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.
The author of the argument states that farmers in Relanna increased the price of milk dramatically just to make more profit even though the cost of labor has decreased as compared to ten years ago. He substantiates his claims by saying that the dairy farms rose up by 25% and recent technology made it possible to milk significantly without much effort. The author states that even with all these amenities and reduction in labor cost the farmers increased the price by a huge margin. At first glance, the argument may look fine but the argument is ripe with many unwarranted explanations and a lack of proof. In order to fully evaluate the merits of the argument, the following different scenarios must be considered.
Firstly, the author says that even with the increase in milk production by 25% over the last decade, the farmers are increasing the price. Here the author fails to consider alternate scenarios and did not consider other factors that may contribute to rising in milk price. From the last decade, the population of Relanna will certainly change and the increase in people might be dramatic and the farmers are finding it hard to meet the demands. In addition to that, in that 10 years, inflation also most probably has an effect on the price of milk. It can be the case that both population and inflation have increased by a huge price and farmers have no option but to increase the price of milk in order to meet the cost. Failure to mention the above scenarios only makes the argument water under the bridge and the author should address these alternate cases to consolidate his argument.
Furthermore, the author mentions that with the help of recent technology, the farmers are able to milk significantly with less effort and it also led to a decrease in labor charges, but farmers still increased the price of milk due to their greed. Here the author fails to mention the expense spent on the new technology, its maintenance cost, and the manpower required to maintain it. It can be the scenario where the farmers have spent a huge sum of money on the machine and they need to get earn that money by adding its charge to milk. It can also be the case that the technological machine takes too much energy and a lot of effort and manpower to process milk which further led to an increase in the price of milk. The author did not mention any of the above cases and because of his failure to consider such situations, the argument does not lack merit.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now is seriously flawed due to the absence of solid evidence or proofs to back the author's claims. If the author is able to provide proofs preferably in a systematic format, it may be possible to evaluate the soundness of the argument
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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: 4 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 18 15
No. of Words: 486 350
No. of Characters: 2226 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.695 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.58 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.481 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 146 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.351 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.364 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.528 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, if, look, may, so, still, in addition, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.6327345309 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 77.0 55.5748502994 139% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2275.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 486.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 4.68106995885 5.12650576532 91% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69525374022 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.52999834632 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442386831276 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 720.9 705.55239521 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 33.1750408189 57.8364921388 57% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 126.388888889 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0 23.324526521 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.11111111111 5.70786347227 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.154025745897 0.218282227539 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0553583584219 0.0743258471296 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0547570062343 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0944890201588 0.128457276422 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0482347157716 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.53 48.3550499002 109% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.6 12.197005988 103% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.16 12.5979740519 81% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.64 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 82.0 98.500998004 83% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.