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.
Though this argument initially seems strong, there are a few assumptions that, without clarification, make the argument weak and insufficient. We cannot unequivocally argue that Mason City should increase its budget for river maintenance without addressing three unknowns: who took the survey, the questions on the survey, and who made the resident complaints.
The first assumption this argument makes is that the sample used in the survey is generalizable to the entire population of Mason City. We do not know whether the survey was distributed to all residents in the city or if only houses near the river were solicited. The argument also fails to account for any participant bias as those who enjoy water sports may be more likely to respond than those who are uninterested. Without this information, we cannot report that Mason City residents value water sports as we do not know which Mason City residents we are specifically referring to.
In order to make a robust argument for a budget increase, we must know that residents enjoy water sports and will use the space if it is provided and maintained for them. Similarly to knowing how sampling bias plays a role, knowing how the questions were asked to participants is crucial in understanding how the residents answered. The passage reports that residents rank water sports among their favorite recreational activities, but we are left guessing about how this was operationalized. The participants may have rated different activities on a scale, or they may have been asked what they do most with their free time, but we are not given that information. This information is needed to argue for a budget increase as the questions may have elicited different answers depending on how they were asked.
The final assumption that this article makes is that the complaints from residents are significant and numerous. We know that the state responded to complaints after some number of years, but we do not know if it was a response to many average residents complaining or a only few powerful people within the city complaining. We also do not know if the same people had complained multiple times or if each complaint was filed by a different individual. Understanding the profile of residents who complained is necessary in this argument as it demonstrates the impact of a neglected river.
The argument presented supports a budget increase for maintenance of the Mason City river to better serve the residents who enjoy water sports. Though it cites a survey and resident complaints as evidence that the community would support this budget increase, we are left without important details about the profile of the residents who took the survey as well as those who complained. We are also not given any information about the operationalization of 'favorite recreational activities', so we don't know how participants were responding.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-29 | jason123 | 66 | view |
| 2020-01-26 | jason123 | 59 | view |
| 2020-01-20 | Ammu helen | 16 | view |
| 2020-01-17 | ramji90 | 82 | view |
| 2020-01-13 | shekhawat24 | 49 | view |
- 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 littl 82
- Formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free. 86
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 474 350
No. of Characters: 2379 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.666 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.019 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.927 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 156 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 121 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 102 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 74 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.991 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.577 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.225 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 87, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...here are a few assumptions that, without clarification, make the argument weak an...
^^
Line 5, column 172, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Similarly,
...it is provided and maintained for them. Similarly to knowing how sampling bias plays a ro...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 270, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...o many average residents complaining or a only few powerful people within the cit...
^
Line 9, column 497, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...favorite recreational activities, so we dont know how participants were responding. ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, may, similarly, so, well, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 20.0 13.6137724551 147% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2430.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 473.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.13742071882 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.00117306513 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.437632135307 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 771.3 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 32.8125992062 57.8364921388 57% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 135.0 119.503703932 113% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.2777777778 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.22222222222 5.70786347227 56% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.22815834656 0.218282227539 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0866888015099 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0765489886843 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.149251329865 0.128457276422 116% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0622073707581 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => 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: 12.83 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 100.0 98.500998004 102% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
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.