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.
In the argument, the firm wishes that its client invest in Consolidated industries. The reasons why the firm arrives at this conclusion is because there is a projected increase in demand for heating oil in the northeastern United States and weather is predicted to be low for years to come, moreover there is subsequent increase in new-home construction in the area. While the firms contention might be valid, the argument is rested on three unwarranted assumptions that drastically hinder the credibility of the statement.
Initially, the author assumes that the local weather forecasts are accurate and is bound to happen. In constrast to the statement, there is a possibility that the forecasts are not accurate or the local weather forcasters are new to the job. For example, the weather is cold in the northeastern part of the United States since there is a cold storm in the ocean nearby. The prediction of the likely headed direction of the storm is very ambiguous. Let us also consider that the so called forecasters are new to the job and innacurate in predicting the weather. If any of the mentioned situations prove to be true then it severely impedes the baseline of the firms intention.
Secondly, the author assumes that because there are construction of new homes in the region, more people are likely to move in. However, this might not be the case. If there were a price drop of properties in the region where 'Consolidated Indsutries' extant, citizens would be likely to invest in low-priced real estate, but this doesnt signify that those owners are going to move in. In addition to that, building of new homes might be because of low price of construction materials, many real-estate/building companies would typically reduce the amount of money spent on construction materials. They might have constructed those buildings solely because the constrcution cost of that time when the report what taken was significantly low. If either of these cases prove to be true then it hinders the validity of the firms contention.
Lastly, the author assumes that 'Consolidated Indsutries' since it has major business in reatail of heating oil it has direct co-relation with the stock price of the company and the reliability of the company depends only on this income. In contrast to that, it might be the case that the company has multiple sources of income and a debacle in other sources of income doesnt affect the stock listed price of the company. For example, if the company also has business in retail of house-hold products, many people would not come out in the cold weather to buy household products, thereby reducing the profit of the company and affecting the companies source of income.
If the author wishes to bolster the validity of the argument, the firm should provide these three pieces of evidence in order to move further and consider the investment opportunity.
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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: 12 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 484 350
No. of Characters: 2363 1500
No. of Different Words: 209 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.69 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.882 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.706 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 174 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 124 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.474 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.49 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.313 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.55 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 378, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'firms'' or 'firm's'?
Suggestion: firms'; firm's
...ome construction in the area. While the firms contention might be valid, the argument...
^^^^^
Line 3, column 562, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...d innacurate in predicting the weather. If any of the mentioned situations prove t...
^^
Line 3, column 659, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'firms'' or 'firm's'?
Suggestion: firms'; firm's
...it severely impedes the baseline of the firms intention. Secondly, the author ass...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 330, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...est in low-priced real estate, but this doesnt signify that those owners are going to ...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 741, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...eport what taken was significantly low. If either of these cases prove to be true ...
^^
Line 5, column 819, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'firms'' or 'firm's'?
Suggestion: firms'; firm's
...rue then it hinders the validity of the firms contention. Lastly, the author assum...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 368, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...nd a debacle in other sources of income doesnt affect the stock listed price of the co...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, lastly, moreover, second, secondly, so, then, while, for example, in addition, in contrast, in contrast to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2418.0 2260.96107784 107% => OK
No of words: 483.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00621118012 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68799114503 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8388936198 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.453416149068 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 771.3 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 22.8473053892 109% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.5719759162 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.263157895 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.4210526316 23.324526521 109% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.84210526316 5.70786347227 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.15617262127 0.218282227539 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0461912658157 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0541757440386 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0886321261974 0.128457276422 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0512278111151 0.0628817314937 81% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.9 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 46.1 48.3550499002 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.0 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.5979740519 96% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.57 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 98.500998004 115% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 11.1389221557 108% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.