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 prediction made by the editor that business in central plaza will return to its high levels if there is prohibition in skateboarding is predicated on flawed assumptions and is insufficiently supported. In order to evaluate the editor’s remark based on the observation made, more evidences are required.
Firstly, the editor begins by mentioning that popularity of skateboarding has increased over the past two years while the number of shoppers has decreased. The editor is predicating his assumption only on the factor of increasing popularity of skateboarding without considering other factors that might be responsible for their lack of business. There is no significant number as to how many customers are visiting the plaza for shopping on an average compared to previous two years. Did the number drop because of their lack of efficiency in the business, Perhaps, customers chose to shop from other stores where they get more reasonable prices for the quality of the product they purchase. Therefore, the plaza is facing issues with the business not because of the sole factor that they claim is responsible for their inefficiency.
Moreover, the owners believe that increased number of skateboarders in the plaza are responsible for the decrease in their business. However, there is no provident information provided by the business in plaza on how much loss have they incurred because of the skateboarding community. On what basis are they deducing that their business is decreasing? And what number of skateboard users increased from past two years? If the number of skateboard users increased, say 10 percent from past 2 years. The 10 percent of 100 is significantly lower that of 1000. However, we also do not know how many customers are visiting the plaza on yearly basis to conclude that there is decrease in business due to the popularity of skateboarders.
Additionally, the editor also states that there has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Well, there is no proper evidence that this was resulted by the actions of the skateboarders and not by the other people who visited the plaza. How do we not know that the shoppers who visited the plaza were littering it after purchasing products that came with a wrapper? And that these businesses encouraged them to do so because they can blame it on skateboarding community? There are several questions that are needed to be answered to evaluate the editor’s argument of prohibiting skateboarding in the plaza.
While, the prediction that business of the plaza will increase by prohibiting the skateboarding is valid only if it provides enough evidence and sufficient supporting information on its argument. With the answers to the questions discussed in the previous paragraphs, the argument can be evaluated thoroughly.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 6 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 459 350
No. of Characters: 2346 1500
No. of Different Words: 201 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.629 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.111 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.956 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 164 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 111 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 69 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.857 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.784 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.571 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.32 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.53 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.148 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, moreover, so, therefore, well, while, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 12.9520958084 39% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 11.1786427146 54% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 18.0 13.6137724551 132% => OK
Pronoun: 37.0 28.8173652695 128% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 16.3942115768 73% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2402.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 459.0 441.139720559 104% => OK
Chars per words: 5.23311546841 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.62863751936 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.04066230867 2.78398813304 109% => OK
Unique words: 203.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.442265795207 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 761.4 705.55239521 108% => 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: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.7312966176 57.8364921388 76% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.380952381 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.8571428571 23.324526521 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.71428571429 5.70786347227 65% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => 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: 0.341719761924 0.218282227539 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.103896646791 0.0743258471296 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0826029136395 0.0701772020484 118% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.171794493193 0.128457276422 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0579025744877 0.0628817314937 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => 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: 13.05 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.43 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 109.0 98.500998004 111% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 16.0 12.3882235529 129% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.