The following appeared as part of an editorial in an industry newsletter. “While trucking companies that deliver goods pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs and no property tax on the highways they use, railways spend billions per year maintaini

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The following appeared as part of an editorial in an industry newsletter. “While trucking companies that deliver goods pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs and no property tax on the highways they use, railways spend billions per year maintaining and upgrading their facilities. The government should lower the railroad companies‘ property taxes, since sending goods by rail is clearly a more appropriate mode of ground transportation than highway shipping. For one thing, trains consume only a third of the fuel a truck would use to carry the same load, making them a more cost-effective and environmentally sound mode of transport. Furthermore, since rail lines already exist, increases in rail traffic would not require building new lines at the expense of taxpaying citizens.” Discuss how well reasoned…… etc.

The author concludes that the government should lower the railroad companies’ property taxes (because sending goods by rail is a more appropriate mode of transportation.) To support the conclusion, the author reasons that trains consume only a third of the fuel a truck could use to carry the same load(cost-effective). However, several critical fallacies seriously weaken the validity of the reasoning, making the argument highly suspect.

First of all, the author assumes that trucking company’s expenditure is analogous to railroad companies’. However, their discrepancy outweighs their similarities. For example, while trucking companies only pay a little money in highway maintenance, they do pay more on the maintenance of their own trucks’ components and parts, which cannot decrease their costs. Moreover, admitting for the sake of argument that trucking companies pay much less taxes than railway companies, it doesn’t mean that trucking companies get much more profits than railway companies. Railway companies may get more because of the larger amount of load they transport.In the second place, the author asserts that due to the railway transport is more cost-effective and environmentally-friendly; the government should lower their tax to provide incentives to other companies. Obviously the assert is questionable because property tax depends on the value of the property rather than whether it is environmentally-friendly. the author seems to think that cost-effectiveness and environmental soundness are equally relevant to the question of tax relief.However,these are separate considerations.On the other hand, The environmental soundness of a practice might be relevant in determining tax structuring, but the government doesn’t compensate a business for its cost-efficiency.

Finally, there isn’t enough evidence to assume that sending goods by rail is a more appropriate mode of transport. While railway transportation is more cost-effective and environmentally sound, it is slow and inflexible when I want to send some furniture to my home. We cannot say it is the better one just because it is environmentally sound.

To conclude, the argument is not as persuasive as it stands. Before we accept the conclusion, the arguer must present more facts to prove that sending goods by train is a more appropriate mode. To solidify the argument, the arguer would have to own a clear concept on the property taxes. Only with more convincing evidence could this argument become more than just an emotional appeal.

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Comments

flaws:
The second paragraph is not well organized. Better to put its content to two paragraphs.

'On the other hand' means However. It doesn't mean 'On another hand'.

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 5.0 out of 6
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 392 350
No. of Characters: 2090 1500
No. of Different Words: 199 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.45 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.332 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.342 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 153 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 122 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 90 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 61 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.059 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.932 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.588 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.315 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.508 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5