The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client.
"Homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last year that region experienced twenty days with below-average temperatures, and local weather forecasters throughout the region predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes have been built in this region during the past year. Because of these developments, 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 specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
The author assumes that due to the decreasing temperature within 20 days, the demand for heating oil will increase; And then, the author calls for people to invest in Consolidated Industries. However, since the author lacks many pieces of evidence to support the series of predictions, the series of predictions are unwarranted.
To begin with, the author relies on prediction by the weather forecasters to suggests that the temperature will decrease for more than 20 years. However, lacking evidence to support the prediction, the previous reports do not mention the exact temperature decreased within 20 days, average temperature, and other possible factors that will increase temperature. Specifically, the temperature might only decrease 1 degree Celsius from the average temperature of 23 degrees Celsius. And the temperature decreasing 1 degree Celsius might be balanced by global warming in the future. As a result, the prediction of the pattern that temperature will decrease more than 20 years is unwarranted.
Further, the editor’s prediction depends on the assumption that no factors other than many new homes will cause the demand for heating oil. However, this prediction does not include cogent evidence that can preclude some possible factors undermining the prediction; A myriad of other factors, including the empty homes or the alternative energy, might be the cause of the result that the demand is not increasing in the future. To be specific, the home price is so expensive that few people are affordable, and then the empty homes make the demand for heating oil not increasing. And the alternative energy development will serve to undermine the demand for heating oil. Without ruling out these and other possible causes, the editor cannot justifiably conclude that only by many news homes can increase the demand for heating oil.
Finally, even though the demand for heating oil will increase in the future, the editor’s recommendation relies on the assumption that no factors other than increasing demand for heating oil will cause the profit of Consolidated Industries. However, the evidence that can support the recommendation is lacking; A lot of other possible factors, such as competitors, might be the cause of the result that Consolidated Industries cannot profit as possible as the argument predicts. To be specific, because many companies are excellent in such demand for heating oil, Consolidated Industries cannot earn money. Thus, the recommendation calling for people to invest in Consolidated Industries is unreasonable.
To sum up, the author lacks many pieces of evidence that can support the series of predictions; If the pieces of evidence prove that no other factors will cause increasing temperature, no other factors will result in not increasing in demand for heating oil, and no other factors will make Consolidated Industries’ profit not increasing, the predictions will be more reasonable.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 460 350
No. of Characters: 2422 1500
No. of Different Words: 153 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.631 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.265 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.863 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 194 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.059 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.211 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.399 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.632 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.16 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, however, if, so, then, thus, such as, as a result, to begin with, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 23.0 12.9520958084 178% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 16.0 28.8173652695 56% => OK
Preposition: 46.0 55.5748502994 83% => OK
Nominalization: 20.0 16.3942115768 122% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2496.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 460.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.42608695652 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6311565067 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98531376888 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.367391304348 0.468620217663 78% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 776.7 705.55239521 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 18.0 8.76447105788 205% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.0800434436 57.8364921388 132% => OK
Chars per sentence: 146.823529412 119.503703932 123% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0588235294 23.324526521 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.94117647059 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.104585065533 0.218282227539 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0506046466183 0.0743258471296 68% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0415681150081 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0690879899907 0.128457276422 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0379026351665 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.7 14.3799401198 123% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.51 12.5979740519 115% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.1 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.