The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette.
"On Balmer Island, where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation, the population 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 the island's moped rental companies from 50 per day to 25 per day during the summer season. By limiting the number of rentals, the town council will attain the 50 percent annual reduction in moped accidents that was achieved last year on the neighboring island of Seaville, when Seaville's town council enforced similar limits on moped rentals."
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.
The writer recommends the editor of Balmer Island Gazette to limit the numbers of moped rentals during the summer season to prevent accidents. He supports his recommendation with significant results from the neighboring Island Seaville. However, the recommendation relies on assumptions in which there is no clear evidence, therefore the argument is flawed. In order to validate the writer’s recommendation, three questions must be answered.
First, will limiting the number of mopeds decrease the number of accidents? Maybe the reason for accidents involving mopeds and pedestrians are due to unpaved streets, roads and special routes, which engender confusion between drivers and raise the number of accidents. Perhaps, the ministry of transportation has ambiguous rules regarding transporting mopeds and small vehicles. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the recommendation drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Second, will reducing the number of accidents during the summer season lead to annual reduction in accidents? Not necessarily. What if the increased number of visitors and tourists during the summer lead to higher consumption of bigger transportation means, such as buses and taxies. Perhaps, due to the small number of people in the remaining months of the year, locals tend to drive their mopeds with higher speed and with less caution, and therefore cause more accidents. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the recommendation drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Finally, will limiting the number of mopeds reveal the same results that the neighboring Island of Seaville had last year? The writer is not taking into account several other factors that can differentiate between the two outcomes, such as; timing, population, methods of limitations used, alternatives given etc.. Maybe, in Seaville Island the prohibition of renting exceeded numbers of moped rentals, was valid during the complete four seasons of the year. Possibly, the government in Seaville Island contains better streets and other ways of transportation to encourage their citizens with taking other means to commute and mobilize. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the recommendation drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
In conclusion, the recommendation as it currently stands is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the writer is able to answer the three questions above and offer more evidence (perhaps in a form of a systematic study), then it would be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the proposed recommendation that limiting the number of moped rentals will reduce the number of accidents. Unless addition evidence is provided, the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette should find it unconvincing.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2352 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.432 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.967 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 198 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 104 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 60 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.65 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.663 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.068 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 104, Rule ID: THE_FALL_SEASON[1]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...mit the numbers of moped rentals during the summer season to prevent accidents. He supports his r...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 13, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'limit'
Suggestion: limit
...ons must be answered. First, will limiting the number of mopeds decrease the numbe...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 14, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'reduce'
Suggestion: reduce
...nificantly weakened. Second, will reducing the number of accidents during the summ...
^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 54, Rule ID: THE_FALL_SEASON[1]
Message: Use simply 'summer'.
Suggestion: summer
...reducing the number of accidents during the summer season lead to annual reduction in accidents? ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 15, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'will' requires the base form of the verb: 'limit'
Suggestion: limit
...ificantly weakened. Finally, will limiting the number of mopeds reveal the same re...
^^^^^^^^
Line 13, column 313, Rule ID: DOUBLE_PUNCTUATION
Message: Two consecutive dots
Suggestion: .
...limitations used, alternatives given etc.. Maybe, in Seaville Island the prohibiti...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
finally, first, however, if, may, regarding, second, so, then, therefore, in conclusion, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.6327345309 66% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 5.0 13.6137724551 37% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 14.0 28.8173652695 49% => OK
Preposition: 66.0 55.5748502994 119% => OK
Nominalization: 25.0 16.3942115768 152% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2433.0 2260.96107784 108% => OK
No of words: 433.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.61893764434 5.12650576532 110% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.56165014514 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.06619191994 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 211.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.487297921478 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 743.4 705.55239521 105% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => 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: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.7911473046 57.8364921388 93% => OK
Chars per sentence: 121.65 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.65 23.324526521 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.8 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.212835639275 0.218282227539 98% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0667724398192 0.0743258471296 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0737124965205 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.127928324684 0.128457276422 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0213384094512 0.0628817314937 34% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.9 14.3799401198 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.3550499002 86% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.32 12.5979740519 122% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.