Several charitable organizations in Pleasantville provide opportunities for teenagers to engage in community service. These organizations have a great need for volunteers, but in recent years, the number of teenage volunteers has significantly declined.
The Pleasantville School Board should take measures to increase the number of volunteers. Teachers, parents, and other community members agree that it is important for young people to learn the value of community service. Requiring high school students to engage in community service would provide much-needed assistance to worthy local charities and would also help young people understand the importance of giving back to their community. For this reason, the Pleasantville School Board should institute a program requiring students of Pleasantville High School to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation.
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.
The argument reaches the conclusion that the Pleasantville School Board should mandate students of the local high school to complete 40 hours of community service before graduation. The premise stated in the argument, in an attempt to back up this conclusion, is that the number of volunteers has decreased in recent years, and that high school students are morally obligated to understand the significance of community service, as agreed upon by various community members. However, the argument, in going from its premises to its conclusion, has made three unstated assumptions that must be addressed.
First, the argument assumes that there is no alternative method for increasing the number of teenage volunteers who engage in community service. What if the students could be encouraged, via an adult-organised charity drive, which may motivate more teens to volunteer? Can they be provided with any kind of minor incentives to atleast try out community service? If such incentives are effective, or if students are simply encouraged to 'try it out', then they may possibly be more likely to appreciate community service, than if it were forced upon them. The argument makes no indication of such non-mandatory methods being attempted. Even in the case where students may not be interested in community service, the argument fails to explain if they would appreciate it more after the mandated hours.
Second, the argument assumes that the teens of today and those of a few years ago are functionally the same; what if the current teen population is being given more coursework by the school, or if they are facing other issues impeding them from enrolling in charity work? The argument assumes that teens today are in the exact situation as those of years prior, and if evidence is presented to disprove this claim, perhaps via a comprehensive survey (that could detail what teens of Pleasantville do on an average week), then the assumption would prove unfounded.
Third, the argument also inadvertently makes the assumption that the teens of Pleasantville do not engage in charity work or volunteering elsewhere, outside of the district. It may be possible that the organizations in Pleasantville are not as effective or well-functioning as those of the adjoining district. In this case, students would be more inclined to go volunteer at a different district, that may volunteer for a different charity/cause, or for other things that teens may find meaningful, within the realm of community service. If the assumption made by the argument proves unwarranted, then the teens of Pleasantville would be doing double-volunteering. One may argue that this is not a bad thing, but it would increase the workload of the teens, and may cause them to have more negative opinions of their school board. In this case, the board would have to consider the number of teens who go elsewhere to do charitywork then overhaul the argument's proposal, to address this unstated assumption.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, fails on multiple counts to address multiple unstated assumptions, and evidence that may arise against those assumptions would lead to the argument breaking down. To prevent these 'logic holes' from persisting, it must provide substantiative evidence to prove that mandatory community service is the only way for the school district to encourage volunteering, and that the teens are not currently already engaged in community work elsewhere. A comprehensive report could be drafted by the school board to gauge the status of the assumptions made, following which a more informed argument could be formulated.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-04 | Technoblade | 73 | view |
| 2022-08-29 | bhavna288 | 60 | view |
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| 2021-10-18 | MistyRabbit | 58 | view |
| 2021-07-11 | amisha23 | 68 | view |
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 584 350
No. of Characters: 2984 1500
No. of Different Words: 244 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.916 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.11 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.945 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 207 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 174 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 135 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 85 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.2 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.619 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.559 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.134 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 459, Rule ID: MIGHT_PERHAPS[1]
Message: Use simply 'may', 'possibly'.
Suggestion: may; possibly
...ply encouraged to try it out, then they may possibly be more likely to appreciate community ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 459, Rule ID: MAY_COULD_POSSIBLY[1]
Message: Use simply 'may'.
Suggestion: may
...ply encouraged to try it out, then they may possibly be more likely to appreciate community ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 952, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'arguments'' or 'argument's'?
Suggestion: arguments'; argument's
...ere to do charitywork then overhaul the arguments proposal, to address this unstated assu...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, then, third, well, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 21.0 13.6137724551 154% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3060.0 2260.96107784 135% => OK
No of words: 583.0 441.139720559 132% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2487135506 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.91379618374 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.05336596227 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 261.0 204.123752495 128% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.447684391081 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 954.0 705.55239521 135% => 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: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 9.0 1.67365269461 538% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 9.0 4.22255489022 213% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 29.0 22.8473053892 127% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 61.5328164478 57.8364921388 106% => OK
Chars per sentence: 153.0 119.503703932 128% => OK
Words per sentence: 29.15 23.324526521 125% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.45 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.172672162488 0.218282227539 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0611360710469 0.0743258471296 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0659622099704 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0967225527776 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.039024158343 0.0628817314937 62% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.9 14.3799401198 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.04 48.3550499002 87% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.197005988 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.46 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 125.0 98.500998004 127% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.6 11.1389221557 122% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.