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 w

Essay topics:

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 rush-hour 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.

Author presented the recommendation, which appeared in editorial of local news, for adding bicycle lane on Blue Highway. The proposal presented observations, evidences and assumptions in support of its argument which seems to be valid on its first look however on scrutinizing the paragraph it can be found that the proposal is supported by groundless and indefensible evidences. Many questions arises which is needed to be answered to evaluate the argument.

In first line of the argument author cites the complaints of commuters against the increased rush hour traffic on Blue Highway as a result of which their commuting time has doubled. However, the numbers of complains are not mentioned whether complaints are made by 2 or 3 or 1000 persons or 1000 complains are made by the same 2 or 3 persons. Furthermore, with whom commuters registered their complaints? In order to strengthen the argument, author must provide the answer to his question and must specify the number of complaints. Secondly, it is also not clear that resident of all suburbs have complaint for increased traffic or complaints are received from resident of single suburb. It is possible that the road to Highway from only one suburb is narrow due to which traffic jam occurs.

In the second sentence author cites the proposal of motorists’ lobby for widening the highway which author nullify by citing the observation of opponents about last year addition of lane in nearby Green Highway. However, this observation seems to be unreasonable and expecting the same outcome for Blue Highway as Green’s is widely absurd. Because it is possible that commuters on Green Highway do not obey the traffic law or it is possible that authority doesn’t manage the Green Highway properly due to which the traffic jams occur.

Further in proceeding, author suggests the alternative proposal of adding bicycle lane to Blue Highway. In support to this suggestion, author presents the rife assumption that many of area residents are keen bicyclists so therefore they would use bicycle for commuting instead of vehicle. First of all the question that clicks is that whether every age group resident is keen bicyclist? Mostly, the young generation are keen bicyclists and it is also possible that they like bicycling just for sports and not for commuting. Furthermore, from suburbs to city center, the distance might be great thus it would be difficult for residence to cover such distance every day on bicycle. Therefore, author must present feasibility report whether it would be feasible to commute on bicycle in order to strengthen his/her argument.

In conclusion, the proposal from the author rife with weak evidences and assumptions. In order to strengthen the argument, author must provide all the answers to the questions

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Average: 5.7 (3 votes)
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Comments

Sentence: Many questions arises which is needed to be answered to evaluate the argument.
Description: The fragment questions arises which is rare
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace arises with verb, base: uninflected present, imperative or infinitive

Sentence: Mostly, the young generation are keen bicyclists and it is also possible that they like bicycling just for sports and not for commuting.
Description: The fragment the young generation is not usually followed by are
Suggestion: Possible agreement error: Replace are with is

argument 1 -- NOT OK. Need to argue against those proposals.

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- OK

Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 455 350
No. of Characters: 2293 1500
No. of Different Words: 206 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.619 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.04 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.703 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 144 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 97 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.75 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.36 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.31 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5

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