The following appeared in an editorial in 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. Opponents note that last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. Their suggested alternative proposal is adding a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, it is argued, thereby reducing rushhour traffic.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
This argument is well presented yet far-fetched. It lays a claim that a part of people want to add an additional lane on Blue Highway, whereas others support to increase an additional bicycle lane. Nevertheless, due to several flaws in both states after scrutiny, the argument has to answer the following question to make the argument more convincing.
First of all, a problem arises in this argument that motorists state the commute time has doubled. However, this contention is meaningless since what is the base number of this double? In this light, it is reasonable to cast doubts upon the contention which made by commuters because contention is inadequate in that what the exact time of commute is? There are 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour? Though the time really increases double, the actual time might only 10 minutes or less. If the total time is not so much, it is still necessary to build a new lane to decrease the time? In order to confirm commuters point of view, they should pay close heed to as well as address the representative probability mentioned above. Only the specific number of time is the key to bolstering the advice.
In addition, even though the writer may be able to provide us with enough information to infer a solution to the above problem, the argument is still ill-conceived. Another problem is opponents note that last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. It may be true in Green Highway, but it is the same situation on both highways? Does the Green have the same commuters as Blue? Alternatively, do the combinations of residents and the direction of their commute ways are the same? The writer does not provide information on these two highways that the readers are hard to judge the experience on Green could use on Blue. Pursuing this reasoning proves that the writer has the responsibility to carefully consider the assumptions and then provide cogent evidence to pave the way for a more reliable argument.
Ultimately, a crucial problem remains that opponents claim a new bicycle lane is a good method to solve the traffic problem because many residents are keen bicyclists, and the new lane could make the residents ride bicycles to work. However, this contention is open to a number of interpretations. Perhaps, although the residents really love to ride the bicycle to relax, they are hard to ride bicycles because the distance to the works are too long, or riding bicycle is too dangerous in the city in the morning. Hence, without accounting for and ruling out other likely scenarios, by no means could the opponents could contend that the bicycle lane is a good idea to solve the problem.
In hindsight, it seems precipitous for the author to make the summary based on a sequence of problematic premises. To eliminate the implausibility of recommendation, the author must offer the more specific evidence mentioned on the above.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not OK.
argument 2 -- OK
argument 3 -- OK
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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: 24 15
No. of Words: 504 350
No. of Characters: 2392 1500
No. of Different Words: 242 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.738 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.746 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.728 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 131 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.756 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.256 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.256 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 96, Rule ID: ADD_AN_ADDITIONAL[1]
Message: This phrase might be redundant. Use simply 'add a lane'.
Suggestion: add a lane
...s a claim that a part of people want to add an additional lane on Blue Highway, whereas others support...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 70, Rule ID: A_INFINITVE[1]
Message: Probably a wrong construction: a/the + infinitive
...s in this argument that motorists state the commute time has doubled. However, this content...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 2, column 479, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun minutes is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...he actual time might only 10 minutes or less. If the total time is not so much, it i...
^^^^
Line 3, column 209, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'years'' or 'year's'?
Suggestion: years'; year's
...her problem is opponents note that last years addition of a lane to the nearby Green ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, however, if, may, nevertheless, really, so, still, then, well, whereas, as to, in addition, as well as, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 19.6327345309 127% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2450.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 504.0 441.139720559 114% => OK
Chars per words: 4.86111111111 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.73813722054 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.81834325535 2.78398813304 101% => OK
Unique words: 250.0 204.123752495 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496031746032 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 786.6 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 51.463309476 57.8364921388 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 102.083333333 119.503703932 85% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0 23.324526521 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.625 5.70786347227 99% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.158789905583 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0457794679441 0.0743258471296 62% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0429920516386 0.0701772020484 61% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0737698454336 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.060188281823 0.0628817314937 96% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.0 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.91 12.5979740519 87% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.91 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.