time flew with the construction of bridges and modern architecture boats were rendered obsolete, making it difficult to trace them. So we also need to know about the technological advancements at the time to make any conclusions.
The argument speaks about discovery of a single basket, which could have gotten to Lithos by any means. Albeit improbable, maybe river currents were favorable and a basket thrown into the river happened to land on the other side, somehow finding it's way to Lithos. We need to know if there are many more such baskets found in Lithos, which would make a stronger case for the argument. It is possible that the woven baskets had ample demand and traders from Palea travelled across villages to sell these. We thus need to know about the economy at the time, as well as the means available for communication.
It is also crucial to know when in history these baskets would have first been discovered in Lithos. If the archaeological excavation dates them to a more recent time, then there could be enough infrastructure by then which would have made commute across the Brim River easier, weakening the argument. On the other hand, if there is evidence that the "Palean" baskets found in Lithos were from around the same time as when they were found in vicinity of Palea, it would support the claim that these baskets were not uniqely Palean.
All these points considered together would provide a complete picture which is needed to evaluate the argument.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 419 350
No. of Characters: 1981 1500
No. of Different Words: 203 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.524 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.728 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.434 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 85 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.053 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.653 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.333 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.532 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.132 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, if, may, moreover, so, then, thus, well, while, for instance, such as, as well as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2050.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 419.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.89260143198 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52432199235 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59503713582 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.494033412888 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 645.3 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.3537680124 57.8364921388 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.894736842 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0526315789 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.31578947368 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.210918087988 0.218282227539 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0676720317631 0.0743258471296 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0542433215757 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107992157895 0.128457276422 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0698977272374 0.0628817314937 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.12 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.