"Membership in Oak City's Civic Club---a club whose primary objective is to discuss local
issues---should continue to be restricted to people who live in Oak City. People who work-in
Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot truly understand the business and politics of the city. It
is important to restrict membership to city residents because only residents pay city taxes and
therefore only residents understand how the money could best be used to improve the city. At
any rate, restricting membership in this way is unlikely to disappoint many of the nonresidents
employed in Oak City, since neighboring Elm City's Civic Club has always had an open
membership policy and only twenty-five nonresidents have joined Elm City's Club in the last
ten years."
This letter recommends that membership in Oak City's Civic Club, the primary objective of
which is to discuss local issues, be limited to local residents. To support this recommendation,
the author claims that since only residents pay local taxes they are the only people who
sufficiently understand local business and political issues. The author also cites the fact that in
the last ten years very few non-residents of Oak City who work in Oak City have joined nearby
Elm City's civic club, which is open to any person. The argument suffers from two critical flaws
and is therefore unpersuasive as it stands.
To begin with, the letter fails to adequately support the claim that since only residents pay
local taxes only they truly understand local business and political issues. Even given the
dubious assumption that being a local taxpayer affords one an understanding of local business
and political issues, it is fallacious to conclude that being a local taxpayer is a necessary
condition for understanding these issues. Moreover, common sense tells me that local
business people, residents or not, would probably be more intimately involved in many such
issues than local residents who do not have business interests in the town. Having failed to
address this distinct possibility, the letter is wholly unconvincing.
In further support of the recommendation, the letter cites the fact that nearby Elm City's civic
club is open to any person, yet very few Oak City business people who are not residents have
joined Elm City's club in the last ten years. But this fact alone lends no support to the
recommendation. It is possible, for instance, that these business people have no connection
with Elm City whatsoever, or that these business people have been members of Elm City's
civic club for longer than ten years. The author must eliminate these possibilities in order to
rely justifiably on this evidence for his or her recommendation.
In conclusion, the letter's author fails to adequately support the recommendation that Oak
City civic club membership be restricted to local residents. To strengthen the argument, the
author must provide dear evidence that non-residents who work in Oak City do not understand
local issues as well as residents do. To better evaluate the argument, we would need more
information about why non-resident business people in Oak City have not joined Elm City's
civic club during the last ten years.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-07-19 | Jenil_Jain | 65 | view |
- Mayor Brown was recently re elected by a clear majority of 52 percent of Monroetown s voters Her re election however does not show that most people in our town favored Mayor Brown s proposal for tax reduction over that of her opponent Mr Greene who propos 77
- Many of the world s lesser known languages are being lost as fewer and fewer people speak them The governments of countries in which these languages are spoken should act to prevent such languages from becoming extinct 71
- The autonomy of any country is based on the strength of its borders if the number of illegal immigrants entering a country cannot be checked both its economy and national identity are endangered Because illegal immigrants pose such threats every effort mu 66
- Membership in Oak City s Civic Club a club whose primary objective is to discuss local issues should continue to be restricted to people who live in Oak City People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot truly understand the business and polit 65
- 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 wildl 60
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 398 350
No. of Characters: 2007 1500
No. of Different Words: 163 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.467 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.043 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.744 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 135 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 91 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.533 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.444 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.41 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.577 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, moreover, so, then, therefore, well, for instance, in conclusion, as well as, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 39.0 55.5748502994 70% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2087.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 398.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.24371859296 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46653527281 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82591839092 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 169.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.424623115578 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 644.4 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.2630100762 57.8364921388 90% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.133333333 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.5333333333 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.06666666667 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 28.0 5.15768463074 543% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.425053230678 0.218282227539 195% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.159231126623 0.0743258471296 214% => Sentence topic similarity is high.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.121835736764 0.0701772020484 174% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12336978922 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.103180830045 0.0628817314937 164% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.41 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.98 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.