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 letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper makes an argument to discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine. He provides support in the form of young players suffering from injuries, psychological pressure and loss of time from studies, because of participation in these sports. However, for the argument to be sound, there is a need to critically analyze the various assumptions of its premises.
Firstly, there is assumption that participation in the sports is injurious as young students who were injured in the sports increase as more and more students participated in youth-league sports last year. But, there is an apparent lack of proper quantification of data. It may be that 40,000 was mere 10% of total 4 lakh students who participated last year as compared to 30,000 which was 30% of total 1 lakh students who participated a year before. Thus, assumption of sports being injury prone becomes unwarranted as safety record might have actually improved over the years.
Secondly, there is assumption the time saved from participating in sporting activities will be used for academics. Without any proper survey the assumption may be dubious at best. It may be that time that is saved may used for other frivolous activities like roaming around streets and watching movies. It may also be that do to lack of any activity the students may indulge in nefarious activities like abuse of drugs just to satisfy the adrenaline rush of that age. Thus, the assumption becomes unwarranted due to lack of sufficient data in the contrary.This in turn makes the argument flawed.
Thirdly, there is an assumption that psychological pressures experienced by soccer players is similar to those experienced by the athletes. Soccer and athletics are two different sporting endeavors. There is no evidence to establish analogy between the two. May be the athletics competitions are much more free from pressure as they are largely individual as compared to team sport like football. It may also be that parents and coaches are not concerned about performance in athletics as it is not a fad in those societies.
Finally, there is assumption that disadvantages outweigh advantages without providing any sufficient evidence on the advantages brought about by participating in sports. There is need to question the motivation of the author. The author seems to be biased against athletic competitions as a whole for children under nine.
In conclusion, there are number of assumptions which may be unwarranted due to lack of sufficient evidence. This in turn can make the argument flawed if adequate data is not collected to support these assumptions.
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argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not OK. It is for several major cities only.
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.
argument 4 -- well, don't question the author. Need arguments.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2202 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.085 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.965 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 159 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 132 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.682 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.99 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.287 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.065 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5