In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 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 55 mph 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 in favor of increasing lane widths, resurfacing rough highways, and improving visibility at dangerous intersections. The author notes that lowring the speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour did not really work, but rather has caused other problems such as speeding. However, while the author brings up a good idea on how to solve the issue, he/she fails to provide three important peices of evidence in support of his/her claim.
First, the author presents faulty evidence as to why Prunty County should follow Butler County's example. What evidence do we have that these two highways are identical, and both share similar road structures? For instance, maybe Butler County's highway had the resources, and space to expand the highway and work on the road conditions. However, what evidence do we have that Prunty County in return has both the resources and road space available to extend? Therefore, without answering this question the author leaves out inportant evidence.
Furthermore, the author is presenting an idea to improve highway safty, however, if the drivers in Prunty County exceed the speed limit how is increasing lane widths going to stop drivers from speeding? Is it safe to assume that just because the lane widths are increased that drivers would not speed and try and cut others drivers off? For instance, if speeding is an issue maybe other law enforcement is needed such as a speed radar. Therefore, it is dificult to accept this argument without providing any evidence that indeed increasing lane widths will increase highway safty and stop drivers from speeding.
Finally, how long was the speed limit in place in order to have a good sense if this change actually is going to have long term effects? The authors fails to provide evidence, thus makes an assumption that while the speed limit was lowered accidents were still happening on the highway. What are the chances that if the author looked at five years worth of accidents that he/she will not see significant decreases in accidents? For example, maybe drivers who drove on the Prunty County highway once a month or so did not notice that new sign, and as a result kept the same speed as they did in the past. Therefore, failing to provide this type of evidence decreases the chance that this author will get Prunty County to adopt same changes as Butler County.
In sum, as it stands now the argument that the author has made fails to provide crucial evidence that is needed to have a better sense if this new changes will actually work for Prunty County. Therefore, by leaving important evidence out such as if both highways are identical, if both County's have the same resources, and the number of years worth of data presented the author is left with many holes in his/her argument.
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: 19 15
No. of Words: 478 350
No. of Characters: 2265 1500
No. of Different Words: 212 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.676 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.738 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.305 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 166 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 70 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 38 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.158 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.443 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.842 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.349 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.568 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.139 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 307, Rule ID: TRY_AND[1]
Message: "Try and" is common in colloquial speech, but "'try to'" is recommended for writing.
Suggestion: try to
...reased that drivers would not speed and try and cut others drivers off? For instance, i...
^^^^^^^
Line 4, column 125, Rule ID: HAVE_PART_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error -- use past participle here: 'termed'.
Suggestion: termed
...s change actually is going to have long term effects? The authors fails to provide e...
^^^^
Line 4, column 150, Rule ID: AGREEMENT_SENT_START[1]
Message: You should probably use 'fail'.
Suggestion: fail
... to have long term effects? The authors fails to provide evidence, thus makes an assu...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, furthermore, however, if, look, may, really, so, still, therefore, thus, while, as to, for example, for instance, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 28.8173652695 118% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2324.0 2260.96107784 103% => OK
No of words: 474.0 441.139720559 107% => OK
Chars per words: 4.9029535865 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.66599839874 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.41409585214 2.78398813304 87% => OK
Unique words: 219.0 204.123752495 107% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.462025316456 0.468620217663 99% => OK
syllable_count: 712.8 705.55239521 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 4.96107784431 40% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 36.5417834685 57.8364921388 63% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.315789474 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.9473684211 23.324526521 107% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.68421052632 5.70786347227 152% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.258808183091 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0865131172673 0.0743258471296 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0554801315664 0.0701772020484 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.144987680564 0.128457276422 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0357036675001 0.0628817314937 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => 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: 11.44 12.5979740519 91% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.79 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => 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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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 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.