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.
In this argument the author proposes that constructing new generating plants will be unnecessary. To validate this conclusion, the author points out that recent surveys indicate that home owners are eager to conserve energy and now many manufacturers are marketing home appliances which are nearly twice as energy efficient as the ones sold before. As further support for the argument, the author notes that the three generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met their needs. However, the argument is problematic in several respects, rendering the argument unconvincing as it stands. Therefore, the author should evaluate the assumptions to establish the argument strongly.
First of all, whether the surveys mentioned at the beginning of the argument have sufficiently representative sample is dubious. Without some exact and reliable data, the assumption that people are eager to conserve energy will be untenable. It is entirely possible that the surveys only investigate a few people or they deliberately choose people who are willing to save energy as the only sample of the survey. Hence, the results of the survey are unsubstantiated. Even if home owners are increasingly eager to save energy, whether they will actually take actions in daily lives is unwarranted. It is highly likely for those who claimed to conserve energy to give up due to a myriad of factors like inconvenience or something else. Therefore, it is hasty to assume that the demand for electricity will not increase because people are eager to save energy under these scenarios.
The author also unfairly assumes that the demand for electricity will not rise up since the manufactures are now marketing many home appliances which are twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. However, the author should appraise the assumption. Will people actually buy those energy-saving appliances? Not exactly. It is highly probable that they may not buy the new products on account of the high prices. Even though they buy home appliances which can help conserve energy<span style="font-size: 1.1em;">, it is not ascertained the electricity consumption will not increase under the condition where people buy a lot more home appliances than before to satisfy their demand. As a result, the energy consumption may even increase </span>rather than<span style="font-size: 1.1em;"> decrease.</span><br>
Finally, the author mentions that the three electricity generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met their needs. Then he concludes that the construction of new generating plants will be unnecessary. However, the assumption is unpersuasive if the author cannot eliminate the possibilities which may weaken the it. While the three plants could meet people’s needs in the past two decades, it does not mean that they can always satisfy the demand in the future without building new plants. For instance, it is possible that the population may boost dramatically, which may cause the increase of the use of electronic devices and the increasing number of factories and shopping malls as well as companies to satisfy the climbing needs. In the end, the consumption of electricity may even raise at a high speed. Hence, new electric generating plants should be established.
To sum up， the arguer fails to substantiate his claim that new construction of plants is not necessary because he bases on the tenuous assumptions mentioned before. To strengthen the argument, the author must consider the possible scenarios exhaustively to better assess the assumptions.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12-30 | stevewang1007 | 55 | view |
| 2019-12-21 | Daffodilia | 81 | view |
| 2019-11-17 | samira@ | 59 | view |
| 2019-10-28 | Pirateking | 63 | view |
| 2019-09-11 | vijaykaushik132 | 16 | view |
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Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 28 15
No. of Words: 573 350
No. of Characters: 2949 1500
No. of Different Words: 245 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.893 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.147 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.812 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 227 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 151 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 120 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 79 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.464 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.5 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.679 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.286 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.472 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 342, Rule ID: AFFORD_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the infinitive: 'to people'
Suggestion: to people
... few people or they deliberately choose people who are willing to save energy as the o...
^^^^^^
Line 11, column 335, Rule ID: DT_PRP[1]
Message: Possible typo. Did you mean 'the' or 'it'?
Suggestion: the; it
...nate the possibilities which may weaken the it. While the three plants could meet peop...
^^^^^^
Line 11, column 675, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...of electronic devices and the increasing number of factories and shopping malls a...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, so, then, therefore, well, while, for instance, as a result, as well as, first of all, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 22.0 13.6137724551 162% => OK
Pronoun: 40.0 28.8173652695 139% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3069.0 2260.96107784 136% => OK
No of words: 564.0 441.139720559 128% => OK
Chars per words: 5.4414893617 5.12650576532 106% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87326216964 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.18847375259 2.78398813304 115% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.437943262411 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 961.2 705.55239521 136% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.8097944948 57.8364921388 121% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.038461538 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.6923076923 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.88461538462 5.70786347227 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => 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: 0.161628050504 0.218282227539 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0436587832075 0.0743258471296 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0646962126572 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0871932446027 0.128457276422 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0566157950726 0.0628817314937 90% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.0 14.3799401198 104% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.27 12.5979740519 113% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.15 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 124.0 98.500998004 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.