27. The following appeared in a letter to the editor of 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 widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. But last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. A better alternative is to add a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, and so would reduce rush-hour traffic rather than fostering an increase."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In this argument, the author concludes that an extra bicycle lane rather than an additional lane of traffic should be added to address the problem of increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway, because there was a worsening of traffic after another lane being built on Green Highway. However, unless the author provides more convincing evidence to back the argument, it does not hold water.
First, the author indicates that because adding an lane to nearby Green Highway to solve the traffic problem fails, additional traffic lane should not be built on Blue Highway. The analogy between the two different highways might be unsubstantiated, and the author fails to illustrate that the two highways are similar enough at every aspect and are indeed comparable. More evidences like same number of initial lanes, similar traffic flow and same habitats as well as preferred lifestyle of residents near the highways are needed to strengthen the argument.
Second, the writer mentions that because many area residents are keen bicyclists and a bicycle lane would encourage commuters to use bicycles to commute, a bicycle lane should be built. However, the author fails to provide any evidence to support the assumption. Perhaps, commuters’ company are very far from their house and it may take them more than 2 hours to commute if they ride bicycles, and it is also likely that residents just pretend to be keen on bicycles by posting their riding photos on instagram showing their healthy lifestyle. Therefore, to back the assumption, the author should provide more information about the location of residents’ company and their real preference towards transportation.
Third, even more residents decide to commute by bicycle, rush-hour traffic may not be shortened. It is possible that parents have to take their children to school by car and then drive their cars back to home to ride bicycle and go to work. In the past, parents only need to pass the Blue Highway once a morning, but now it becomes twice, and the consequence is the highway becomes even more crowed. In conclusion, without additional evidence of commuting by bicycle can really eliminate the traffic problem, it is difficult to access the merit of the recommendation of adding a bicycle lane.
In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincing as it lacks specific evidence. Thus, if the argument had included the given factors discussed before, it would have been more logically acceptable.
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: 15 15
No. of Words: 400 350
No. of Characters: 2007 1500
No. of Different Words: 196 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.472 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.018 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.588 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 158 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.667 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.712 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.8 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.603 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 49, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...he author indicates that because adding an lane to nearby Green Highway to solve t...
^^
Line 17, column 1, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...endation of adding a bicycle lane. In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincin...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, really, second, so, then, therefore, third, thus, well, in conclusion, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 53.0 55.5748502994 95% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2083.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 400.0 441.139720559 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.2075 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.472135955 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.76780486126 2.78398813304 99% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.52 0.468620217663 111% => OK
syllable_count: 657.0 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => 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: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 62.4184445675 57.8364921388 108% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.866666667 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.6666666667 23.324526521 114% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.8 5.70786347227 137% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.165645933101 0.218282227539 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0563652017991 0.0743258471296 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0492931522673 0.0701772020484 70% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0930071185683 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0497168138073 0.0628817314937 79% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.4 14.3799401198 114% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.52 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 91.0 98.500998004 92% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 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.