The following appeared in a health newsletter.
"A ten-year nationwide study of the effectiveness of wearing a helmet while bicycling indicates that ten years ago, approximately 35 percent of all bicyclists reported wearing helmets, whereas today that number is nearly 80 percent. Another study, however, suggests that during the same ten-year period, the number of accidents caused by bicycling has increased 200 percent. These results demonstrate that bicyclists feel safer because they are wearing helmets, and they take more risks as a result. Thus, there is clearly a call for the government to strive to reduce the number of serious injuries from bicycle accidents by launching an education program that concentrates on the factors other than helmet use that are necessary for bicycle safety."
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.
The argument for concentrating on safety factors other than helmets is made through undefined assumptions, mainly bicyclists are taking more risks as a result of feeling safer, thus it is rendered invalid.
The argument references two studies, one that surveys the percentage of bicyclists that wore helmets while the other reports the number of accidents caused by bicyclists. To start, very little is known about these studies. Did they survey the same populations? How was an accident defined to be caused by a cyclist? These are simply assumed with no support, and these assumptions and ambiguities leave many gaps in the argument. It’s very possible, for example, that the total number of cyclists has decreased in the ten-year span while the accident count remained constant. This would increase the percentage of accidents, but not because of riskier cycling, but rather because of proportions. The demographics of each study are also not specified. It would not be surprising to see a study yielding more accident counts in a congested city as opposed to a suburban environment. The first study could have been with one population, while the second with another. They would not be the same and thus could not imply valid correlations.
Furthermore, the argument fails to eliminate all factors besides the use of helmets in the cause of accidents. How do we know that a rise in accident rates is not due to something else, such as a rise in traffic, a change in terrain, or increased risk of distraction? To make a stronger case for recommending the government program, a more specialized and focused study needs to take place the does well to eliminate these as potential causes for accidents.
In addition, there is no guarantee that a bicyclist wearing a helmet feels safer, and thus will take more risks while biking. This couple of assumptions is not given support in the text. Indeed, one may still feel unsafe bicycling through heavy city traffic even though they have a helmet on. Likewise, a helmet isn’t a cause for riskier travel, and the newsletter gives no evidence of this to strengthen its argument. A person wearing a helmet could be wearing one for the exact opposite reason, and that they are actually a very cautious cyclist.
In summary, the studies are too ambiguous and assuming to be valid and correct enough to take into consideration for mentioned program. The idea that bicyclists are taking more risks due to wearing helmets is simply not supported because of the gaps left open by the newsletter.
Discourse Markers used:
['actually', 'also', 'besides', 'but', 'first', 'furthermore', 'if', 'likewise', 'may', 'second', 'so', 'still', 'then', 'thus', 'well', 'while', 'for example', 'in addition', 'in summary', 'such as', 'as a result']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.228991596639 0.25644967241 89% => OK
Verbs: 0.155462184874 0.15541462614 100% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0882352941176 0.0836205057962 106% => OK
Adverbs: 0.063025210084 0.0520304965353 121% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0189075630252 0.0272364105082 69% => OK
Prepositions: 0.13025210084 0.125424944231 104% => OK
Participles: 0.0483193277311 0.0416121511921 116% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.78469329226 2.79052419416 100% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0273109243697 0.026700313972 102% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.123949579832 0.113004496875 110% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0168067226891 0.0255425247493 66% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0063025210084 0.0127820249294 49% => Some subClauses wanted starting by 'Which, Who, What, Whom, Whose.....'
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2556.0 2731.13054187 94% => OK
No of words: 424.0 446.07635468 95% => OK
Chars per words: 6.02830188679 6.12365571057 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53775939005 4.57801047555 99% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.358490566038 0.378187486979 95% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.287735849057 0.287650121315 100% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.209905660377 0.208842608468 101% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.129716981132 0.135150697306 96% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78469329226 2.79052419416 100% => OK
Unique words: 220.0 207.018472906 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.518867924528 0.469332199767 111% => OK
Word variations: 58.755538587 52.1807786196 113% => OK
How many sentences: 22.0 20.039408867 110% => OK
Sentence length: 19.2727272727 23.2022227129 83% => OK
Sentence length SD: 45.3348423829 57.7814097925 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.181818182 141.986410481 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.2727272727 23.2022227129 83% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.954545454545 0.724660767414 132% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.14285714286 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.58251231527 0% => OK
Readability: 48.0463121784 51.9672348444 92% => OK
Elegance: 1.71681415929 1.8405768891 93% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.346525988513 0.441005458295 79% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0692922695506 0.135418324435 51% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0493654091692 0.0829849096947 59% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.472751613153 0.58762219726 80% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.182469585953 0.147661913831 124% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.122971313583 0.193483328276 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0930697512964 0.0970749176394 96% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.294808113232 0.42659136922 69% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0916214026103 0.0774707102158 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.212154553762 0.312017818177 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0684856477301 0.0698173142475 98% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.33743842365 48% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.87684729064 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.82512315271 145% => OK
Positive topic words: 3.0 6.46551724138 46% => OK
Negative topic words: 11.0 5.36822660099 205% => OK
Neutral topic words: 4.0 2.82389162562 142% => OK
Total topic words: 18.0 14.657635468 123% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
---------------------
Note: This is not the final score. 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.