In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fish- ing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river’s water and the river’s smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is, therefore, sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year’s budget to riverside recreational facilities.
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 given here is flawed due to many reasons. The argument assumes that the survey can be trusted completely and draws conclusion from based on the survey. Since, the survey is not entirely true, the conclusion is rendered invalid.
First off, the survey does not mention whether it polled all of Mason City residents or just a few adventure-loving people. If it was the latter, then, the survey does not represent the entire city population and no conclusion can be drawn based on that. Even if the suvey had polled all of the city's residents, just because the respondants had mentioned water sports as their favorite recreational activity does not mean they will start actively using the Mason River for such activities once it is cleaned up. The respondants could have meant they they like to spectate water sports, but, not engage themselves in it directly. For example, many people love to watch soccer and they religiously follow their favorite teams. If a survey was conducted for the favorite sport in that region, it will be soccer, but, almost no one in this pool of respondants actually play soccer. Similarly, in the case of Mason City, it is possible that they like to watch water sports, but, not play it themselves. So, the government spending huge sums of money on cleaning the river might have no real impact on the water sports.
Secondly, the argument given here assumes that just because the governement cleans up the river, people are actually going to use it for water sports. The people did not complain that there was no recreational facility on the river, the complain was about the quality of the river and the river's smell. So, if the river is cleaned up, people will be happy that the city's river is clean, but, there is no indication from the people that they need the river to be cleaned up so that they can play water sports.
The argument can be made stronger if the survey is conducted for every household in the city asking very specifically whether the people would start using the river for watersports if it gets cleaned up; instead of the current survey which asks for their favorite watersport. Without results of such a survey, it is very difficult, if not impossible to draw a definitive conclusion.
Thus, it can be seen that the given argument is flawed in many levels and cannot be taken seriously for deciding on a major government policy like budget.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-05-20 | yyusong | 69 | view |
| 2018-07-20 | anandgokul18 | 29 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Sentence: Even if the suvey had polled all of the city's residents, just because the respondants had mentioned water sports as their favorite recreational activity does not mean they will start actively using the Mason River for such activities once it is cleaned up.
Error: suvey Suggestion: survey
Error: respondants Suggestion: respondents
Sentence: The respondants could have meant they they like to spectate water sports, but, not engage themselves in it directly.
Error: spectate Suggestion: No alternate word
Error: respondants Suggestion: respondents
Sentence: If a survey was conducted for the favorite sport in that region, it will be soccer, but, almost no one in this pool of respondants actually play soccer.
Error: respondants Suggestion: respondents
Sentence: Secondly, the argument given here assumes that just because the governement cleans up the river, people are actually going to use it for water sports.
Error: governement Suggestion: government
Sentence: The argument can be made stronger if the survey is conducted for every household in the city asking very specifically whether the people would start using the river for watersports if it gets cleaned up; instead of the current survey which asks for their favorite watersport.
Error: watersport Suggestion: water port
Error: watersports Suggestion: water ports
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flaws:
the arguments are not right on the point.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 418 350
No. of Characters: 1942 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.522 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.646 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.459 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 126 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 82 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.03 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.765 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.344 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.577 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.124 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 285, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...d on that. Even if the suvey had polled all of the citys residents, just because the respo...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 546, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: they
...ed up. The respondants could have meant they they like to spectate water sports, but, not...
^^^^^^^^^
Line 6, column 234, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
... no recreational facility on the river, the complain was about the quality of the river and ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, first, if, second, secondly, similarly, so, then, thus, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2002.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 418.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.78947368421 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.5117520988 2.78398813304 90% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.44976076555 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 620.1 705.55239521 88% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.495460209 57.8364921388 98% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.764705882 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5882352941 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.82352941176 5.70786347227 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.225699610294 0.218282227539 103% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0751169436606 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0556414031421 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.113628166432 0.128457276422 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0764074230443 0.0628817314937 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.3799401198 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.8 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.92 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.