In a study of the reading habits of Waymarsh citizens conducted by the University of Waymarsh, most respondents said they preferred literary classics as reading material. However, a second study conducted by the same researchers found that the type of book most frequently checked out of each of the public libraries in Waymarsh was the mystery novel. Therefore, it can be concluded that the respondents in the first study had misrepresented their reading preferences.
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 these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The passage above states that Waymarsh citizens misreported their reading preferences in a study. The premisis for this conclusion is the fact that, while, according to the study, the type of book preferred by the residents of the city is classics, the most popular type of book to be ckecked out in the public libraries is the mystery novel. However, this conclusion depends on a number of implicit assumptions which need to be checked before accepting the argument.
Firstly, the passage presupposes that the sample of people going to the public libraries is representative of the population at whole. Only in such a case the preferences of the residents and of people attending the public libraries must be the identical. However, it is possible that some groups of citizens are overrepresented in the sample of library-goers, while others are underrepresented. For example, it may be the case that only the less priviledged part of the city takes books in libraries while others prefer to buy new books. Alternatively, it may be the older people who go to the libraries; in contrast, younger people prefer to read books online. In these cases the fact that different social groups prefer different types of books may help to explain the discrepancy between the findings of the two studies without coming to the conclusion that citizens misinformed the researchers.
Secondly, the passage makes the assumption that the first study itself was conducted properly with a large sample representative of the city population. It is not apriori true. According to the laws of statistics, if the sample is too small, no proper conclusion can be made about the population as a whole. The same can be said about a non-representitative sample. Imagine that the sample for the first study was a group of University students majoring in English. They are likely to have preferences in literature which differ from the preferences of the whole population. In this case the first study is not valid at its results cannot be extrapolated to the whole city.
Thirdly, it is assumed that the citizens check out the types of books in the libraries proportionally to their preferences towards this type of books. This assumption doesn’t always hold. For instance, it may be the case that citizens have the books of their preferred type in home libraries, so there is no need to go to the public libraries to read classics. At the same time, the residents of the city doesn’t like mystery stories as much as to buy them but still enjoy reading them sometimes. It may explain why the mystery stories are more popular in the libraries than classics while the latter being the favourite type of books.
To sum up, the argument is rife with loopholes, and if at least one of these assumptions is not supported, the conclusions cannot be accepted as true.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not OK
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 480 350
No. of Characters: 2305 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.681 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.802 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.871 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 151 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 84 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 62 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.818 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.074 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.507 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.067 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, still, third, thirdly, while, as to, at least, for example, for instance, in contrast, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 19.6327345309 148% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2371.0 2260.96107784 105% => OK
No of words: 478.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 4.96025104603 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67581127817 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98995549489 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.428870292887 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 750.6 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.4718438814 57.8364921388 87% => OK
Chars per sentence: 107.772727273 119.503703932 90% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.7272727273 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.13636363636 5.70786347227 125% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.186061330752 0.218282227539 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0562692868648 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0468421758648 0.0701772020484 67% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0970894108085 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0512816952129 0.0628817314937 82% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.85 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.