The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
“The population of Balmer Island increases to 100,000 during the summer months. To reduce the number of accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians, the town council of Balmer Island should limit the number of mopeds rented by each of the island’s six moped and bicycle rental companies from 50 per day to 30 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council is sure to attain the 50 percent reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year in the neighboring island of Torseau, when Torseau’s town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals.”
The author of the letter argues that limiting the amount of mopeds available for rental will lead to reduction in accidents involving mopeds in Balmer Island during summer months. The arguer cites the example of nearby Torseau Island as an evidence to support his claim. There were reduction in similar accidents in Torseau Island after the authority there put similar restrictions proposed in the argument. However, the argument seems convincing at first, nevertheless, on further analysis, the argument is found to rife with holes and assumptions, and thus not strong enough to bring desired change as intended in the argument.
Firstly, the arguer has based his contention on the reduced number of accidents in Torseau. However, the arguer fails to provide substantial evidence that can link the reduction of accidents to the limitation imposed on the moped rentals in Torseau. It is likely that the authorities in Torseau have clubbed some other activities with the limitation on moped rentals. These activities could be conducting classes for tourist on road safety, seperating the lanes of bicycle and moped driving, enforcing strict traffic rules, ensuring that the footpath for the pedestrians is at a safe distance for the road, etc. Additionally, there is a possiblity that there are more number of tourists visiting Balmer as compared to Torseau. Therefore, since the tourists do not have an idea of the roads and directions to their destinations, they tend to get careless on the roads leading to a higher number of accidents in Balmer.
Moreover, even if one assumes that the restrictions on moped rentals has indeed led to a reduction in the number of accidents in Torseau, it cannot be believed that implementing similar restrictions will have the same effects in both the islands. This is because the arguer has not provided any concrete evidence in support of the similarities between these two islands. There is no indication of the geographical structure of the two islands. It is likely that Balmer has uneven or hilly terrain and the downhill drive is the major cause for moped accidents. Hence, it is unlikely that implementing restrictions on moped rentals will have the desired effect in Balmer as the islands of Balmer and Torseau cannot be compared in light of the inadequate evidence provided by the arguer.
Finally, the arguer fails to address the issue of how the tourists will travel if they are denied access to bicycles and mopeds. It is obvious that a reduction in the number of mopeds that can be rented out will increase the number of pedestrians leading to a greater risk of accidents on roads involving pedestrians. Moreover, imposing a restriction on moped rentals may lead to each of the moped rental companies diversifying into two or more companies and the overall number of mopeds will remain the same and the restriction will be rendered ineffective.
Thus, in conlusion, the argument as it stands is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarrented assumptions. If the author recitifies the above-mentioned three flaws and provide more evidence, then it might be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 11 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 521 350
No. of Characters: 2629 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.778 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.046 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.795 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 213 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 155 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 103 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 63 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.421 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.913 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.526 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.558 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 612, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...is at a safe distance for the road, etc. Additionally, there is a possiblity that...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, firstly, hence, however, if, may, moreover, nevertheless, so, then, therefore, thus
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 80.0 55.5748502994 144% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2686.0 2260.96107784 119% => OK
No of words: 521.0 441.139720559 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15547024952 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.77759609229 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88250084525 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 234.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.449136276392 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 848.7 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.0106239549 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.3 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.05 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.95 5.70786347227 87% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 14.0 6.88822355289 203% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.216269379426 0.218282227539 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0717085280248 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0764890029852 0.0701772020484 109% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115895818491 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0631807636757 0.0628817314937 100% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => 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.