169. The following appeared in a memo from the mayor of Brindleburg to the city council.
"Two years ago, the town of Seaside Vista opened a new municipal golf course and resort hotel. Since then, the Seaside Vista Tourism Board has reported a 20% increase in visitors. In addition, local banks reported a steep rise in the number of new business loan applications they received this year. The amount of tax money collected by Seaside Vista has also increased, allowing the town to announce plans to improve Seaside Vista's roads and bridges. We recommend building a similar golf course and resort hotel in Brindleburg. We predict that this project will generate additional tax revenue that the city can use to fund much-needed public improvements."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In this memo, the mayor of Brindleburg recommends that to generate additional tax revenue that Brindleburg can use to fund much-needed public improvements it is needed to build a golf course and resort hotel in Brindleburg like the town of Seaside Vista. Although this recommendation may seem convincing at first, the lacks of answers lead me to conclude that the argument is invalid on many grounds.
Firstly, the mayor claims that Brindleburg would get more tax revenue by building a municipal golf course and resort hotel as the town of Seaside Vista has done. The mayor assumes that there is only a little difference between Brindleburg and the town of Seaside Vista so that Brindleburg is able to get additional tax revenue once they build these facilities like the town of Seaside Vista. However, the mayor needs to answer the following question: Is Brindleburg similar to the town of Seaside Vista? If there is no difference between the two regions, the mayor’s claims may be plausible. However, if two districts are quite distinct from each other, the mayor’s argument might be discredited. For example, it is possible that the golf course and the resort hotel in the town of Seaside Vista have been popular due to their locations adjacent to the sea. In this case, if Brindleburg is located inland and it does not have any scenery people love, people may not visit the golf course and the resort hotel even though Brindleburg builds them newly. As a result, the additional tax revenue of Brindleburg would not be significant by building them.
Secondly, the mayor argues that Brindleburg should also build a new municipal golf course and resort hotel, and then they can collect much amount of tax money as the town of Seaside Vista did. In this argument, it is implied that the Seaside Vista has secured increased tax revenue from the golf club and the resort hotel. But is the increased tax revenue for the Seaside Vista coming from the new golf course and the resort hotel? Was there no other change in the Seaside Vista to increase tax revenue? For instance, it is plausible to suppose that the increased tax revenue was mostly from the new business recently opened in the Seaside Vista because the number of new business loan applications has increased significantly in the Seaside Vista lately. Consequently, even if Brindleburg builds a new golf course and resort hotel, there is no guarantee that tax revenue will increase.
Finally, the mayor expects that Brindleburg will be able to use to fund much-needed public improvements if the tax revenue is increased by building the new facilities, and this expectation is from the announcement of the town of Seaside Vista that they plan to use the tax revenue to improve their roads and bridges. The mayor presumes that the Seaside Vista’s plan would soon be implemented in practice. However, it should be asked whether the plan can be taken at face value or not. Will be possible to use tax revenue to improve their roads and bridges for the Seaside Vista? Unlike the Seaside Vista’s plan, wouldn’t there be other problems that tax revenue needs to be used? For example, unlike its tax revenue plan, the Seaside Vista may have to spend a lot of its tax revenues repairing its new golf course and resort hotel. This would be the same for Brindleburg. Although more tax revenue may be collected through the new golf course and resort hotel, much of it may have to be used again for them, and thus, both cities may not be able to use the revenue for their much-needed public improvements.
To sum up, the mayor’s recommendation is unsound on many grounds. In order to strengthen the recommendation, the mayor needs to provide more specific answers to the questions which are mentioned above.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 642 350
No. of Characters: 3051 1500
No. of Different Words: 217 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.034 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.752 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.562 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 205 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 157 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 58 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 29.182 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 16.908 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.409 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.195 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
In this memo, the mayor of Brindleburg r...
^^
Line 3, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... argument is invalid on many grounds. Firstly, the mayor claims that Brindlebu...
^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... not be significant by building them. Secondly, the mayor argues that Brindleb...
^^
Line 7, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...antee that tax revenue will increase. Finally, the mayor expects that Brindleb...
^^
Line 7, column 63, Rule ID: USE_TO_VERB[1]
Message: Did you mean 'used'?
Suggestion: used
...xpects that Brindleburg will be able to use to fund much-needed public improvements...
^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...heir much-needed public improvements. To sum up, the mayor's recommendati...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, consequently, finally, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, for example, for instance, as a result, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 34.0 19.6327345309 173% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.9520958084 154% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 43.0 28.8173652695 149% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 70.0 55.5748502994 126% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3149.0 2260.96107784 139% => OK
No of words: 641.0 441.139720559 145% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.91263650546 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.0316973083 4.56307096286 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71150155322 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.351014040562 0.468620217663 75% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 971.1 705.55239521 138% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 66.6441579359 57.8364921388 115% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.115384615 119.503703932 101% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6538461538 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.80769230769 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 15.0 8.20758483034 183% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.345361415208 0.218282227539 158% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.140249310651 0.0743258471296 189% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0982434671409 0.0701772020484 140% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.217588207428 0.128457276422 169% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.118221099398 0.0628817314937 188% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.49 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.27 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.