Argue 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 letter, the editor argues that Blue Highway should add the bicycle lane to solve the existed traffic jam problem. Although this argument may seem convincing at first, the lack of evidence leads me to question the validity of the argument.
Fist, the editor needs to provide the more specific evidence about the difference about background environments between Green Highway and Blue Highway. It is possible that the traffic jam originated in Green Highway is not due to the lack of the traffic lane, but due to the other environmental conditions such as aberrant construction or traffic accident. The editor should provide more concrete evidence about the relationship between the traffic jam and the additional traffic lane. In addition, the editor only gives the information about the traffic jam of Green Highway for the last year. To generalize the relevance, the editor should provide the information of Green Highway for longer period at least for five years.
Second, the editor needs to supplement the argument with more evidence on the validity of the problem: there’s a traffic jam in the Blue Highway. The argument states that the commuting time has doubled due to the traffic jam. If the initial time is minute, “doubled” may not be a significant increase. In this case, reducing commuting time might not be important. Even though the increase in commuting time is substantial, the doubled commuting time may be temporary. The editor should give more concrete evidence about the sustainability of the traffic jam.
Lastly, more specific pieces of evidence are needed on the credibility of the conclusion that a bicycle lane would encourage people to use bicycles to commute and reduce rush hour traffic. There is no concrete relationship between the additional bicycle lane and the usage of the bicycle to commute. Residents might not use the bicycle for their commuting: they may just use the bicycle for their leisure time. Also, the commuting through bicycle may increase the commuting time, which residents wants to reduce. It is likely that residents will use car instead of bicycle, even though still with the traffic jam. The editor should suggest more adamant evidences about the credibility of the additional bicycle lane.
In brief, the author’s claim is unsound on many aspects. To bolster the argument, the author needs to give more detailed information about the environment of two highways and area residents.
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: 21 15
No. of Words: 397 350
No. of Characters: 2002 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.464 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.043 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.594 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 125 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 73 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 41 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.905 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.983 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.368 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.578 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.143 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, lastly, may, second, so, still, at least, in addition, in brief, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 19.6327345309 56% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 14.0 28.8173652695 49% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2078.0 2260.96107784 92% => OK
No of words: 397.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23425692695 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46372701284 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78656142797 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 170.0 204.123752495 83% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.428211586902 0.468620217663 91% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 660.6 705.55239521 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 14.0 8.76447105788 160% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 35.2302436555 57.8364921388 61% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.9523809524 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9047619048 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.47619047619 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.255782328234 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0932685117968 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0626478318575 0.0701772020484 89% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139695106123 0.128457276422 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0790895783262 0.0628817314937 126% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 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: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.87 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 98.500998004 85% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.