The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice for a client."Most homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last heating season that

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The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice for a client.

"Most homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last heating season that region experienced 90 days with below-normal temperatures, and climate forecasters predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes are being built in the region in response to recent population growth. Because of these trends, we predict an increased demand for heating oil and recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

The author suggests that an investment be made in Consolidated Industries whose major business operation is the retail sale of home heating oil. He suggests so, due to the trending changes. Although the argument seems convincing at a first glance, the author fails to address many questions which might weaken the argument.

Firstly, the author assumes that people would need heat to survive through the winters during which the temperatures are below average. But, are the temperatures low enough that people would adopt heating methods? Maybe over the years people might have become accustomed to their environment and a little decrease in temperatures is bearable by them. Thus investment into Consolidated Industries might be unnecessary.

Secondly, author says that many new homes would be coming up and hence there be an increase in oil demand. But the author fails to provide us with proper statistics which would reflect by how much percentage or by what rate, the number of houses would increase. If the numbers aren't high then there wouldn't be a need to invest extra money for oil as the present amount of oil inthe city might be sufficient to satisfy the needs of the upcoming homes.

Furthermore, author fails to tell us if all the houses in Northeastern Unites States would be using oil as their major fuel for heating purposes. There might be only a few families which have been traditionally using oil. And many of them might be adopting other techniques for heating their houses. Author also fails to tell us about the oil rates in their area. If the oil rates are high, then people would prefer other fuel other than oil for heating their homes, as they might not be able to afford the high cost oil. They might be using wood instead of oil, as wood is cheap for them and available easily.

The author has failed to answer if the Consolidated Industries could keep providing oil to satisfy the ever increasing number of homes and their demand for oil. The amount of oil might start depleting and thus the industry might not afford to provide oil due to scarcity. Then in such cases investment into such companies might be useful for a short period of time and then the increasing demand for oil won't be met.

Thus, the author could strengthen his argument by addressing the above questions and can decide if such investment would be necessary.

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Comments

flaws:
Argument 1 -- Not OK. Need to talk about the 'weather pattern'

Argument 2 -- not OK

Argument 3 -- OK

Argument 4 -- Not OK. It is not 'whether the company could keep providing oil', but 'whether the company can get increased profits'

correct arguments:

1. The argument essentially relies on a prediction that the cold weather pattern will continue

2. Even if we assume that the prediction on the climate pattern is trustworthy, the predicted rise in heating oil demand still needs further substantiation.

3. Granted that the oil demand will increase, it still remains unclear whether Consolidated could consequently enjoy a significant profit gain.

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 1923 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.713 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.451 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 122 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 77 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 55 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.592 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.346 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.593 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.163 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5