The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper.
"Throughout the country last year, as more and more children below the age of nine participated in youth-league sports, over 40,000 of these young players suffered injuries. When interviewed for a recent study, youth-league soccer players in several major cities also reported psychological pressure exerted by coaches and parents to win games. Furthermore, education experts say that long practice sessions for these sports take away time that could be used for academic activities. Since the disadvantages outweigh any advantages, we in Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument stated above is faulty for numerous reasons. Essentially, the author rests the argument on foundationless assumptions that the study has adequate evidence and outside factors do not play a role in perceived outcomes. Concluding that Parkville should discontinue athletic competitions for children under nine based on the prior stated assumptions is unreasonable.
Firstly, the author fails to provide evidence to support data collected by the study. To start, it is not mentioned how the study that the letter refers to, was conducted. In self-reporting surveys the interviewee tends to be untruthful and not completely fixed on an answer. If this specific study also used the method of self-reporting without additional research conducted, it could render the study unreliable. On the other hand, if the letter presented information that demonstrated that the study was handled through the observation of researchers and not self-declaration of children, then the argument would deem to be more plausible. In either case, it cannot be guaranteed that personal biases of the researchers were not reflected in their results.
Additionally, the arguer neglects to address other issues presented. Imagine, the study in the argument indeed is an observational study and is unbiased, it is still illogical to discontinue athletics for children. The author continues to speculate that other aspects of the environment are not influencing the decreased time dedicated to schoolwork. For example, it may be that children have plenty of time after school and their extracurricular physical activities to focus on academics, but they might choose to play on their gaming consoles like the play station instead. If this were the case, the argument would be unjustified because children would be favoring other activities instead of academic-related activities. However, if the argument shed light on data that proved children did not have enough time after physical activities to complete academics, the argument would hold more validity. But even so, it cannot be stated with complete confidence that children would complete and take part in academic activities if they had the time.
Lastly, the argument is built upon undescriptive statements. The letter states “…over 40,000 of these young players suffered injuries.” Although, the author does not entail the total population that is being considered. There is a possibility that 40,000 children out of a total of 1,000,000 reported being injured. This would hold less value than if there were only 50,000 players in a sample size. Because it is not subsumed in the letter there is no way to be sure of the population the author is mentioning. Had the author shed light and confirmed that the same size was 40,000, the argument would still lack how these specific injuries were obtained, further undermining the argument.
As a result of the various unwarranted presumptions made by the argument, the author is unsuccessful in compiling a compelling case that Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 483 350
No. of Characters: 2565 1500
No. of Different Words: 236 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.688 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.311 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.977 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 149 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 123 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.125 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.849 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.291 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.485 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.058 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 137, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Although” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...these young players suffered injuries.” Although, the author does not entail the total p...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 401, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Because” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...e only 50,000 players in a sample size. Because it is not subsumed in the letter there ...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, lastly, may, so, still, then, even so, for example, as a result, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2640.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 483.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.46583850932 5.12650576532 107% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68799114503 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.07396457628 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 241.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.498964803313 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 810.0 705.55239521 115% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 49.9390176319 57.8364921388 86% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.782608696 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.30434782609 5.70786347227 93% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.129402449483 0.218282227539 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0385649064776 0.0743258471296 52% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0500149029254 0.0701772020484 71% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0738104042319 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0523226055849 0.0628817314937 83% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.45 12.5979740519 115% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.93 8.32208582834 107% => OK
difficult_words: 130.0 98.500998004 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.