Sea Otters decline

Essay topics:

Sea Otters decline

The reading and the lecture are both about sea otter decline. Sea otters are small mammals that live along the West Coast of North America from California to Alaska, playing an important role in the ecosystem.

Initially, after the rapid decline of sea otters last year in Alaska, experts began to investigate the possible reasons and came out with two hypotheses: environmental pollution and predator attack. Experts believed that water pollution was likely to be the cause of sea otter decline because of the source of pollution in Alaska, and the increased levels of chemicals that showed up in the samples. Consequently, whatever was affecting the otters was affecting the other sea mammals. Additionally, environmental pollution usually affects the entire ecosystem, not only one species. More specifically it weakens their immune system, causing their deaths. However, the professor doubts that water pollution is causing the decline of the sea otter population. Since, if otters were being killed by pollution they would be found dead on the shore. On the other hand, if predators kill an otter, then it is eaten right away and since the otters are seldom found, which supports the predator hypothesis.

Secondly, the scientists from the reading believed that the predator that causes the same decrease of otters is orcas although they usually hunt larger prey. Whereas, the professor mentioned that orcas prefer to hunt whales but whales have been decreased by human hunters. Since the otter and seals are smaller sea animals available in the area, orcas probably started haunting those more and created a decline.

Finally, the reading claims that the pollution hypothesis explained the uneven pattern of otter decline. Also, the scientists highlight that other species in Alaska remained stable but this is due to the ocean current, or other environmental factors. This might have created uneven pollution concentration along the coast. Leading the decrease of otters.

Votes
Average: 7.8 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, finally, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, whereas, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 5.04856512141 40% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 7.30242825607 137% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 18.0 22.412803532 80% => OK
Preposition: 36.0 30.3222958057 119% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 5.01324503311 199% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1675.0 1373.03311258 122% => OK
No of words: 313.0 270.72406181 116% => OK
Chars per words: 5.35143769968 5.08290768461 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20616286096 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60824221587 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 173.0 145.348785872 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.552715654952 0.540411800872 102% => OK
syllable_count: 520.2 419.366225166 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 3.25607064018 31% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.23620309051 73% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 1.25165562914 320% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 21.2450331126 85% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 46.0403012866 49.2860985944 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.5294117647 110.228320801 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.4117647059 21.698381199 85% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.94117647059 7.06452816374 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.27373068433 164% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.404462294583 0.272083759551 149% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.130122371397 0.0996497079465 131% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.124683989454 0.0662205650399 188% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.217207942807 0.162205337803 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.132772579184 0.0443174109184 300% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 13.3589403974 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 53.8541721854 83% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.2367328918 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.92 8.42419426049 106% => OK
difficult_words: 87.0 63.6247240618 137% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 10.7273730684 135% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 10.498013245 88% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 78.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.5 Out of 30
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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.