The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of a company that specializes in the delivery of heating oil.
“Most homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last heating season, that region experienced 90 days with below-normal temperatures, and climate forecasters predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes are being built in the region in response to recent population growth. Because of these trends, we can safely predict that this region will experience an increased demand for heating oil during the next five years.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The memo asserts that the demand for heating oil will increase for the next five years on the ground that the region they service the delivery will remain cold enough to require fuel for heating for several more years. In addition, an expectation of additional houses built due to recent population growth further consolidates the assertion. However, several evidences that this memo adduces for the conclusion are not logically sound, thus eliciting questions to be answered clearly.
First of all, whether the recent population growth is evenly distributed in all areas of United States should be answered. For instance, if the population growth rate adduced in this memo is of entire United States, there is still a chance that the population might even decrease in northeastern region due to the harsh cold weather. The fact that it is quite rare for the government to announce the specific population growth rate for a particular region of the nation adds much more validity to this concern.
Second, the question whether the newly-built houses still uses oil as a major fuel for heating should be answered. The passage does not give a single evidence that the newly built houses after five years from now will still use oil as a major fuel for heating. Considering the current oil shortage problem worldwide, the source of energy is likely to be changed to something else than oil, such as electricity or solar energy.
Finally, the reliability of those climate forecasters should be rigorously evaluated. If the forecast that the weather in the region will stay cold given are not accurate, the overall logical process will be seriously damaged. Considering the fact that weather forecasts are often not accurate, even for a daily forecast, the weather prediction for five years ahead cannot be perfect enough to be used as a sound logical ground for the conclusion.
To sum up, to strengthen the logical validity of the given assertion, following three questions must be answered clearly: Whether the population growth rate cited as a reference can give us appropriate information about the population in NorthEast United States, whether the newly-built houses will still use oil as a major energy source of heating, and finally the reliability of the weather forecasts. If these questions cannot be answered clearly enough, the given passage will lose its persuasiveness.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-07-28 | younghyopark | 86 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 388 350
No. of Characters: 1956 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.438 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.041 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.625 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 110 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 68 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.786 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.786 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.369 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.632 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 281, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...tation of additional houses built due to recent population growth further consoli...
^^
Line 5, column 9, Rule ID: WHETHER[5]
Message: Can you shorten this phrase to just 'whether', or rephrase the sentence to avoid "the question"?
Suggestion: whether
...e validity to this concern. Second, the question whether the newly-built houses still uses oil a...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 349, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ily forecast, the weather prediction for five years ahead cannot be perfect enoug...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, however, if, second, so, still, then, thus, for instance, in addition, such as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 2.0 11.1786427146 18% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 34.0 55.5748502994 61% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2007.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 388.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.17268041237 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.43821085614 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70681264212 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 188.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.484536082474 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 632.7 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 0.0 4.96107784431 0% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 19.7664670659 71% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 76.8964649807 57.8364921388 133% => OK
Chars per sentence: 143.357142857 119.503703932 120% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.7142857143 23.324526521 119% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.85714285714 5.70786347227 155% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.19863226692 0.218282227539 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0756812300593 0.0743258471296 102% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.067938447019 0.0701772020484 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.121008343937 0.128457276422 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.057451496508 0.0628817314937 91% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.8 14.3799401198 117% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.68 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.