The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Batavia newspaper.
"The department of agriculture in Batavia reports that the number of dairy farms throughout the country is now 25 percent greater than it was 10 years ago. During this same time period, however, the price of milk at the local Excello Food Market has increased from $1.50 to over $3.00 per gallon. To prevent farmers from continuing to receive excessive profits on an apparently increased supply of milk, the Batavia government should begin to regulate retail milk prices. Such regulation is necessary to ensure fair prices for consumers."
The author of the letter claims that despite the increase in the number of dairy farms throughout the country, the milk price at the local Excello Food Market has increased. hence, the author suggests enforcing the regulations on milk prices. The argument presented by the author is based on faulty reasoning and many assumptions. We need to scrutinize these assumptions in order to evaluate the soundness of the argument.
Firstly, the author says that there is an increase in the number of dairy farms throughout the country but it is also possible that this increase in numbers may be in a very short period and then the numbers were almost similar for the rest of the period in the span of 10 years. This suggests that there may be low prices of milk for a small period of time and then due to inflation, the price of milk has increased. Inflation plays an important role in the value of any product. It is possible that inflation was very low 10 years ago and now it is sky-rocketing. There is also a possibility that there may have an increase in the prices of land, electricity, fuel, and wages of labor which in turn resulted in an increase in the prices of milk.
Secondly, the author has not considered the population of Batavia which may have increased drastically over the span of 10 years. The consumer of milk and milk products may have increased over time. There may have increased in sweet shops, Food factories using milk and Bakeries in the region which have caused more consumption of milk. Additionally, the author has talked about the milk price of Excello Food Market only, there may be other markets in which the milk price may be lower than the Excello Food Market. The author argues that the regulation of the milk prices will ensure fair prices for consumers but this does not hold any water as what will happen if milk suppliers will strike and protest against this regulation as their profit margin will decrease or they will be in loss with this regulation. Under this chaotic scenario, the milk supply will be disrupted and the supply of milk will decrease which will eventually cause a further increase in the milk prices.
To sum up, the argument is based on many fallacies and faulty reasoning. There are many assumptions which the author has ignored. Without considering them it is not possible to conclusively say that the regulation will ensure fair prices of milk.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 420 350
No. of Characters: 1948 1500
No. of Different Words: 172 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.527 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.638 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.437 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 124 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 83 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 64 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.706 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.415 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.588 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.375 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.56 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.142 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 175, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: Hence
...ocal Excello Food Market has increased. hence, the author suggests enforcing the regu...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 344, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...e may be low prices of milk for a small period of time and then due to inflation, the price of...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, hence, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1991.0 2260.96107784 88% => OK
No of words: 420.0 441.139720559 95% => OK
Chars per words: 4.74047619048 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52701905584 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.51762382123 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.42380952381 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 612.0 705.55239521 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 68.6147097572 57.8364921388 119% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.611111111 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.3333333333 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.44444444444 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => 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: 0.0941002539259 0.218282227539 43% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0351810685913 0.0743258471296 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.052031336911 0.0701772020484 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.058876803849 0.128457276422 46% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0457042451789 0.0628817314937 73% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.51 12.5979740519 83% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.82 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.