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.
In the editorial from Parkville Daily newspaper, the author recommends that Parkville should discontinue organizing its athletic competitions for children below the age of nine due to the number of injured children, an aberration from academic activities, and players psychological pressure because of these activities. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, four questions need to be answered.
First of all, are all the youth-league sports of competition are causing injuries to the players? there can be some games which might cause physical injuries to the children, but we don't know anything about this in the information provided by the author. A survey can be carried upon the type of games causing health issues and injuries to the players before discontinuing organized athletic competitions for all the games.
Secondly, the author mentions that over 40,00 young players suffered from injuries, without revealing any information on the total sample size of the survey. Is it really a big number? it can be from out of 50,000 or 4,000,000. In the latter case, the percentage of injuries caused by these sports are not highly significant for this ban.
Thirdly, can academic or indoor activities compensate for outdoor activities? Without performing any outdoor activity or sport, children might get into more health troubles having after youth effects. The opinions of education experts who have an objection on athletic activities due to the time it takes, as they believe it cuts out the time from academics. However, the author fails to recognize that other education experts argue that sports play a vital role in children's education and development. Sports teach discipline, time management, commitment, problem-solving skills, healthy competition, teamwork and friendship, which plays an important role in a person life.
Finally, does the psychological pressure causing any harm to the players? the author fails to mention the effects of the psychological pressure caused by sports, which may not be a harmful thing for the children. A little pressure on children of the age below nine can bring some positive aspects to their attitude, behaviour, and efficiency. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is mostly flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer the four questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation to discontinue organized athletic competition.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
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: 17 15
No. of Words: 418 350
No. of Characters: 2184 1500
No. of Different Words: 213 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.522 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.225 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.899 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 133 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 103 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.754 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.588 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.603 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 99, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: There
...on are causing injuries to the players? there can be some games which might cause phy...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 183, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ysical injuries to the children, but we dont know anything about this in the informa...
^^^^
Line 9, column 186, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: It
... the survey. Is it really a big number? it can be from out of 50,000 or 4,000,000....
^^
Line 17, column 75, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...essure causing any harm to the players? the author fails to mention the effects of ...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2262.0 2260.96107784 100% => OK
No of words: 417.0 441.139720559 95% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.42446043165 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.5189133491 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.99847277518 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 223.0 204.123752495 109% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.534772182254 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 693.9 705.55239521 98% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.881127716 57.8364921388 117% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.1 119.503703932 95% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.85 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.9 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.160306323357 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.043627853006 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0493988123521 0.0701772020484 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0820237987926 0.128457276422 64% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0443034971377 0.0628817314937 70% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.5 14.3799401198 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.16 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 107.0 98.500998004 109% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.