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 this argument, the author concludes that the business in Central Plaza will boom if skateboarding is banned. To bolster the argument, the author points out that many Central Plaza store owners blames skateboarders for causing their business failure. However, it is still replete with a myriad of assumptions which could not suffice to back the argument.
To begin, the author unfairly claims that what Central Plaza store owners said are true, and the popularity of skateboarding should be the contributor to the decrease of number of shoppers. Here, the author obviously rests on an unwarranted assumption that there are no other possible reasons for the decreasing shoppers. However, it is possible that the shopping mall was being constructed over the past two years, and shoppers were not willing to go shopping here because of the noises and dirty air. Or it is possible that the transportation was really bad over the past two years near the Central Plaza and there was another mall opening not far from the original plaza but with subway station in it opening. Shoppers, thus, chose to buy staffs in the newly opened shopping mall rather than the plaza. In short, more information to address the question as to whether other possible explanation for the decline of number of shoppers exist or not is needed to corroborate the author’s reasoning.
Furthermore, the author assumes that the dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza was caused by the skateboarders. However, the assumption is tenuous. If there is no police patrol around the plaza and the plaza has really poor management on avoiding vandalism, the amount of litter and vandalism will increase naturally even though no skateboarders drop litters or damage public properties. Thus, without additional information of whether Central Plaza has strict management on vandalism avoiding, it is difficult to access the merit of the statement.
Finally, assuming that indeed the popularity of skateboarding cause the business failure of stores in Central Plaza, it does not necessarily mean that the business of Central Plaza can return to its previous high level after skateboarding was prohibited here. The author assumes that consumers will immediately come back to the mall and no other factors can influence their decisions. However, the author fails to provide any evidence to support the assumption. Perhaps, consumers have psychological shadows to the dirtiness of Central Plaza, and are not willing to go there although it becomes cleaner now. It is also likely that shoppers do not know Central Plaza have prohibited skateboarding because the mall did not spend money on advertisement, and thus assumes that the shopping mall is as dirty as before and choose not to go there for shopping. Therefore, in order to fully persuade the readers, the author should provide more detailed information towards whether shoppers have shadows on the mall and whether they are informed of the prohibition.
In a nutshell, the argument is unconvincing as it relies on several unjustifiable assumptions. If the argument has included the given factors discussed above, it would have been more logically acceptable.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 515 350
No. of Characters: 2643 1500
No. of Different Words: 234 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.764 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.132 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.769 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 204 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 157 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 103 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 59 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.524 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.874 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.323 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.542 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 845, Rule ID: WHETHER[2]
Message: Wordiness: Shorten this phrase to the shortest possible suggestion.
Suggestion: whether; the question whether
.... In short, more information to address the question as to whether other possible explanation for the decl...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, furthermore, however, if, really, so, still, therefore, thus, as to, in short
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 16.0 11.1786427146 143% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 55.5748502994 117% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2708.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 515.0 441.139720559 117% => OK
Chars per words: 5.25825242718 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.763781212 4.56307096286 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85929566229 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 242.0 204.123752495 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.469902912621 0.468620217663 100% => OK
syllable_count: 837.9 705.55239521 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 11.0 8.76447105788 126% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.1845527341 57.8364921388 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.952380952 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5238095238 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.61904761905 5.70786347227 81% => 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 : 13.0 6.88822355289 189% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.332619597913 0.218282227539 152% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0953273716368 0.0743258471296 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.091245608486 0.0701772020484 130% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.1701954008 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0821894356998 0.0628817314937 131% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.52 12.5979740519 107% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.38 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 116.0 98.500998004 118% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => 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.