In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fish -
ing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through
the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department
devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years
there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river’s water
and the river’s smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean
up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is, therefore, sure to increase. The
city government should for that reason devote more money in this year’s budget to
riverside recreational facilities.
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 the assumptions
and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
While it may be true that the Mason City government ought to devote more money to
riverside recreational facilities, this author’s argument does not make a cogent case
for increased resources based on river use. It is easy to understand why city residents
would want a cleaner river, but this argument is rife with holes and assumptions, and
thus, not strong enough to lead to increased funding.
Citing surveys of city residents, the author reports city resident’s love of water
sports. It is not clear, however, the scope and validity of that survey. For example, the
survey could have asked residents if they prefer using the river for water sports or
would like to see a hydroelectric dam built, which may have swayed residents toward
river sports. The sample may not have been representative of city residents, asking
only those residents who live upon the river. The survey may have been 10 pages long,
with 2 questions dedicated to river sports. We just do not know. Unless the survey is
fully representative, valid, and reliable, it can not be used to effectively back the
author’s argument.
Additionally, the author implies that residents do not use the river for swimming,
boating, and fishing, despite their professed interest, because the water is polluted and
smelly. While a polluted, smelly river would likely cut down on river sports, a concrete
connection between the resident’s lack of river use and the river’s current state is not
effectively made. Though there have been complaints, we do not know if there have
been numerous complaints from a wide range of people, or perhaps from one or two
individuals who made numerous complaints. To strengthen his/her argument, the
author would benefit from implementing a normed survey asking a wide range of
residents why they do not currently use the river.
Building upon the implication that residents do not use the river due to the quality
of the river’s water and the smell, the author suggests that a river clean up will result
in increased river usage. If the river’s water quality and smell result from problems
which can be cleaned, this may be true. For example, if the decreased water qualityand aroma is caused by pollution by factories along the river, this conceivably could be
remedied. But if the quality and aroma results from the natural mineral deposits in the
water or surrounding rock, this may not be true. There are some bodies of water which
emit a strong smell of sulphur due to the geography of the area. This is not something
likely to be afffected by a clean-up. Consequently, a river clean up may have no impact
upon river usage. Regardless of whether the river’s quality is able to be improved or
not, the author does not effectively show a connection between water quality and river
usage.
A clean, beautiful, safe river often adds to a city’s property values, leads to increased
tourism and revenue from those who come to take advantage of the river, and a better
overall quality of life for residents. For these reasons, city government may decide to
invest in improving riverside recreational facilities. However, this author’s argument is
not likely significantly persuade the city goverment to allocate increased funding.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-03-16 | abc1238080808 | 69 | view |
| 2022-06-15 | leadsbbk | 59 | view |
| 2020-07-27 | Rajat Daga | 83 | view |
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 540 350
No. of Characters: 2618 1500
No. of Different Words: 238 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.821 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.848 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.603 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 130 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 91 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.5 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.018 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.341 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.341 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.14 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, however, if, may, so, then, thus, while, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2776.0 2260.96107784 123% => OK
No of words: 539.0 441.139720559 122% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15027829314 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.81833721656 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.7543029644 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.458256029685 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 850.5 705.55239521 121% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.6594094522 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.666666667 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4583333333 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.95833333333 5.70786347227 52% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 38.0 5.15768463074 737% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 8.20758483034 171% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => 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: 0.24434377163 0.218282227539 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0815369288513 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0622975144477 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.068303030731 0.128457276422 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0641461600684 0.0628817314937 102% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.33 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
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.