The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase—and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The author of the memorandum who indicates that constructing new electric generating factories will not be necessary provides interesting evidence. However, the argument is rife with holes and assumptions, and thus, not strong enough to lead to the conclusion.
Citing surveys of home owners, the author reports that the home owners are increasingly keen to conserve energy. It is not clear, however, the scope and validity of that survey. For example, the survey could have asked home owners "do you prefer to save more energy or want to see consumer electricity prices doubled?", which may influence home owners toward energy conservation. The sample may not represent the area residents, asking only those residents who own house. Moreover, perhaps these surveys are conducted by the manufacturers which have produced home appliances with excellent energy efficiencies and have the purpose of increasing wide range usage of energy efficient appliances, while the fact may be opposite. Unless the survey is fully representative, valid, and reliable, it cannot be used to effectively back the author’s argument.
Additionally, the author implies that the energy consumption will decline, because many home machine products, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, are applied new technologies like passive solar heating support. However, in making this conclusion, he makes several assumptions without considering questions that need to be addressed. First, whether the area's residents desire to substitute their old home appliances by the new ones. In other words, the prices of modern appliances applied new technologies are often higher than the obsolete ones. Therefore, perhaps not many residents are willing to spend sum of money for energy efficient appliances. Second, even if many residents purchased energy efficient appliances, whether the prediction of the author which is "the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase—and may decline slightly" will become true. For example, the number of population of the area increase dramatically in the next several years, which can create a negative impact on energy consumption of the area. We just do not know. Thus, the author needs to answer these above questions to convince us that his prediction will become true.
Building upon the implication that three electric generating factories for the past twenty years have always met their needs, the author concludes that it is unnecessary that constructing new generating plants. If the total demand for electricity in their area in the future was the same as its twenty years ago, this may be true. However, the author jumps to the conclusion while he/she do not indicate any statistics about the entire demand for electricity in his/her area in the future. In fact, there are many hidden factors which are able to influence on the entire electricity demand of the area. For example, On one hand, total electricity increase significantly because of the increase of area's population. On the other hand, in the future, there are a lot of factories constructed in the area which consume a large amount of energy of the area. Whether that time three electric generating plants can supply adequate energy for whole area.
In conclusion, this argument is neither apparent nor convincing since it leaves out several angles and factors. I strongly believe that if the argument included the factors discussed above, the argument would have been more plausible and convincing.
- The following appeared in an editorial in a local newspaper. "Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to 70
- The following appeared in an editorial in a local newspaper. "Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to 50
- The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy At the same time manufacturers are now marketing many home applianc 88
- Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas wher 66
- Invasive species cause most of the worst problems in local ecosystems The presence of a new species particularly one at the top of the food chain can destroy an ecosystem and cause numerous species to become extinct One species that is causing numerous pr 85
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 389, Rule ID: HE_VERB_AGR[1]
Message: The pronoun 'she' must be used with a third-person verb: 'does'.
Suggestion: does
...or jumps to the conclusion while he/she do not indicate any statistics about the e...
^^
Discourse Markers used:
['first', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'moreover', 'second', 'so', 'therefore', 'thus', 'while', 'for example', 'in conclusion', 'in fact', 'such as', 'in other words', 'on the other hand']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.259493670886 0.25644967241 101% => OK
Verbs: 0.142405063291 0.15541462614 92% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0949367088608 0.0836205057962 114% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0553797468354 0.0520304965353 106% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0253164556962 0.0272364105082 93% => OK
Prepositions: 0.118670886076 0.125424944231 95% => OK
Participles: 0.0348101265823 0.0416121511921 84% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.91322944258 2.79052419416 104% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0205696202532 0.026700313972 77% => OK
Particles: 0.00158227848101 0.001811407834 87% => OK
Determiners: 0.0965189873418 0.113004496875 85% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0237341772152 0.0255425247493 93% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0142405063291 0.0127820249294 111% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3537.0 2731.13054187 130% => OK
No of words: 550.0 446.07635468 123% => OK
Chars per words: 6.43090909091 6.12365571057 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.84273464058 4.57801047555 106% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.418181818182 0.378187486979 111% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.294545454545 0.287650121315 102% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.229090909091 0.208842608468 110% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.165454545455 0.135150697306 122% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.91322944258 2.79052419416 104% => OK
Unique words: 272.0 207.018472906 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.494545454545 0.469332199767 105% => OK
Word variations: 59.6455031371 52.1807786196 114% => OK
How many sentences: 26.0 20.039408867 130% => OK
Sentence length: 21.1538461538 23.2022227129 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 52.9696379483 57.7814097925 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 136.038461538 141.986410481 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.1538461538 23.2022227129 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.615384615385 0.724660767414 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 3.58251231527 28% => OK
Readability: 50.6083916084 51.9672348444 97% => OK
Elegance: 1.85106382979 1.8405768891 101% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.442090054971 0.441005458295 100% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.115054455917 0.135418324435 85% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0889785599483 0.0829849096947 107% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.51124753521 0.58762219726 87% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.161839227554 0.147661913831 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.169305592672 0.193483328276 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0896167954481 0.0970749176394 92% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.440593690963 0.42659136922 103% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.139339625438 0.0774707102158 180% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.282143097309 0.312017818177 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0964884147272 0.0698173142475 138% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 8.33743842365 192% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.87684729064 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.82512315271 83% => OK
Positive topic words: 13.0 6.46551724138 201% => OK
Negative topic words: 5.0 5.36822660099 93% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 2.82389162562 106% => OK
Total topic words: 21.0 14.657635468 143% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.