The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a journal on environmental issues.
"Over the past year, the Crust Copper Company (CCC) has purchased over 10,000 square miles of land in the tropical nation of West Fredonia. Mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution and, since West Fredonia is the home of several endangered animal species, in environmental disaster. But such disasters can be prevented if consumers simply refuse to purchase products that are made with CCC's copper unless the company abandons its mining plans."
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.
Although, the argument in the letter sent to the editor that consumers can prevent the likely pollution and environmental hazard likely to be caused by the mining activities of Crust Copper Company by shunning products made with their copper looks cogent at first, the argument is riddled with unsupported assumptions on further analysis. This assumptions leave many unanswered question and thereby weaken the argument in the letter.
Firstly, there is an assumption that the amount of pollution that is likely to result from the minig activities of Crust Copper Company (CCC) would be large enough to cause significant damage to the environment and by extension, the endangered species. If the pollution would not be large enough to cause any significant environmental harm, there wouldn’t be a need for consumers action or any other action targeted at making the company abandon its project. In Order to strengthen the argument, the writer can come up with the amount of projected waste materials from the corper mining process or data from minig operations with similar structure as the one intended for West Fredoria and the maximum amount of the waste product in which the endangered animals can afford to take in without negative consequences. This way, the writer of the letter can prove that the mining process that is intended for West Fredonia would be of significant environmental consequence.
Secondly, there is also an unwarranted assumption that consumers are interested in keeping the almost extinct animals safe or protecting the environment in their own way. If the consumers are not interested in the first place, they won’t take to the advice given and those who are advocating against the potential environmental risk of the mining process would have to look for other ways like legal action or probably protests that may help to make the mining process unsustainable. Therefore the argument should show the general disposition of the public to sustaining the environment.
Finally, even if the people are interested in taking actions against the company, that doesn’t mean they would be able to distinguish items made from copper from CCC from other coppers. If the consumer cannot discern the copper from others, they wouldn’t be able to effectively abandon such items thereby making weakening the argument. Therefore, in order to strengthen this position, the writer should enumerate ways in which such discernment can be made. In addition, there is no proof that there are alternatives if the consumers decide to take actions against good made from CCC’s copper and this questions need to be answered in order to make the argument more solid.
In Conclusion, due to the unanswered questions concerning the availability of alternatives and the ability of cousumers to distinguish between good made from CCC’s copper and others (if available), coupled with the assumption that the pollution from the mining operation of the company would be high enough to have negative impacts, the argument is weak and needs further supports
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 11 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 9 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 494 350
No. of Characters: 2520 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.714 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.101 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.734 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 192 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 137 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 35.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 15.327 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.786 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.386 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.463 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 340, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: These
...ported assumptions on further analysis. This assumptions leave many unanswered quest...
^^^^
Line 3, column 485, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Therefore,
... make the mining process unsustainable. Therefore the argument should show the general di...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, in addition, in conclusion, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 76.0 55.5748502994 137% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2574.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 490.0 441.139720559 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25306122449 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.70488508055 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81231894692 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 213.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.434693877551 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 802.8 705.55239521 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 35.0 22.8473053892 153% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 92.512437112 57.8364921388 160% => OK
Chars per sentence: 183.857142857 119.503703932 154% => OK
Words per sentence: 35.0 23.324526521 150% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.35714285714 5.70786347227 164% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
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: 0.135555326963 0.218282227539 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0585156350971 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0412405352776 0.0701772020484 59% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.087309629577 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0356389299459 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 20.8 14.3799401198 145% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 35.95 48.3550499002 74% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 16.9 12.197005988 139% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.76 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.79 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 106.0 98.500998004 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.5 12.3882235529 157% => OK
gunning_fog: 16.0 11.1389221557 144% => OK
text_standard: 21.0 11.9071856287 176% => 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.