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 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 firm claims that the client should invest on Consolidated Industries because the demand for heating oil would increase, and presents several reasons that seem to uphold his/her claim. However, the letter is rife with holes and assumptions which needs to be eliminated in order for the firm to maintain his claim with clear warrant. Such flaws would be discussed with further details below.
First of all, the firm reasons that the client should investigate in Consolidated Industries because the climate forecaster predicted that the current abnormal weather pattern would continue for several more years. However, experiencing below-normal temperature for only a year is not enough data to be representative for weather pattern in future years. Because this year's weather had been abnormal, it could go back to being normal in the future, or, maybe the weather would turn out to be abnormally hot next year. If so, then the demand for heating oil would not increase which makes the recommendation of the firm to be premature.
Furthermore, the author of the letter assumes that people in the northeastern United States would still be using heating oil as a major fuel because it is traditional. However, tradition can always change if there is a modernized technology that is much more enticing to people. Especially, there are many alternative energy sources that replace heating oil nowadays, as there are multiple scientific research that concludes that heating oil is lethal to the environment. Maybe people in this region are discerned with preserving the environment and is using solar energy because it has been proven to be much more economical and environment friendly. The firm should not easily assume that the people in northeastern United States would still be using heating oil as a major fuel just because it is conventional.
Last but not least, the firm assumes that due to recent population growth, more homes are being built which would lead to increased demand of heating oil. However, population growth does not always indicate increase in number of families. Maybe more babies have been reproduced and the number of families maintains the current state. There is also a possibility that the increase in home construction is for rich people, who live in different regions and are simply buying multiple homes even though they do not pursue to live in northeastern United States. If these are the cases, then assuming that there would be increased demand in heating oil would be a haste assumption.
To sum up, even though the author of the letter's claim seems plausible and the evidences that are presented seem to uphold his/her claim, through thorough investigation and reading the letter from various points of view, it is confirmed that his/her claim does not have clear warrant. The firm would have to eliminate the mistakes of making haste assumptions and using unrepresentative data.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 477 350
No. of Characters: 2399 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.673 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.029 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.677 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.105 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.124 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.334 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.334 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, still, then, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 33.0 19.6327345309 168% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 16.3942115768 61% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2447.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16244725738 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73242589246 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 204.123752495 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.464135021097 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 749.7 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.2502064553 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.789473684 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.9473684211 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.68421052632 5.70786347227 82% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
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: 0.257531907718 0.218282227539 118% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0901544667619 0.0743258471296 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0722428017648 0.0701772020484 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144267367633 0.128457276422 112% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0509357637269 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.3 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.32 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.