The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Parkville Daily newspaper.
"Throughout the country last year, as more and more children below the age of nine participated in youth-league sports, over 40,000 of these young players suffered injuries. When interviewed for a recent study, youth-league soccer players in several major cities also reported psychological pressure exerted by coaches and parents to win games. Furthermore, education experts say that long practice sessions for these sports take away time that could be used for academic activities. Since the disadvantages outweigh any advantages, we in Parkville should discontinue organized athletic competition for children under nine."
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.
According to the prompt, the author recommends that the Parkville authority should discontinue the organized athletic competition for children under the age of nine. The reason given to support this claim is that over 40,000 children suffered from injuries last year throughout the country. Moreover, the long practice sessions for these sports take away time that could be used for academic activities, according to the writer. But, in my opinion, the argument is based on a lot of unstated assumptions and the author should answer the following three questions before the recommendation is accepted.
To begin, it is mentioned that over 40,000 young players suffered injuries throughout the country. But there is no mention of total players under the age of nine. If the data was given in the form of a percentage of a ratio, then it would have been possible to accurately consider the trend of the injuries. It might be the case that, the number of children participating in the you-league sports was in millions and thus, the injured children account for a very small percentage of the total children who participated. Also, the writer has assumed that all injuries are equally severe and mat cause significant harm to the child. But it may be the case that of these ‘40,000 injured children’ most of the injuries were minor ones and the children were back on there feet the next day.
Furthermore, the ‘recent study’ claims that youth-league soccer players are under psychological pressure from their parents and coaches to perform well in games. But can the assertion from a study for a particular sport be generalized for all types of athletic activities? It might be that, the competitive nature of the soccer league would have lead to increased pressure on the participating children. Also, it is imprudent to take a big decision for the Parkville city based on a ‘recent study’ conducted in some other cities. The writer has assumed that the conclusion of that study will hold even for Parkville without considering the difference in conditions between those big cities and Parkville.
Moreover, the writer has assumed that the children and their parents agree with the assertion of the ‘education experts’ that long practice sessions for sports take away time that could be utilized for academic activities. The parents might have a point of view, that physical activities should be given the equal importance as academic activities. The author has failed to account for the views of the concerned party that is the children and their guardians. They might view the athletic competition as a opportunity to imbibe the children with values on winning and losing and might even be fine with their children getting bruised up a bit as it will prepare them for the rigors of the real world. Hence, the unwarranted assumption of the writer, that the parents are onboard with views of the education experts is not correct.
In conclusion, the current state of the argument is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unjustified assumptions. If the author is able to answer the aforementioned questions and provide concrete evidence supporting the claim, perhaps in the form of research study, then the viability of the recommendation to discontinue athletic competition for children under nine in Parkville can be fully evaluated.
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Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 505, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... might view the athletic competition as a opportunity to imbibe the children with...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, hence, if, may, moreover, so, then, thus, well, in conclusion, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2819.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 550.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12545454545 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85041333816 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 249.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452727272727 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 864.9 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.7850965644 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.136363636 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.54545454545 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.195041275329 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0657224676805 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0755028473142 0.0701772020484 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115821230533 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0799991645198 0.0628817314937 127% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.77 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 4, column 505, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... might view the athletic competition as a opportunity to imbibe the children with...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, hence, if, may, moreover, so, then, thus, well, in conclusion, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2819.0 2260.96107784 125% => OK
No of words: 550.0 441.139720559 125% => OK
Chars per words: 5.12545454545 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85041333816 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 249.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.452727272727 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 864.9 705.55239521 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 15.0 8.76447105788 171% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.7850965644 57.8364921388 88% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.136363636 119.503703932 107% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.54545454545 5.70786347227 80% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.195041275329 0.218282227539 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0657224676805 0.0743258471296 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0755028473142 0.0701772020484 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115821230533 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0799991645198 0.0628817314937 127% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.2 14.3799401198 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.77 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.35 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.