“The City Council of Smithville has recommended making changes to police procedures to improve the visibility of the police force. These changes include hiring more officers, budgeting more funds for police overtime, and directing officers to patrol significantly more often on foot rather than from their patrol cars. These improvements in visibility would significantly lower the crime rate in Smithville and make its citizens feel safer.”
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.
Though it would appear that social safety and social order of Smithville can be mitigated by the new changes of police policies, the author does not make a logical case for recruiting more police officers. On its face, it might appear that the provided data lead to the author’s conclusion, but there are several unwarranted assumptions that must be addressed to establish the soundness of the author’s case.
First, the argument readily assumes that increasing the visibility of the police force would decrease illegal activities. This statement is a stretch since the author does not provide any statistical evidence indicating the number of crimes that have been committed during a period of time in a particular place. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly stated that the percentage of violent crime in the last three months or the area that has the highest crime rate in Smithville.
Second, the argument claims that low number of law enforcers is the cause of high crime rate. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between the number of police officers and the crime rate. To illustrate, the main problem lies in high unemployment rate; clearly, increasing the amount of jobs would be the better solution. If the argument had provided evidence that how these procedures might affect social order in a positive way then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally, the author promise the improvements would make the society more organized. Would the policy negatively affect financial budget of the city for the long-term?. Do the legislators consider the adverse effect of more patrol officers to normal life of law-abiding citizens?. Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts to support the current conclusion that implementing changes will effectively solve the problem.
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: 15 15
No. of Words: 351 350
No. of Characters: 1809 1500
No. of Different Words: 191 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.328 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.154 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.789 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.736 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.603 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.067 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 276, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...rimes that have been committed during a period of time in a particular place. The argument cou...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 387, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “If” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...t of jobs would be the better solution. If the argument had provided evidence that...
^^
Line 9, column 477, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a positive way" with adverb for "positive"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...se procedures might affect social order in a positive way then the argument would have been a lot...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, finally, first, if, second, so, then, therefore, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 35.0 55.5748502994 63% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1874.0 2260.96107784 83% => OK
No of words: 351.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.33903133903 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32839392791 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.92444556797 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 195.0 204.123752495 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.555555555556 0.468620217663 119% => OK
syllable_count: 587.7 705.55239521 83% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => 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: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.689612292 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 124.933333333 119.503703932 105% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.4 23.324526521 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.46666666667 5.70786347227 78% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
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: 0.209716508691 0.218282227539 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.06601334059 0.0743258471296 89% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0666849834687 0.0701772020484 95% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.107480925323 0.128457276422 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0658665524901 0.0628817314937 105% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.4 14.3799401198 107% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.99 12.5979740519 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.23 8.32208582834 111% => OK
difficult_words: 99.0 98.500998004 101% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => 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.