Argue 13: In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit fro 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by the highway patrol, many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. Prunty County should instead undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County completed five years ago: increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. Today, major Butler County roads still have a 55mph speed limit, yet there were 25 percent fewer reported accidents in Butler County this past year than there were five years ago.
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.
The author argues that Prunty County should undertake the same kind of road improvement project that Butler County did five years ago to improve the highway safety. Although this argument considered as sound, but the lack of pieces of evidence leads me to question the validity of the argument.
First, the author should provide more adamant evidence about the previous effort that Prunty County has done is failure. Because the lowering of the speed limit is started only a year ago, so it may not widely be known to the people of Prunty County. Thus, the result caused by the lowering of the speed limit should be observed for the longer period: not only for a year. Even if the new policy had been widely known, there can be another dominant reason of the accidents, not just because of the driving speed. For example, dangerous and complicated road can be one of the major reasons for the car accidents. Therefore, the data about the accident which caused by the fast car speed should be provided for the accurate comparison.
Second, the author needs to supplement the evidence about the reliability of the comparison between Prunty County and Butler County. In the Butler County, increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections are completed. However, all of that factors may effective only for the Butler County only. For instance, Prunty County may have already wide enough lane, smooth highways, and intersections with clear visibility. Thus, the independent conditions of the Butler County should be investigated, and provided.
Third, more specific pieces of evidence should be given whether the result in the Butler County is trustworthy or not. The decrease in the number of the accidents for 25% can be marginal amount if the original number of the accident is little. If the previous number of the accident is four and the later number of the accident is three, this case also has the decrease in the number of the accidents for 25%. In addition, the lowering of the accident number was compared with that of five years ago. It is possible that adverse weather condition yields the frequent car accident five years ago. Average car accident should be considered for more credible comparison.
In conclusion, the author’s argument is not sound in many respects. To bolster the argument, the author needs to investigate more about the possibilities that could have influenced the accident rate.
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 407 350
No. of Characters: 2006 1500
No. of Different Words: 181 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.492 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.929 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.522 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 101 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 35 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.381 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.394 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.81 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.342 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.563 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.157 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, so, therefore, third, thus, for example, for instance, in addition, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 28.8173652695 42% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2076.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 407.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.10073710074 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49157444576 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.62743989601 2.78398813304 94% => OK
Unique words: 193.0 204.123752495 95% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.474201474201 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 648.0 705.55239521 92% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 26.3013238676 57.8364921388 45% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 98.8571428571 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.380952381 23.324526521 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.38095238095 5.70786347227 112% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 15.0 6.88822355289 218% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.219882012276 0.218282227539 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0717896060812 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0540539810291 0.0701772020484 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123235228361 0.128457276422 96% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0589339942682 0.0628817314937 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.3 12.5979740519 98% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.19 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 93.0 98.500998004 94% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.