In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating and fishing) 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.
In this argument, the author reaches the conclusion that the Mason City government would rather use more budget to build riverside recreational facilities. The foundation for this claim is that residents of the city favor water sports. An additional reason given in support of this outcome is that the lower budget caused the poor quality of the river’s water and the river’s smell. At first glance, the author’s argument seems tenable. However, this agreement not only suffers from defects but also prejudices its conclusion upon several dubious assumptions. Therefore, it can be considered incomplete and unconfirmed. Before the summing-up, the author needs to clarify the following points.
In the first place, the writer assumes that the Mason City residents ranked high to enjoy water sports. But basing on their claim is not credible due to the lack of observation that other sports or entertainments which the residents prefer. Suppose, for instance, that if the residents love both water sports and mountain sports, the government might want to use a budget for not only recreational facilities near the river but also guidance or houses which support the hikers on the mountain. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide reliable evidence showing that the assumption that the Mason City people favor winter sports at a high rank.
In the second place, the author exaggerates when she claims that the government will clean up the river so there are more players of the river sports. However, it is plausible because the river condition is not taken into consideration. Let’s say the city has a severe drought. The depth of the river will shallow which means that people cannot enjoy boating and fishing. The author should clarify the assumption of whether the river is safe enough for all people to enjoy. Therefore, it could be misleading that the government should devote more money to water recreational facilities.
In the third place, the author didn’t point out whether facilities will need additional money from residents. To give what I mean, let’s look a case of water sports facility will need a monthly fee from sports players. In this case, there is a possibility that people will not use the facility. The author would want to state whether the facility will need an extra fee from residents. Therefore, this argument is unwarranted without ruling out such a possibility.
To sum up, the author will fail to provide sufficient justification for the advantages of using the money to make riverside recreational facilities. Before arriving at the conclusion, the author should acknowledge that there are many factors involved in this story and undertake more investigation to clarify the uncertain pointed out above. The argument would be strengthened considerably if the author proved the assumption whether the residents willing to devote their time and money to play the river sports.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 475 350
No. of Characters: 2403 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.668 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.059 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.635 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 171 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 118 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.874 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.56 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.312 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, look, second, so, then, therefore, third, for instance, i mean, to sum up, in the first place, in the second place, in the third place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2496.0 2260.96107784 110% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.26582278481 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.80798755402 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.45358649789 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 763.2 705.55239521 108% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 16.0 8.76447105788 183% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.22255489022 261% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 25.0 19.7664670659 126% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.4880363881 57.8364921388 82% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.84 119.503703932 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.96 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.6 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => 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: 0.218145658098 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0664403938388 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0647448795654 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.135125692959 0.128457276422 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.08251749796 0.0628817314937 131% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.73 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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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.