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.
The author of the letter concludes by predicting an increase in number of shoppers in Central Plaza by restricting skateboarding. The author comes to conclusion based on opinion of store owners in Central Plaza. Even though, the assertion made by the author might be true, these three questions must be answered before accessing the persuasiveness of the argument.
Firstly, is the decrease in the number of people visiting the Plaza influenced by increase in popularity of skateboarding? It might be possible that the decrease in shopper be due to poor quality of products available in Central Plaza. Perhaps another complex has been built nearby the Plaza that decreased the quantity of people visiting there. If any of these scenarios have merit, then the conclusion of the argument is weakened.
Moreover, are the owners who provide the opinion of this relation between people vising the plaza and using skateboard logical? They might have said that these number of shoppers in Plaza and the skateboarders are inversely proportional by just surficial analysis. These owners who tend to band skateboarding may be under the influence of people like cycle store owner for whom skateboarding is a tough competitor. If any of these cases is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Finally, is the increase in litter in the Plaza due to increase in skateboarders? These wastes might be due to lack of in-depth cleaning by the cleaner who were previously hardworking. Also, the degree of punishment of throwing wastes in the Plaza might have been reduced that increased people negligence in the wrappers of chocolates and junk foods. These situations might decrease the credibility of the argument.
Thus, in conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed due to its reliance on unwarranted assumptions that decreases its validity. It the author is able to provide the answer to these three questions above, perhaps by a systematic study approach then the recommendation can be properly evaluated.
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: 17 15
No. of Words: 325 350
No. of Characters: 1649 1500
No. of Different Words: 160 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.246 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.074 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.863 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 120 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 93 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 42 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.118 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 4.873 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.529 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.339 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.339 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.056 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, if, may, moreover, so, then, thus, in conclusion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 3.0 11.1786427146 27% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 56.0 55.5748502994 101% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1689.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 325.0 441.139720559 74% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19692307692 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.24591054749 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9451538773 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 162.0 204.123752495 79% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.498461538462 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 528.3 705.55239521 75% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 22.8473053892 83% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 31.5368735683 57.8364921388 55% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 99.3529411765 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1176470588 23.324526521 82% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.64705882353 5.70786347227 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.264264138113 0.218282227539 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101172043577 0.0743258471296 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0943879983976 0.0701772020484 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.154822229668 0.128457276422 121% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.086197284276 0.0628817314937 137% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.6 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.3550499002 108% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.88 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.95 8.32208582834 108% => OK
difficult_words: 90.0 98.500998004 91% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.1389221557 86% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 54.17 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.25 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.