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 argument that is being made by the author is that, since the woven baskets with a particular distinctive pattern was thought to be unique to the prehistoric village of Palea, and since the same distinctive patten was found in another village Lithos across the Brim River, whose depth and breadth would prevent the crossing of the Lithos people to get the basket in the absence of boats would suggest that the Lithos people had also produced the same pattern of basket. This redundancy in the pattern, the author argues, shows that the Palean basket is not unique. This argument proposed by the author makes a lot of underlying assumptions, which without sufficient evidence or substantiation would severely weaken the conclusion.
Firstly, it has been argued that the Palean basket could not be transported to the ancient LIthos villages because of the depth of the river Brim, which would make it impossible to cross on foot. But here, the underlying assumption is that the river has always been that deep and wide. This might not have been the case since climate itself is very volatile across thousands of years, and it might be the case that during that period, due to higher temperature or other contributing factors. the river was not too deep, and people were able to cross by foot. To exemplify on a shorter time scale, it is clear that several rivers that flow through the Savannah get almost completely dried up during the summers, and would be very deep and full of water during the monsoon.
Moreover, the author assumes that the lack of availability of boats from those times indicates an absence of boats altogether at that period. Again, this might not be the case at all as it is possible that the boats, due to wearing and tearing from the climatic fluctuations, coupled with an inordinate amount of time, has completely decomposed the boats, or only left behind vestiges that can no longer be identified to have once belonged to a boat. In failing to consider this possibility, the argument made by the author is further weakened.
Secondly, it is assumed that the people of Lithos have themselves weaved the basket and fails to consider the possibility of the basket to have been traded for some other goods. This would hold true is commuting between the villages was indeed possible so that such an exchange is also feasible. This again makes weakens the conclusion reached by the author on the basis of the assumption that the basket in Lithos was made by the Lithos people.
Thirdly, although it is mentioned that the two villages are in proximity, on either side of the river Brim, the exact proximity has not been mentioned. If the two villages were very close, it might suggest that it was at some point of time just one village. The division might have happened due to some family members preferring one side compared to another while the river was not too deep, and slowly when the depth of the river increased to a great extend, the families got isolated from each other.
In conclusion, it is clear that the argument being put forward by the author has not been substantiated with sufficient evidence. In addition, the underlying assumptions made by the author has no supporting evidence, and the lack of which severely weakens the final conclusion derived. In order to truly convince the validity of the claim, the author has to furnish the missing information outlined earlier, and sustantiate each and every assumption being made.
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: 593 350
No. of Characters: 2816 1500
No. of Different Words: 245 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.935 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.749 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.465 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 89 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 31.211 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 16.162 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.579 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.603 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 493, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...perature or other contributing factors. the river was not too deep, and people were...
^^^
Line 21, column 287, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...y weakens the final conclusion derived. In order to truly convince the validity of...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, third, thirdly, while, as to, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 38.0 19.6327345309 194% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 26.0 13.6137724551 191% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 83.0 55.5748502994 149% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2899.0 2260.96107784 128% => OK
No of words: 593.0 441.139720559 134% => OK
Chars per words: 4.88870151771 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.93473315629 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53822669328 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.440134907251 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 894.6 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 89.1666417445 57.8364921388 154% => OK
Chars per sentence: 144.95 119.503703932 121% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.65 23.324526521 127% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.95 5.70786347227 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => 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: 0.192678055493 0.218282227539 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0569067202182 0.0743258471296 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.048064931819 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.096899664716 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0435844604288 0.0628817314937 69% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.5 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.67 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.38 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 27.0 12.3882235529 218% => Linsear_write_formula is high.
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.