The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.
"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."
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.
It is suggested from the store manager to ban skateboarding in Central Plaza to recover the store business to its previous level. However, the recommendation is based on dubious assumptions and observations which require further examinations to clarify the validity of the recommendation.
First of all, the store manager mentioned that the period of shopper decline is the same as the increase of skateboarding. However, things that happened simultaneously don't indicate any causal relationships. In other words, from this description, it is only known that popular skateboarding and the decrease of shopper appear around the same period. If any further claim is made from this description, other evidence will be necessary, such as a survey about shoppers’ reaction toward skateboarding. Specifically, investigations about the root cause of the shopper decline, or research on any significant changes of the shopping center potentially contributing to the condition, are essential before any recommendation is made.
Furthermore, the store manager leverages other store owners’ ‘belief’ as the foundation to claim that the problem comes from the rise of skateboarding. Likewise, it is premature to state any causal relationships purely based on people’s belief. Generally, people are easily able to form incorrect understanding according to their preference, instead of reality and fact. It is highly possible that the store owners are against the presence of skateboarding, so they support the wrong claim to achieve their intention. Therefore, without any scientific research to study the real causal condition between the shopper decline and the appearance of skateboarding, it is risky to stay firm about any recommendation.
Honestly, the only facts we know from the message are three things: drop of the shopper, increase of skateboarding and the appearance of litter and vandalism. However, what we don’t know is that the causal relationships among them, and it is questionable to claim the problem comes from skateboarding without any concrete survey or empirical research of the real condition. Therefore, questions and details about the above phenomena are imperative before any effective recommendation is being told. That is, with the lack of the proof to claim that the problem truly results from skateboarding, it is difficult to foresee the efficacy of the recommendation.
To sum up, the claim that the shops suffer from the increase of skateboarding is not backed up by any concrete evidence, instead, it is only supported by personal feelings and the observation of things happening at the same time. Hence, only when other factors are being studied, and reveal the root causes, can the recommendation of the store manager be believed.
Comments
e-rater score report
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: 18 15
No. of Words: 428 350
No. of Characters: 2272 1500
No. of Different Words: 195 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.548 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.308 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.155 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 165 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 135 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 93 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 65 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.778 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.917 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.778 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.367 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.562 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.09 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 169, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...er, things that happened simultaneously dont indicate any causal relationships. In o...
^^^^
Line 5, column 713, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... to stay firm about any recommendation. Honestly, the only facts we know from th...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, hence, honestly, however, if, likewise, so, therefore, such as, first of all, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 2.0 12.9520958084 15% => OK
Conjunction : 12.0 11.1786427146 107% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 69.0 55.5748502994 124% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2356.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 426.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.53051643192 5.12650576532 108% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.54310108192 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.30188497685 2.78398813304 119% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 204.123752495 102% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.488262910798 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 733.5 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.0488898753 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.888888889 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.6666666667 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.11111111111 5.70786347227 125% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.159906384367 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0537716534961 0.0743258471296 72% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0634634567074 0.0701772020484 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0960102835756 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.041473630057 0.0628817314937 66% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.5 14.3799401198 115% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.09 12.5979740519 120% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.85 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 110.0 98.500998004 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 12.3882235529 73% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.