The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper.
"Throughout the country last year, as more and more children below the age of nine participated in youth-league sports, over 40,000 of these young players suffered injuries. When interviewed for a recent study, youth-league soccer players in several major cities also reported psychological pressure exerted by coaches and parents to win games. Furthermore, education experts say that long practice sessions for these sports take away time that could be used for academic activities. Since the disadvantages outweigh any advantages, we in Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine."
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 these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
In the argument, the author suggests that students in Parkville under nine years old should stop organized sporting competitions because it harm on students' safety, mental development and academic works outweigh the advantages it brings about. Close scrutiny of the reasons provided by the author reveals no solid ground to support for the claim.
First, to support the argument, the author cites the fact that more than 40,000 of youth-league sport players got injured in the past year, assuming that this is a serious problem. However, the language is ambiguous regarding how serious the injuries were. A simple angle twist and a severe bone break can both count as one injury incident. It is quite possible that most of the injuries in the statistics are slight ones, in which case it seems not provide very compelling grounds on the suggestion to discontinue the sport leagues.
Second, the author contends that another reason for ceasing the sport matches was that they induce stress in youth players, based on a survey which was conducted on a limited range of "soccer players in several major cities". The underlying assumption here is that the survey is representative of students in Parkville who participate in youth-league sports, which is problematic. For one thing, we do not know if the result drawn from major cities can be generalized to all cities in Parkville. For another, the sample of soccer players may be not representative of all youth-league players, as there is possibility that only for sports as fierce as soccer would cause the pressure on players, but not other less competitive sports. Either case will render the assumption invalid. Moreover, the author assumes that such psychological pressure to win is necessarily a harm rather than something good for players, but does not consolidate the point. It is well likely that such pressure can help students develop stronger personality which is beneficial for their long-term development to be successful.
To further proves the argument, the author cites the education experts, who stated that practicing sports are taking time from academic activities, assuming that the idea given by the experts is always reliable and that there is no dissention among experts. However, the author fails to provide the source of the statement, thus we do not know on what ground the statement is based on. Without the proof that what the experts said is trustworthy, more background information about the study needs to be provided.
In short, the author makes the suggestion that Parkville should halt athletic competition for children under nine via taking for granted several unsupported assumptions. As the assumptions are not buttressed with any evidence, the author’s argument cannot be tenable.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: To further proves the argument, the author cites the education experts, who stated that practicing sports are taking time from academic activities, assuming that the idea given by the experts is always reliable and that there is no dissention among experts.
Error: dissention Suggestion: No alternate word
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argument 1 -- not OK
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- not OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 446 350
No. of Characters: 2275 1500
No. of Different Words: 232 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.596 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.101 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.71 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 176 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 126 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.548 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.539 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 142, Rule ID: IT_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'harms'?
Suggestion: harms
...anized sporting competitions because it harm on students safety, mental development ...
^^^^
Line 1, column 246, Rule ID: CLOSE_SCRUTINY[1]
Message: Use simply 'scrutiny'.
Suggestion: Scrutiny
...utweigh the advantages it brings about. Close scrutiny of the reasons provided by the author r...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...solid ground to support for the claim. First, to support the argument, the auth...
^^^^
Line 9, column 274, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...uthor's argument cannot be tenable.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, moreover, regarding, second, so, thus, well, in short, for one thing
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 25.0 28.8173652695 87% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2360.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 446.0 441.139720559 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.29147982063 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5955099915 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85713926625 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 240.0 204.123752495 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.538116591928 0.468620217663 115% => OK
syllable_count: 702.9 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.3298546163 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.111111111 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.7777777778 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.44444444444 5.70786347227 95% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 12.0 6.88822355289 174% => 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: 0.116477081649 0.218282227539 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.035803275004 0.0743258471296 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0512523572533 0.0701772020484 73% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0617348594519 0.128457276422 48% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0261813270065 0.0628817314937 42% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.7 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.69 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 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.