An international development organization, in response to a vitamin A deficiency among people in the impoverished nation of Tagus, has engineered a new breed of millet high in vitamin A. While seeds for this new type of millet cost more, farmers will be p

Essay topics:

An international development organization, in response to a vitamin A deficiency among people in the impoverished nation of Tagus, has engineered a new breed of millet high in vitamin A. While seeds for this new type of millet cost more, farmers will be paid subsidies for farming the new variety of millet. Since millet is already a staple food in Tagus, people will readily adopt the new variety. To combat vitamin A deficiency, the government of Tagus should do everything it can to promote this new type of millet.

This argument is flawed in various ways, among which the following four stand out the most.

First, the argument fails to quantify the increased cost of production as well as the amount of subsidies provided by the government. Without these two figures, it is not readily verifiable whether the initiative will incentivize the farmers to produce more of the millet. In this regard, if the amount of subsidy is well below the marginal cost of producing this new type of millet, the farmers may opt to increase the price of the product, which may in turn make it less affordable for people, hence defeating the purpose of introducing the initiative. The argument would be stronger if the subsidies and the marginal product cost of millet were quantified.

Second, the argument implicitly assumes that people will adopt the new product just because one of its ingredients, millet, is a staple food already. This is not a given unless verified. Food preferences and tastes vary across individuals. For example, some people may have a strong bent toward organic products rather than engineered products. Some people may prefer canned food while others prefer freshly made food. The bottom line is that people have different preferences and one cannot make such a strong assumption ignoring the effect of product variety. The study could affirm this assumption if it had produced a survey inquiring about people's idea about the product variety.

Next, the study further assumes that just because a product contains enough Vitamin A, it is bound to succeed. What if the product does not create any traction and people continue their consumption behavior regardless of the new program? what if people actually buy lots of the millet and still stay deficient in Vitamin A? Once again, the assumption cannot be made without validation. The argument would be strengthened if a previous study including a control group was performed to verify that the new product indeed manifested a difference in Vitamin A levels of people studied.

Last but not least, the argument calls for government's support in promoting the new product at all costs. Even if all previous assumptions were verified, it does not necessarily provides a reasonable ground to make such a recommendation. The government is expected to be prudent in managing its resources. There may be more pressing concerns in the country requiring a more immediate attention than responding to people's Vitamin A deficiency. Therefore, to conclude that the government should do anything to support the initiative is not logical.

In summary, four major unfounded assumptions were examined above, upon which the argument is believed to be flawed and questionable. Therefore, in the author's view, the argument has failed to provide sufficient and convincing evidence in supporting its conclusion for the government to promote the new product at all costs.

Votes
Average: 8.3 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 239, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: What
...behavior regardless of the new program? what if people actually buy lots of the mill...
^^^^
Line 7, column 555, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'A level' or simply 'levels'?
Suggestion: A level; Levels
...deed manifested a difference in Vitamin A levels of people studied. Last but not lea...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 179, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[3]
Message: The verb 'does' requires base form of the verb: 'provide'
Suggestion: provide
... were verified, it does not necessarily provides a reasonable ground to make such a reco...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 414, Rule ID: TO_NON_BASE[1]
Message: The verb after "to" should be in the base form: 'people'.
Suggestion: people
... immediate attention than responding to peoples Vitamin A deficiency. Therefore, to con...
^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 548, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... support the initiative is not logical. In summary, four major unfounded assumpt...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, hence, if, may, second, so, still, then, therefore, well, while, for example, in summary, as well as

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2442.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21794871795 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79866897494 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 239.0 204.123752495 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.510683760684 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 757.8 705.55239521 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Interrogative: 2.0 0.471057884232 425% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.9034352694 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 101.75 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.5 23.324526521 84% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.08333333333 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.254608782382 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0689340038423 0.0743258471296 93% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0538896150882 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121972822034 0.128457276422 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0571926005198 0.0628817314937 91% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.83 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 126.0 98.500998004 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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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.