The following appeared in the editorial section of a newspaper: “As public concern over drug abuse has increased, authorities have become more vigilant in their efforts to prevent illegal drugs from entering the country. Many drug traffickers have consequently switched from marijuana, which is bulky, or heroin, which has a market too small to justify the risk of severe punishment, to cocaine. Thus enforcement efforts have ironically resulted in an observed increase in the illegal use of cocaine.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
Though it might seem at first glance that the author has good reasons to suggest that increased control over the illegal drug import to the country has increased the cocaine usage, a closer examination of the arguments presented reveal number of examples of leap of faith, poor-reasoning and ill-defined terminology. In order to sound more convincing, the author has to provide valid evidences proving the correlation between the illegal drug control and cocaine usage.
First, the argument is rooted on the assumption that, among the other illegal drugs, cocaine is less bulky, has bigger market, therefore easier to sell and make profit. However, there is nothing mentioned regarding to how easy is cocaine to market or the actual number statistics about the sales price, the market size and fine amount for the seller.
Second, the argument could have been much clearer if the author avoided using the vague phases such as "bulky", "too small market" or "severe punishment". These phrases are too general and do not provide clear explanation of what is bulkiness in drug industry, what does the author actually mean by "too small market" and how rough is the "severe punishment".
To make the argument more persuasive the author have to provide clear evidences about the illegal drug market, and preference rates of the drugs separately. In addition, he must present the statistics of the actual illegal drug market in figures, such as the turnovers, sales prices, legal fines and others. Although an effort was made to make this very argument, lack of information weakened rather than strengthening the argument. Without the supporting information the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.
- The following appeared as part of an article in a magazine devoted to regional life:“Corporations should look to the city of Helios when seeking new business opportunitiesor a new location. Even in the recent recession, Helios’s unemployment rate was 41
- The following appeared in an Avia Airlines departmental memorandum:“On average, 9 out of every 1,000 passengers who traveled on Avia Airlines last year fileda complaint about our baggage-handling procedures. This means that although some 1percent of our 66
- The following statement appeared in a consumer magazine:A fear of crime has led many homeowners to purchase monitored burglar alarmsystems, but these people are wasting their money. The primary benefit of anyburglar alarm system is one of deterrence, and 50
- Adapted from Steven Pinker Mind Over Mass Media 2010 by The New York Times Originally published June 10 2010 New forms of media have always caused moral panics the printing press newspapers paperbacks and television were all once denounced as threats to t 48
- It is the best for children to live with their parents for as long as possible 80
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, first, however, if, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, as to, in addition, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.6327345309 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 12.9520958084 23% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 3.0 13.6137724551 22% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 7.0 28.8173652695 24% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 55.5748502994 59% => More preposition wanted.
Nominalization: 16.0 16.3942115768 98% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1492.0 2260.96107784 66% => OK
No of words: 276.0 441.139720559 63% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.40579710145 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.07593519647 4.56307096286 89% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96218199293 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 163.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.590579710145 0.468620217663 126% => OK
syllable_count: 464.4 705.55239521 66% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Interrogative: 1.0 0.471057884232 212% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => 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: 10.0 19.7664670659 51% => Need more sentences, or put a space between two sentences.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 57.9813763203 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 149.2 119.503703932 125% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.6 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.7 5.70786347227 170% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.20758483034 24% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.210112227589 0.218282227539 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0868816016011 0.0743258471296 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0778863326323 0.0701772020484 111% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.117965825166 0.128457276422 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0621439221761 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.9 14.3799401198 124% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.61 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.39 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.38 8.32208582834 113% => OK
difficult_words: 77.0 98.500998004 78% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 18.0 11.9071856287 151% => OK
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.