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 makes several unstated assumptions and hence, is not well reasoned. While it may be true that “Palean” basket was not uniquely Palean, this author's unsubstantiated argument utterly fails to weave a cogent case to prove it.
The author makes a crucial error in logic when it assumes that the two villages, Palea and Lithos. were always separated by the Brim river. Rivers are known to change course, sometimes by several miles. Hence, it is quite possible that at some point in history, the two villages were not separated by the Brim river. And the people of Lithos would have learnt the art from Paleans.
Also troubling is the author's argument is his assumption that people of Lithos could not have travelled to Palea and learned the art. Even if we assume that the two villages were always separated by the river, one must look for shreds of evidence of boats of Lithos in the village of Palea. Only then it can be concluded that people from either village did not travel to the other village using boats.
Another unstated assumption the argument makes is that the mere presence of basket at a place also proves that the skill to weave them was present there. These baskets could have been traded by Palean with other villages and Lithos could be one of them. In that case, the baskets could be present in other nearby prehistoric villages. A deeper enquiry is warranted to delineate the process of weaving these baskets. Such as, whether there a workshop or a commonplace where Paleans used to weave the basket. Or what were the ingredients of the basket and are they present in Palea in other forms.
To conclude, the author makes many unaddressed assumptions that seriously undermine its validity. Unless these underlying assumptions are addressed, the argument falls apart, the conclusion that Palean baskets are not unique to Palea could be flawed.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 319 350
No. of Characters: 1518 1500
No. of Different Words: 157 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.226 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.759 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.386 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 106 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 70 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 46 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 24 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.765 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.976 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.471 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.567 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.108 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 100, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Were
...hat the two villages, Palea and Lithos. were always separated by the Brim river. Riv...
^^^^
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: Also,
...ld have learnt the art from Paleans. Also troubling is the authors argument is hi...
^^^^
Line 5, column 23, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
... from Paleans. Also troubling is the authors argument is his assumption that people ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, hence, if, look, may, so, then, well, while, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1568.0 2260.96107784 69% => OK
No of words: 319.0 441.139720559 72% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.91536050157 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.22617688928 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46429281236 2.78398813304 89% => OK
Unique words: 164.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.514106583072 0.468620217663 110% => OK
syllable_count: 495.0 705.55239521 70% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 34.1670280017 57.8364921388 59% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 87.1111111111 119.503703932 73% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.7222222222 23.324526521 76% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.22222222222 5.70786347227 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 0.0 8.20758483034 0% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.19052628251 0.218282227539 87% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0595211924489 0.0743258471296 80% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.047038033276 0.0701772020484 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0999080169899 0.128457276422 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0481842707428 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.6 14.3799401198 74% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.96 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.14 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 74.0 98.500998004 75% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.