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

Essay topics:

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 store owner by his argument, makes an attempt to relate the decrease in the business of the store owners in Central Plaza to the popularity of skateboarding. Not only this, he makes a very sharp conclusion that strict prohibition of the skateboarding in the plaza will definitely bring the business of the shopkeepers to previous high levels. But, I think his reasoning is rife with many assumptions and unanswered questions, which ought to be stated clearly and answered cogently to make an effective case.

Firstly, the question that comes to mind reading this argument is, how many shopkeepers with what nature of business are affected. There is a very big possibility that only certain kind of shopkeepers, for example shops selling floppy and CD drives or in other words products that have become obsolete with the advent new technologies, have seen decline in the business. And if that is the case, then the claim by author can easliy be proved a fallacy. So, in order to substantiate the argument, the author should answer these questions and provide valid and exact facts about the shopkeepers whose business got affected.

Additionally, there are several questions that has not been answered by the author. Over the period of two years, was there a significant change in the settlements of people around the plaza ? Did large number of people moved from nearby plaza to outskirts, which made them to stop coming to plaza ? Or, was there any other supermarket opened nearby which contributed to this phenomenon ? Author need to investigate, if any supermarket with better quality and variety of products opened nearby which could easitly sway majority of the fickle minded customers to the other store.

Furthermore, the author himself mentions that there has been a dramatic increase in litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. This in itself can prove to be a big reason for decline in the number of shoppers interested in coming to plaza for shopping. And, lack of hygenic atmosphere is completely unrelated to the use of skateboarding into the plaza, which in itself contradicts the argument made by the shop owner.

Moreover, the argument has completely failed to bridge the reasoning and claim. Author stated two different phenonmenon, one increase in skateboarding and second, decrease in business. But, there is no proof that cogently validate any relation between them. With increase in the teenager population nearby, there could have been increase in use of skates. But, how has it impacted the business ?

Answering these questions, in my opinion can make a persuasive argument to the authority. It is possible, that use of skateboard has made other age people apprehensive to walk along corridors and reduced the sales. Similarly, if author investigates more, tries to prove the unstated assumptions logically and answers the questions backed by reliable and valid facts, he can definitely make a solid claim. But, with this arugment, it is highly unlikely that authorities will agree to prohibit skateboarding.

Votes
Average: 5 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Comments

Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'first', 'firstly', 'furthermore', 'if', 'moreover', 'second', 'similarly', 'so', 'then', 'for example', 'i think', 'kind of', 'in my opinion', 'in other words']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.231329690346 0.25644967241 90% => OK
Verbs: 0.16029143898 0.15541462614 103% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0728597449909 0.0836205057962 87% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0510018214936 0.0520304965353 98% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0255009107468 0.0272364105082 94% => OK
Prepositions: 0.114754098361 0.125424944231 91% => OK
Participles: 0.0418943533698 0.0416121511921 101% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.85270860598 2.79052419416 102% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0382513661202 0.026700313972 143% => OK
Particles: 0.0 0.001811407834 0% => OK
Determiners: 0.109289617486 0.113004496875 97% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0182149362477 0.0255425247493 71% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.023679417122 0.0127820249294 185% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3048.0 2731.13054187 112% => OK
No of words: 497.0 446.07635468 111% => OK
Chars per words: 6.13279678068 6.12365571057 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.72159896747 4.57801047555 103% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.378269617706 0.378187486979 100% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.267605633803 0.287650121315 93% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.217303822938 0.208842608468 104% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.140845070423 0.135150697306 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85270860598 2.79052419416 102% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 207.018472906 119% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.496981891348 0.469332199767 106% => OK
Word variations: 58.1785217107 52.1807786196 111% => OK
How many sentences: 24.0 20.039408867 120% => OK
Sentence length: 20.7083333333 23.2022227129 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.5545528266 57.7814097925 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.0 141.986410481 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.7083333333 23.2022227129 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.625 0.724660767414 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.14285714286 117% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 3.58251231527 0% => OK
Readability: 47.4688967136 51.9672348444 91% => OK
Elegance: 1.63846153846 1.8405768891 89% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.490364477369 0.441005458295 111% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.104760981236 0.135418324435 77% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0891782430882 0.0829849096947 107% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.532797207755 0.58762219726 91% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.136569467795 0.147661913831 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.19069995318 0.193483328276 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.129594928077 0.0970749176394 133% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.403620082634 0.42659136922 95% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0775207117739 0.0774707102158 100% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.331630722898 0.312017818177 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0990929803663 0.0698173142475 142% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.33743842365 144% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.87684729064 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.82512315271 104% => OK
Positive topic words: 9.0 6.46551724138 139% => OK
Negative topic words: 7.0 5.36822660099 130% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 2.82389162562 106% => OK
Total topic words: 19.0 14.657635468 130% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6 -- The score is based on the average performance of 20,000 argument essays. This e-grader is not smart enough to check on arguments.
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Note: This is not the final score. 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.