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. 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 store owner in his letter to the editor recommends to prohibit the skateboarding in order to increase the number of shoppers in Central Plaza, and thus improve the business there. To support his recommendation, the author of this letter points out that the decrease in the business in Central Plaza is caused by the skateboarders who also could be responsible for the increased litter and vandalism in this shopping mall. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
Firstly, what is there is a new shopping mall opened in the city? It is a common case when there is a new shopping mall in the city that everyone goes there. Maybe shoppers are curious to see the new shopping mall and this caused a decrease in the number of shoppers in Central Plaza. Further, what if there is a recession in the country? In this case, it is obvious that the general decrease in the number of shoppers will occur. If either of these scenarios has merit, then the conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, can the store owner be sure about who is responsible for the litter and vandalism throughout the plaza? Maybe there is a group of teenagers who just find interesting to do this as entertainment. Furthermore, maybe there are new shoppers who came to the plaza and they are not behaving well as the shoppers who were coming to plaza until now. Maybe the skateboard users are there only for skateboarding, they respect all the rules of the plaza and take care of cleanness and tranquility.
Thirdly, even if it is true that the skateboard users are responsible for the decrease of the business, increased litter and vandalism throughout the plaza, is there a warranty that they will respect the decision of the store owners to prohibited skateboarding in the plaza? Maybe they will just do not respect the new rules. In this case, the author of the argument has made holes in the reasoning of the argument.
Lastly, even if the skateboarders contribute to improving the conditions of the business and conditions in the plaza, is it possible to bring back the old shoppers? Maybe they are already habituated to shop in the other shopping malls and they like it more.
In conclusion, the argument, as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to its reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer these three questions, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the reliability of his suggestion.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 428 350
No. of Characters: 2033 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.548 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.75 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.775 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 128 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 103 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 85 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 46 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.4 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.907 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.097 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 45, Rule ID: ADMIT_ENJOY_VB[1]
Message: This verb is used with the gerund form: 'recommends prohibiting'.
Suggestion: recommends prohibiting
...store owner in his letter to the editor recommends to prohibit the skateboarding in order to increase ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, firstly, furthermore, however, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, well, in conclusion, it is true
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2094.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 428.0 441.139720559 97% => OK
Chars per words: 4.89252336449 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.548423998 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86854616125 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.422897196262 0.468620217663 90% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 655.2 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.0168724582 57.8364921388 97% => OK
Chars per sentence: 104.7 119.503703932 88% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.4 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.35 5.70786347227 129% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => 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: 0.232423669693 0.218282227539 106% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0720156000945 0.0743258471296 97% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0961836880411 0.0701772020484 137% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119085320834 0.128457276422 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0747302930533 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.3 14.3799401198 86% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 58.62 48.3550499002 121% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 12.5979740519 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.81 8.32208582834 94% => OK
difficult_words: 85.0 98.500998004 86% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.