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.
In the letter, the author makes a valid argument, one that would be true if its premises were true. However, his or her conclusion relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. In this sense, the writer makes three unsubstantiated assumptions which hinder the persuasiveness of the argument as a whole.
Firstly, the author supposes that he is representing the Central Plaza store owners, for which there is no evidence. The author only states complaints of "many"shop owners, however, he falls short explaining with what authority he is representing them. Is he a legitimate lawyer? Does he have the right to represent them? Do store owners know that he is writing this letter on behalf of them? Maybe there are only 2 owners who witnessed a fall in their sales but other sellers are happy with the general situation. Let's think that there is a sports equipment selling store in the Central Plaza, and the store is seeing the highest sales in years. Will this particular store owner agree with what is said in the letter? Possibly no! Then one can say that the claims made by the author are baseless.
Secondly, the writer assumes that decrease in the business of the stores in Central Plaza is directly linked to the activities of the skateboarders. In fact, that seems to be a harsh inference to make. Maybe a new mall has just been opened close to the plaza and it just coincided with the increasing popularity of the skateboarding in the region. The writer should focus on other aspects instead of blaming skateboarders. Has he ever walked around the city to see newly opened shopping malls? How are their businesses going? Are they also facing a decrease in sales? Maybe the economy of the city is in a recession. It should be watched closely for the future of the stores and the city as a whole. In addition, sports activities are always a good way to promote a place. Instead of claiming the skateboarders, store owners should exploit this chance. They can organize special days aiming to attract people to the venue and thus, increase sales.
Thirdly, the store owner who sent the letter to the editor assumes that recent lettering and vandalism occurrences are closely related to the skateboarding activities. This iteration is directly accuses skateboarders. Under this circumstances they have a say in this. Are they really letting this happen? Can they be blamed for vandalism? Has the writer ever talked to any of the skateboarders? Maybe the plaza lacks bitter baskets. Maybe it is because the plaza has recently let go off its security guards and there is no-one to prevent such kind of undesirable events. Maybe the skateboarders are complaining about this.
Overall, the claims made in the letter leave too many questions unanswered and lack persuasiveness because of unsubstantiated assumptions. In addition, the writer does not seem to be making a strong argument that can make the editor to believe him or her.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 13 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 5 2
No. of Sentences: 35 15
No. of Words: 501 350
No. of Characters: 2388 1500
No. of Different Words: 239 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.731 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.766 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.689 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 163 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 69 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 14.314 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.585 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.429 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.229 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.399 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.094 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 526, Rule ID: LETS_LET[1]
Message: Did you mean 'Let's'?
Suggestion: Let's
...s are happy with the general situation. Lets think that there is a sports equipment ...
^^^^
Line 3, column 542, Rule ID: THERE_S_MANY[4]
Message: Did you mean 'there are a sports'?
Suggestion: there are a sports
... the general situation. Lets think that there is a sports equipment selling store in the Central ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 553, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'sports'' or 'sport's'?
Suggestion: sports'; sport's
...l situation. Lets think that there is a sports equipment selling store in the Central ...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 225, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...s directly accuses skateboarders. Under this circumstances they have a say in this. ...
^^^^
Line 7, column 572, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...revent such kind of undesirable events. Maybe the skateboarders are complaining about...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, in addition, in fact, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 30.0 19.6327345309 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 44.0 28.8173652695 153% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2468.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 500.0 441.139720559 113% => OK
Chars per words: 4.936 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72870804502 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86474850554 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 245.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.49 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 772.2 705.55239521 109% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 2.70958083832 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 35.0 19.7664670659 177% => OK
Sentence length: 14.0 22.8473053892 61% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.1283247717 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 70.5142857143 119.503703932 59% => More chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 14.2857142857 23.324526521 61% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.77142857143 5.70786347227 66% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 13.0 4.67664670659 278% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.191606569521 0.218282227539 88% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0432255054236 0.0743258471296 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.058401261954 0.0701772020484 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.092764876687 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0547417649232 0.0628817314937 87% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.0 14.3799401198 63% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 65.73 48.3550499002 136% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 7.6 12.197005988 62% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.78 12.5979740519 86% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.93 8.32208582834 95% => OK
difficult_words: 114.0 98.500998004 116% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.0 12.3882235529 57% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 7.6 11.1389221557 68% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.9071856287 67% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.