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.
In the letter, the firm advices clients that there will be a demand for heating oil and so the clients have to invest on industries based on heating oil production for profit. Moreover, the population of houses increased in Northeastern United States; therefore, there will be more demand which will provide profit to clients. However, while the conclusion drawn might hold water, it rests on several unwarranted assumptions that if not substantiated would dramatically undermine the persuasiveness of the argument. Hence, the firm must provide the following evidenced to prove that people will be needing oil to heat their houses.
Firstly, the firm suggests that since the local weather forecasters predicted that the extreme cold weather will continue, people would be at a demand to buy heating oil. However, not all predicted weather might come true. There is a possibility of global warming which would disrupt the prediction which is held now. Moreover, if people started cutting trees and started to burn plastic bags, there won’t be rain or winter whereas there will be summer in the future. This will lead to reduction in sales of heating oil and increase in sales of cooling machines like air conditioners. Hence, there is no certainty for demands of heating oil in the future.
Secondly, they say that since new houses emerged in the city, the owner of the houses would buy heating oils. However, it is not certain that new house owners would buy heating oil. There is a possibility that people who moved in are youngsters and maybe they preferred using heaters in their houses other than heating oil. The reason for their shift of tradition might be because they are workers and are in need of easy to use and less time consuming heaters. Since Oil is a traditional usage, maybe it took time to heat up the whole household. Hence, there won’t be increased buyers and sales as predicted by the firm.
Thirdly, there is no information about the cost of oil and the economy of the society. If all people of the city are employed, then there is a possibility of people abandoning heating oil for their houses and rather prefer heat consuming garments like sweaters. Thus, the firm have not conducted any recent survey regarding people needs during winter and hence it is not possible to presume that people would use traditional oil in the future.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is flawed with unstated assumptions. If the firm is able to provide the three possible evidences and perhaps conduct a systematic study on the economy of northeastern United States, then there is a possibility of people demanding heating oil and clients receiving profit.
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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: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 452 350
No. of Characters: 2181 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.611 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.825 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.542 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 62 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.524 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.563 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.762 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.324 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.324 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 596, Rule ID: PROGRESSIVE_VERBS[1]
Message: This verb is normally not used in the progressive form. Try a simple form instead.
...ing evidenced to prove that people will be needing oil to heat their houses. Firstly, the...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 155, Rule ID: BUY_VBG[1]
Message: Did you mean 'by'?
Suggestion: by
...ontinue, people would be at a demand to buy heating oil. However, not all predicted...
^^^
Line 3, column 93, Rule ID: BUY_VBG[1]
Message: Did you mean 'by'?
Suggestion: by
...the city, the owner of the houses would buy heating oils. However, it is not certai...
^^^
Line 3, column 165, Rule ID: BUY_VBG[1]
Message: Did you mean 'by'?
Suggestion: by
...not certain that new house owners would buy heating oil. There is a possibility tha...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, whereas, while, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 54.0 55.5748502994 97% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2235.0 2260.96107784 99% => OK
No of words: 450.0 441.139720559 102% => OK
Chars per words: 4.96666666667 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6057793516 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.6211155857 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455555555556 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 685.8 705.55239521 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.7727519373 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.428571429 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4285714286 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.2380952381 5.70786347227 127% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.244857720657 0.218282227539 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0779345268063 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0705669247177 0.0701772020484 101% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.150207325661 0.128457276422 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0507720639405 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.55 12.5979740519 92% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 97.0 98.500998004 98% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.