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 letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner states that the number of shoppers have been steadily decreasing and is clearly being attributed to the increased popularity of skateboarding and to the increases number of skateboard users. However, the following questions need to be answeres for the argument to hold water.
First of all, the author is attributing the number of decrease in shoppers to the rise in popularity of skateboarding, which may not be true. Perhaps, there is some other mall which shoppers are prefering over the Central Plaza or maybe shoppers are shopping their stuff online. Thus, the question of how the decrease in number of shoppers is being attributed to the rise in popularity of skatboarding needs to be answered.
Secondly, the owner also talks about the increase in litter and vandalism. The owner is unwarrantedly assuming that no one but skateboarders are responsible for this rife in litter and vandalism. Maybe, there are not many trashcans in the neighboorhood and it could also be the case that police aren't patrolling the area as much as they need to, this could be one of the possible explainations for increase in the amount of litter and vandalism. So, exactly how is the author assumming all the litter and vandalism due to skateboarders needs to be answered.
Finally, the author brusquely suggests that prohibiting skating is a good solution and that would help to reach the previously high level of business. Perhaps, prohibiting skating in the central plaza may not seem like a good solution because the shoppers may even be enjoying it and thus prohibiting skating may even be counterproductive and would even lower the number of shoppers and cosequently lowering the business. So, how is prohibting skating seems like a good solution to the author needs to be answered.
Thus, because of the unwarranted assumptions and lack of evidence, the prediction that the prohibition of skating will help return the Central Plaza business to its previously high levels is significantly weakened and more evidence is needed for the argument to be taken into serious consideration.
Comments
Essay evaluation 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: 13 15
No. of Words: 352 350
No. of Characters: 1752 1500
No. of Different Words: 156 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.331 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.977 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.939 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 119 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 97 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 44 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.077 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.803 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.846 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.377 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.679 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 297, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: aren't
...d it could also be the case that police arent patrolling the area as much as they nee...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 436, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...for increase in the amount of litter and vandalism. So, exactly how is the author...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, thus, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 27.0 19.6327345309 138% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.9520958084 85% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 13.0 28.8173652695 45% => OK
Preposition: 47.0 55.5748502994 85% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 16.3942115768 67% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1794.0 2260.96107784 79% => OK
No of words: 351.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.11111111111 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.32839392791 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98922994322 2.78398813304 107% => OK
Unique words: 158.0 204.123752495 77% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.450142450142 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 558.0 705.55239521 79% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => 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: 13.0 19.7664670659 66% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 73.3625995035 57.8364921388 127% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.0 119.503703932 115% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0 23.324526521 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.53846153846 5.70786347227 115% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 6.88822355289 44% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.239970060093 0.218282227539 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0956472639233 0.0743258471296 129% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.127129044715 0.0701772020484 181% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160677446101 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.13921165938 0.0628817314937 221% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 73.0 98.500998004 74% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => 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.