Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been made only by the Palean people. Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a "Palean" basket in Lithos, an ancient village across the Brim River from Palea. The Brim River is very deep and broad, and so the ancient Paleans could have crossed it only by boat, and no Palean boats have been found. Thus it follows that the so-called Palean baskets were not uniquely Palean.
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 claims that due to the presence of the Palean baskets in places other than the prehistoric village of Palea, they could not be unique to the village. While upon a cursory read the argument might seem to be cogent, upon a more thorough examination, there is some evidence lacking on the part of the author, on which the argument stands, that might cause the argument to fall apart if not accounted for more comprehensively.
Starting off, the author puts much responsibility upon the people of Palea for the distribution of their products across the lands. Without proper evidence, there is no reason to rule out the possibility that the people of Lithos could have easily been advanced enough to travel by water to Palea to purchase the woven baskets and bring them back home. The lack of account of the people of Lithos and their technology makes the argument quite vulnerable, weak for contention and the conclusion of the argument questionable.
Furthermore, an absence of a case does not give one enough leeway to posit its non-existence. To conclude that the ancient Paleans could not travel to Lithos because there are no Palean boats that have yet been discovered, would be a slippery slope. Evidence is required, in part of the author, to see if the area has been extensively ferreted for boats. Archeological records would have to be scrutinized and verified. This lack of evidence for the complete absence of boats in ancient Palea weakens the argument severly. If the records were to be brought into light, the conclusion could be either strengthened or undermined based on what the evidence sheds light into.
Additionally, the author only talks about the Brim river as to tacitly suggest that it is the only route to Lithos. Are there other ways to reach Lithos from Palea? Since the author does not expand upon this subject, the claim stands to be dubious. The assumptions require evidence to confirm that crossing the Brim river is the only way to get from Palea to Lithos and vice versa. Other alternate routes, if discovered, could gravely weaken the conclusion of the argument.
Thus, the assumptions, while not exclusively stated, have an insidious effect on the strength of the argument. Upon more evidence, the author can defend his or her claim more strongly or perhaps choose to formulate a different argument with a contrasting conclusion based on a more extensive research and building upon the additional evidence that is asked of him or her.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 419 350
No. of Characters: 2020 1500
No. of Different Words: 204 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.524 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.821 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.61 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 137 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.278 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.66 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.389 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.326 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.549 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.069 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, furthermore, if, so, then, thus, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2077.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 419.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.95704057279 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52432199235 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71340125146 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496420047733 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 657.0 705.55239521 93% => 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: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.6474328485 57.8364921388 105% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.388888889 119.503703932 97% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.2777777778 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.77777777778 5.70786347227 49% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.135943288343 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0472399957618 0.0743258471296 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0474955613096 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0730981746229 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0292035497371 0.0628817314937 46% => 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: 13.6 14.3799401198 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 48.13 48.3550499002 100% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.32 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.