Arctic deer live on islands in Canada's arctic regions. They search for food by moving over ice from island to island during the course of the year. Their habitat is limited to areas warm enough to sustain the plants on which they feed and cold enough, at least some of the year, for the ice to cover the sea separating the islands, allowing the deer to travel over it. Unfortunately, according to reports from local hunters, the deer populations are declining. Since these reports coincide with recent global warming trends that have caused the sea ice to melt, we can conclude that the purported decline in deer populations is the result of the deer's being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea.
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 concludes that decline in deer population in Canada's artic regions is the result of the deer's being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea. This conclusion is based on the premise that due to rise in temperatures because of global warming, sea levels have melted over the years, as a result deers are not able to trace their old paths to desired locations of plants. The argument is logically flawed, however, as it relies on a number of assumptions that appear to be unsupported due to the lack of additional evidence.
First, the author does not provide any information on the exact geography, temperature, past and present ice levels of the islands. Without this information, it is difficult to find the impact of rise in temperatures on thickness of ice layers. For example, Canada's artic region is vast area spreading across latitudes and longitudes upto 5 degress; so there is huge variation in the climatic conditions, ice levels across this region. The deers are exploring which parts of the region is not clear. Also nature and life of plants ( which are source of food) also changes with location, hence it's not clear in the argument regarding the path of migration of deers. In addition, there could be variety of vegetation in the region and impact of temperature rise on life of plants would also vary from place to place. Therefore, without this convincing information, argument remains weak.
Second, author ignores other possible reasons for the decline in deer population. Reports from hunters do not throw light on other factors which could affect the lives of deer. It could be that there was some epidemic disease spread in that region or there were changes in the lifestyle regimes of deer popluation that led to the decline. There is no information in the argument regarding other factors pertaining to lifestyle of deers, their surroundings and sanitation levels. In addition, there is no evidence on prospects of plant damage during that period; deers can also die if they don't find the right plants to feed. Consequently, there is a dearth of evidences in the argument which makes it stretched and unsupported.
Finally, argument does not take into consideration the average rise in temperature in this particular region and its subsequent impact on lowering thickness of ice beds. The author should have shown through experimental results the impact of per degree in rise in temperature on per cm of decline in ice thickness. In addition, current and past ice levels are also needed to comfirm the impact. Besides, the thickness levels required by deer to move comfortably on ice are also mentioned. All this information is imperative to make the argument strong.
In conclusion, the argument that decline in deer population is due to inability of the animal to follow the same migration path is rather weak. If the author would have demonstrated and explained various additional evidences with examples and statistics the argument would have been greatly strengthened. Without this additional support, however, there is no reason to accept the conclusion in the argument.
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The deers are exploring which parts of the region is not clear.
That the deers are exploring which parts of the region is not clear.
Also nature and life of plants ( which are source of food) also changes with location,
Also nature and life of plants ( which are source of food) also change with locations,
Sentence: The argument concludes that decline in deer population in Canada's artic regions is the result of the deer's being unable to follow their age-old migration patterns across the frozen sea.
Error: artic Suggestion: No alternate word
Sentence: For example, Canada's artic region is vast area spreading across latitudes and longitudes upto 5 degress; so there is huge variation in the climatic conditions, ice levels across this region.
Error: degress Suggestion: No alternate word
Error: artic Suggestion: No alternate word
Error: upto Suggestion: up to
Sentence: It could be that there was some epidemic disease spread in that region or there were changes in the lifestyle regimes of deer popluation that led to the decline.
Error: popluation Suggestion: population
Sentence: In addition, current and past ice levels are also needed to comfirm the impact.
Error: comfirm Suggestion: confirm
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flaws:
The argument 1 and argument 3 are relatively talking about the same thing.
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Suggested arguments:
The accuracy of the reports from local hunters can be cast doubt on. (selective sample)
The global warming trends may have no effects on the specific region mentioned by the editorial.
Alternative explanations can also account for the decline in arctic deer population.
The change in climate patterns does not necessarily lead to the decline in deer population, deer may adapt themselves to the new weather by certain means.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 518 350
No. of Characters: 2575 1500
No. of Different Words: 233 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.771 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.971 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.69 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 197 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 138 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 95 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.583 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.794 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.708 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.302 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.501 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5