The following appeared in a magazine article about planning for retirement.
"Clearview should be a top choice for anyone seeking a place to retire, because it has spectacular natural beauty and a consistent climate. Another advantage is that housing costs in Clearview have fallen significantly during the past year, and taxes remain lower than those in neighboring towns. Moreover, Clearview's mayor promises many new programs to improve schools, streets, and public services. And best of all, retirees in Clearview can also expect excellent health care as they grow older, since the number of physicians in the area is far greater than the national average."
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 that encouraged the people to choose peaceful place like Clear view to have the excellent benefits like less housing cost, many new programs to improve schools, streets and public services and excellent health care services may seem logical at first glance. The author makes a valid argument, one that would be correct if it premises were true. However, his conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence, and it uses terms that lack definition.
Firstly, the writer assumes that the Clear view has spectacular natural beauty and consistent climate. In author's point of view what is natural beauty and consistent climate? In fact there is no concrete connection between them. For example the natural beautiful place may includes, beautiful mountains, sea shore, place filled with full of greenery by trees, fresh and cool air. The author did not mention any of these natural beauties. To make his argument sound better he have to explain what is the meaning of consistent climate in his point of view. For example consistent climate may denotes, cool environment. The opinion may differs from person to person. Furthermore, the author assumes that people want to live in quiet places after their retire but its sound unconvincing. For example some people like to live in big cities because they may have much accessibility to transportation, best health care facilities and some persons may have their family and friends in that city.
Additionally, the author ascertains that the cost of living is low when compared to past and the taxes is also low when compared to the neighboring towns. In order to convince the customers the author should have given statistical data about the costs in the past and present. He should have given how much percentage of cost have decreased when compared to the past. For example, in the past there may be more competition among the customers to dwell in that place. So, there may be high cost in the past. Gradually, the dwellers may have decreased in the present, so there may be less cost of living and less tax.
Finally, the author assumes that new programs like improving schools, streets and public services may benefit the people. But, it sounds unconvincing because the improvement in schools would benefit young people and not the people who were retired. So, there is a flaw in this assumption. The improvement in streets and public services may benefit to the people. But, the author did not mention what type of improvements would be taken place. For example, the improvement in streets includes many things like cleaning streets every day, planting trees etc. The improvement in public services includes various services like providing good and safe water, continuous electric supply etc. If the author have stated any of these evidences the argument might have become strong. In addition he also assumes that more number of doctors lead to excellent health care facility when they grew older day by day. But , it clearly implies that the author assumption have many flaws. The author did not mention what is the specialization and designation of the doctors. The designation and the specialization is very important. For instance, if there is any emergency case like cardiac arrest and if the patient have to undergo surgery than the doctor should be a cardiac surgeon to perform the operation because the doctor just with MBBS degree is not eligible to perform the operation. Thus, if the author provides this evidence it would strongly support the argument.
In conclusion, the writer would not necessarily be wrong to assert that Clear view place brings many advantage for retirees. But to support his conclusion, the writer must first define the Clear view place more clearly and submit more conclusive evidences that housing costs, health care services, and public services are suitable for retirees.
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2013-09-13 | komala | 45 | view |
2012-08-30 | Doan Nguyen | 76 | view |
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Sentence: The author makes a valid argument, one that would be correct if it premises were true.
Description: A pronoun, personal, nominative, 3rd person singular is not usually followed by a noun, plural, common
Suggestion: Refer to it and premises
Sentence: For example the natural beautiful place may includes, beautiful mountains, sea shore, place filled with full of greenery by trees, fresh and cool air.
Description: The fragment may includes , is rare
Sentence: The opinion may differs from person to person.
Description: A modal auxillary is not usually followed by a verb, present tense, 3rd person singular
Suggestion: Refer to may and differs
Sentence: Additionally, the author ascertains that the cost of living is low when compared to past and the taxes is also low when compared to the neighboring towns.
Description: The fragment and the taxes is not usually followed by is
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace is with are
flaws:
No. of Words: 641 350
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 33 15
No. of Words: 641 350
No. of Characters: 3182 1500
No. of Different Words: 263 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.032 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.964 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.499 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 235 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 172 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 103 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.424 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.77 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.788 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.276 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.452 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.126 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5