The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client.
"Homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last year that region experienced twenty days with below-average temperatures, and local weather forecasters throughout the region predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes have been built in this region during the past year. Because of these developments, we predict an increased demand for heating oil and recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
A letter was sent to client providing advice on a possible investment in Consolidated Industries. The firm has based its argument on the performance of homes that used oil for heating their homes in the last couple of years. The writer of the letter has jumped to a general conclusion without providing enough evidence and as such his argument is not cogent but rife with holes.
To begin with, the writer states that last year the region experienced twenty days with below-average temperatures, and that it is expected to have such a weather in the coming few years. However, he fails to provide information and data on the performance of the oil heated homes in the region during that particular period. Did these homes perform properly? Were they heated enough, or did the heating system fail? Did the residents need a supporting heating system? How can we know that the oil heating system is the best system to be used in extreme weather, without proper data. The argument failed to provide such data and as such we cannot know if these heating systems should be used in this region that is undergoing weather change anymore.
Secondly, the writer goes on to state that new homes were constructed in the last year and therefore we will need oil for these homes. He jumps to the conclusion that these homes were designed with oil heating systems. The argument did not present the type of heating system that was incorporated in these new residentail structures. What if the designers opted for gas heating or elecrtic heating or a mix of the two in order to beat the extreme weather. In all cases the need for oil will be rebuked and the whole argument refuted. In order to strengthen his argument the writer had to clearly state that these new residential homes were designed with oil heating systems incorporated.
Furthermore, in order to substantiate his argument he should have stated the efficiency of that system in the last year and how happy were the residents with the performance of their heating system. He could have done a survey after the storm in order to present client satisfaction with the performance of oil heating systems. Such a survey will likely promote the usage of these systems and will increase the credibility of his argument.
Thirdly he recommended the investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil. The writer recommends this particular company which is his firm without presenting its portfolio or what makes this company stand out among other companies which operate in the same business. Why would that person work with this consolidated business rather than another oil company? Did the writer provide a survey of this company’s performance in the business or a newsletter…
Finally, I belive that the writer’s letter is rife with holes and needs to be presented with substantial evidence in order to be credible. In its present state it promotes a personal point of view rather than a promotional objective product.
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Comments
e-rater score 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: 25 15
No. of Words: 512 350
No. of Characters: 2477 1500
No. of Different Words: 210 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.757 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.838 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.623 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 52 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.48 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.122 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.4 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.314 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.357 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.173 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 2 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, furthermore, however, if, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, third, thirdly, in all cases, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 47.0 28.8173652695 163% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 72.0 55.5748502994 130% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2531.0 2260.96107784 112% => OK
No of words: 512.0 441.139720559 116% => OK
Chars per words: 4.943359375 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75682846001 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71619444255 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 215.0 204.123752495 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.419921875 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 794.7 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.593266566 57.8364921388 84% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.458333333 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.3333333333 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.08333333333 5.70786347227 89% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.242534057491 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0843216340351 0.0743258471296 113% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0594968230397 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137362642226 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0759071559189 0.0628817314937 121% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.5 14.3799401198 87% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.37 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.89 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.