The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a Relannian newspaper.
Industry analysts report that the number of dairy farms in Relanna has increased by 25 percent over the last decade. Also, recent innovations in milking technology make it possible for farmers to significantly increase the efficiency of the milking process, allowing them to collect more milk in less time with minimal human intervention. In fact, data from the Relannian Department of Agriculture indicate that labor costs at the majority of Relannian dairy farms are actually lower now than they were ten years ago. Despite increased efficiency and lower labor costs, a carton of cream — a dairy product made from milk — at the local food market costs twice as much as it did two years ago. The only explanation for this dramatic price increase is that farmers are inflating the price of cream to increase their profits.
Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
In the letter, the editor of a Relannian newspaper avers that the recent increase of the price of a carton of cream is the concomitance of farmers’ inflating the price of cream to increase the profits. He substantiates his argument by providing that the number of dairy farms are increased by 25 percent and the recent innovations allowed farmers to increase the efficiency of the milking process. Although the argument seems convincing at first, the existence of alternative explanations lead readers to conclude that the argument is not persuasive on many grounds.
To begin with, the editor should consider that 25 percent increase of dairy farms could be not significnat. This alternative possible scenario should be considered in that the author’s conclusion relies on the assumption of the increased product supply, albeit not directly evinced in the letter. However, it is possible that the increased of the number of the dairy farms are marginal, because the initial number of the dairy farms was not substantial. In this case, the increase of the supply should also be marginal, weakening the author’s conclusion on farmer’s intentional inflating of the price. Therefore, the author should take these possible scenarios into consideration and provide more solid arguments on how to obviate them.
Moreover, alternative explanations on the recent increase of the product price should be also considered. The editor provides only the short-term tendency of the cream price; he only mentions that fact that it increased twice as much as it did two years ago. However, it is likely that the price was actually higher ten years ago, and the current surge of the price is just an aberration due to the adverse economy. The author should also cite these possible explanations.
Finally, the author should take alternative explanations for the recent inflation of the product into consideration. To elaborate, one of the authors main assumptions is based on the survey result on the labor costs at the majority of Relannian dairy farms. However, it should be noted that the cost, which is required for running the machines that enabled farmers to increase their milking efficiency, might have not been included when the survey was conducted. In addition, it is also plausible that the minority of Relannian dairy farms whose cost was increased actually supplies the majority of cream products to the Relannian market. Therefore, the author should validate that the survey result is reliable and show that the amount of cream products supplied by those with the increased production cost is marginal.
In brief, the authors argument on the collusion of farmers on inflating the price of cream is not convincing on many grounds. Therefore, to bolster his argument, the editor should provide more information about the increase of the product supply, the long-term tendency of the product price, and the reliability of the survey result.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 473 350
No. of Characters: 2414 1500
No. of Different Words: 183 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.664 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.104 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.718 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 145 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.895 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.843 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.38 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.565 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.129 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 15, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'authors'' or 'author's'?
Suggestion: authors'; author's
...uction cost is marginal. In brief, the authors argument on the collusion of farmers on...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, however, if, moreover, so, therefore, in addition, in brief, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 23.0 19.6327345309 117% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2475.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 473.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23255813953 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66353547975 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.82394032524 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.412262156448 0.468620217663 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 770.4 705.55239521 109% => 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: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 39.1808789365 57.8364921388 68% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.263157895 119.503703932 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8947368421 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.57894736842 5.70786347227 98% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.213836073818 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.083143064078 0.0743258471296 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0793131531484 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.132099886451 0.128457276422 103% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0763455383789 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.35 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.5 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.