In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fish -
ing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through
the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department
devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years
there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river’s water
and the river’s smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean
up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is, therefore, sure to increase. The
city government should for that reason devote more money in this year’s budget to
riverside recreational facilities.
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 the assumptions
and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument claims that dirty river with a pungent smell along with lack of funding from Mason City’s budget is the reason behind Mason river not being used for water sports. The writer claims that surveys show that the city’s residents rate water sports as a top recreational sport to support his argument. But, the argument made uses vague terms, does not quantify, ignores time required to complete projects and mistakes correlation with causality.
While using the surveys to support the argument, the writer assumes that these surveys were conducted by credible sources. It might be the case that surveys were conducted only in a few localities where water sports are popular or only approached people who have water sports as a common interest. The writer needs to specify the credibility of these surveys along with the demographics of the people who participated in them.
One can immediately notice the lack of quantification in the surveys supporting the argument. How many citizens rank water sports as a preferred recreational activity? This lack of quantization can be seen throughout the paragraph. City park department devotes a “little” of its budget to riverside recreational facilities. One can raise a question on how little is the amount of money provided? The argument also does not provide us with a contrast between the money allocated by different cities for these facilities. It also fails to tell us if the money given is insufficient.
Irrespective of the money provided by the city park department, there can be other reasons why water sports in the Mason City might be impractical. Does the weather allow these activities? Does there exist minimal turbulence in the river? How fast is the flow of the river? These questions need to be answered before one can conclude the lack of funding and a polluted river are the primary reasons.
While the argument does not state assumptions regarding the practicality of water sports in Mason City, it does state many flawed reasons to support its claim. While a polluted river can be correlated with recreational facilities not being used, further elaboration is needed to claim correlation as causation. Announced plans to clean this river does not indicate how soon can the project be expected to be completed. Therefore, the claim that government should devote more money in “this” year’s budget raises questions.
The argument is asking for more budget to be allocated for maintaining riverside recreational facilities. The credibility of surveys and quantification of people supporting the cause along with the amount already provided for recreation needs to be specified. To strengthen the argument, further evidence is required to prove pollution of the river is a primary cause along with the practicality of conduction such activities in the river. For a better evaluation of the argument, a clarification is required on the timeline of cleaning of Mason river.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 476 350
No. of Characters: 2421 1500
No. of Different Words: 207 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.671 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.086 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.798 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 131 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.308 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.894 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.269 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.298 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.519 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.103 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 262, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...paragraph. City park department devotes a 'little' of its budget to riv...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, regarding, so, then, therefore, while
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 22.0 28.8173652695 76% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 28.0 16.3942115768 171% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2518.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 476.0 441.139720559 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28991596639 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67091256922 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.01178744927 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 212.0 204.123752495 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.445378151261 0.468620217663 95% => OK
syllable_count: 796.5 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.9887981681 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.8461538462 119.503703932 81% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.3076923077 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.0 5.70786347227 35% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.242972159191 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0751572120868 0.0743258471296 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0663225094082 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.147646873405 0.128457276422 115% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0624821752204 0.0628817314937 99% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 44.75 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.5979740519 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.21 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.