The following appears in a letter to the editor for the West Lansburg News: "The tufted groundhog lives in the coastal wetlands of West Lansburg. Ancient records suggest that the tufted groundhog once numbered in the millions. Since they were declared a w

Essay topics:

The following appears in a letter to the editor for the West Lansburg News:

"The tufted groundhog lives in the coastal wetlands of West Lansburg. Ancient records suggest that the tufted groundhog once numbered in the millions. Since they were declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2004, development along the coastal wetlands has been prohibited. Now local development interests are lobbying for the West Lansburg council to allow an access road to be built along the edge of wetlands. Neighboring Eastern Carpenteria, which had a similar sanctuary, has seen its sea otter population decline since the repeal of its sanctuary status in 1978. In order to preserve the region's biodiversity and ensure a healthy environment, the West Lansburg council should not allow the road to be built."

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 argument is that West Lansburg council should not allow road to be built in order to preserve biodiversity and for healthy environment. The author writes a letter to the editor of West Lansburg News stating that since they were declared a wildlife sanctuary, development was prohibited. Also Neighboring Eastern Carpenteria, which had a similar sanctuary, had seen its sea otter population decline because of the repeal of its sanctuary status. The argument at first looks convincing, but careful scrutiny reveals a lot of loopholes.

The first loophole is that the author mentions ancient records in the letter. But the author has not given any information of How old were the records? or What was the accurate number of tufted groundhog at that time? For comparison of two situations adequate proof should be there. If the records are of 20-30 years they cannot be compared to the present situation as between those years a lot of changes may have taken place. Thus author should give more detailed description of the records.

The second loophole is the author tells that since they were declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2004, development along the coastal wetlands has been prohibited, but the author has not mentioned the reason behind this occlusion of development. There could be other reasons like no permission of government or no funds for the construction work. If the author would provide accurate reason, then the argument would make sense.

The third loophole is that the author compares this situation with neighboring Eastern Carpenteria, which had a similar sanctuary, by stating that it had seen it's sea otter population decline since the repeal of its sanctuary status in 1978. But the comparison cannot be made as both can have different situation. The author fails to take into consideration the weather condition, or the government ruling there. Also the population of sea otter declining and tufted groundhog declining is debatable as they are two different animals.

To add to this, the author fails to mention the exact decline and the reason for this reduction in the sea otter population. Also the author is comparing the situation which took place in 1978 with the present situation. There is a long gap between the two years so this is not a valid reason for not allowing road construction.

The argument would be strengthened if the author gives more details on the records plus a more specific reason of the decline in population of groundhog. Also if he is making a comparison he should first state the similarities between the two regions. As it stands however, the argument is flawed.

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Average: 5 (1 vote)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 292, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... sanctuary, development was prohibited. Also Neighboring Eastern Carpenteria, which ...
^^^^
Line 3, column 153, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Or
...nformation of How old were the records? or What was the accurate number of tufted ...
^^
Line 7, column 414, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...dition, or the government ruling there. Also the population of sea otter declining a...
^^^^
Line 9, column 126, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
... reduction in the sea otter population. Also the author is comparing the situation w...
^^^^
Line 11, column 155, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Also,
...the decline in population of groundhog. Also if he is making a comparison he should ...
^^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'look', 'may', 'second', 'so', 'then', 'third', 'thus']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.277542372881 0.25644967241 108% => OK
Verbs: 0.156779661017 0.15541462614 101% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0656779661017 0.0836205057962 79% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0402542372881 0.0520304965353 77% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0254237288136 0.0272364105082 93% => OK
Prepositions: 0.125 0.125424944231 100% => OK
Participles: 0.0508474576271 0.0416121511921 122% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.7584157012 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0169491525424 0.026700313972 63% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.141949152542 0.113004496875 126% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0254237288136 0.0255425247493 100% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.00847457627119 0.0127820249294 66% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2634.0 2731.13054187 96% => OK
No of words: 435.0 446.07635468 98% => OK
Chars per words: 6.05517241379 6.12365571057 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56690854021 4.57801047555 100% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.372413793103 0.378187486979 98% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.280459770115 0.287650121315 98% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.2 0.208842608468 96% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.128735632184 0.135150697306 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7584157012 2.79052419416 99% => OK
Unique words: 197.0 207.018472906 95% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452873563218 0.469332199767 96% => OK
Word variations: 49.5705872802 52.1807786196 95% => OK
How many sentences: 23.0 20.039408867 115% => OK
Sentence length: 18.9130434783 23.2022227129 82% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.3223634645 57.7814097925 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.52173913 141.986410481 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9130434783 23.2022227129 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.521739130435 0.724660767414 72% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 3.58251231527 140% => OK
Readability: 46.9590204898 51.9672348444 90% => OK
Elegance: 2.0380952381 1.8405768891 111% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.602796171106 0.441005458295 137% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.077081300435 0.135418324435 57% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0500821726684 0.0829849096947 60% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.5551201142 0.58762219726 94% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.123608778379 0.147661913831 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.246961366913 0.193483328276 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.123708581952 0.0970749176394 127% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.44911586234 0.42659136922 105% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0390926686632 0.0774707102158 50% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.422783638036 0.312017818177 135% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.028836964059 0.0698173142475 41% => The ideas may be duplicated in paragraphs.

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.33743842365 48% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.82512315271 269% => Less neutral sentences wanted.
Positive topic words: 3.0 6.46551724138 46% => OK
Negative topic words: 5.0 5.36822660099 93% => OK
Neutral topic words: 10.0 2.82389162562 354% => OK
Total topic words: 18.0 14.657635468 123% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

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More arguments wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.